The influence and evolution of martial arts films

[kimpossible]

I hardly see an action sequence on TV or in a movie that doesn't involve Asian style martial arts. What was the history and progression of martial arts movies? Can we break it down by decades? Eh, break it down by whatever influence or trend you'd like to discuss. But I think in modern American filmmaking, the expectation for an action sequence is usually Asian style martial arts.

[deez nuts]

i don't know the exact timeline, but i assume bruce lee probably played a huge role in it.

what i want to know is why and when did it get so trite and hackneyed.

[kitty]

i think it involved bruce lee. people being totally into his style of martial arts, sort of an exoticist east meets west flavour. kung fu on film was fast, flashy, and totally different from what people were used to.

but now, because white audiences loved it so much and it was the only place for asian men on screen, it's become expected of any asian male actor (and female ones). martial arts sort of defines the raison d'etre of an asian character.

[deez nuts]

when did wu-tang clan start importing chinese martial art movies to dvd's a la quentin tarantino? i just found out like last week.

[Shuriken]

I haven't looked into this question that thoroughly, but I would think that the most recent infusion of Asian martial arts into Hollywood movies is of more modern vintage. It was probably inspired by the popularity of 1990s Hong Kong action movies, by directors like John Woo and Tsui Hark and stars like Jackie Chan, among Hollywood filmmakers and cineastes like Quinten Tarentino and Bret Ratner.

Yes, Bruce Lee's style of martial arts did have an influence on Hollywood in the 1970s, with such films as Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (1975), but the influence wasn't particularly deep or long-lived.

[kitty]

I haven't looked into this question that thoroughly, but I would think that the most recent infusion of Asian martial arts into Hollywood movies is of more modern vintage. It was probably inspired by the popularity of 1990s Hong Kong action movies, by directors like John Woo and Tsui Hark and stars like Jackie Chan, among Hollywood filmmakers and cineastes like Quinten Tarentino and Bret Ratner.

Yes, Bruce Lee's style of martial arts did have an influence on Hollywood in the 1970s, with such films as Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (1975), but the influence wasn't particularly deep or long-lived.

agreed, but i think kim was looking for the origin of the martial arts fetish.

[Martino]

I hardly see an action sequence on TV or in a movie that doesn't involve Asian style martial arts. What was the history and progression of martial arts movies? Can we break it down by decades? Eh, break it down by whatever influence or trend you'd like to discuss. But I think in modern American filmmaking, the expectation for an action sequence is usually Asian style martial arts.

Are you talking about just ("just"!) Asian cinema, or world cinema?

[Shuriken]

agreed, but i think kim was looking for the origin of the martial arts fetish.

Well, in that case, several scholars of the genre say that Frank Lloyd's Blood on the Sun (1945), starring James Cagney, was Hollywood's first Asian-martial-arts film.

[kimpossible]

I hadn't thought of any terminal parameters and I'd encourage an open, round-table discussion. But if you wanted me to further direct the topic, I'd say examine the influence of martial arts epics or serials from first Asian then Asian American directors or stars and how it has been internalized as the de rigueur style of action or fighting in action movies or TV series in the US and beyond.

Be nice if we could come up with a timeline by decades. As a child of the 80s I'd categorize 80s and early 90s martial arts films as the peak of the white samurai/ninja flicks. I think Matrix broke that mold by introducing serious FX enhanced martial arts and changing the setting from saving the scared orientals from an evil oriental overlord to a more neutral, multi-ethnic sci-fi backdrop.

However, I don't know much beyond US or Asian martial arts movies with the exception of maybe Luc Besson's films. SWK will skewer me for bringing that up but I don't feel like writing an essay on what some of his films are or aren't.

[Martino]

... from first Asian then Asian American directors or stars and how it has been internalized as the de rigueur style of action or fighting in action movies or TV series in the US and beyond.

Be nice if we could come up with a timeline by decades. As a child of the 80s I'd categorize 80s and early 90s martial arts films as the peak of the white samurai/ninja flicks. I think Matrix broke that mold by introducing serious FX enhanced martial arts and changing the setting from saving the scared orientals from an evil oriental overlord to a more neutral, multi-ethnic sci-fi backdrop.

However, I don't know much beyond US or Asian martial arts movies with the exception of maybe Luc Besson's films. SWK will skewer me for bringing that up but I don't feel like writing an essay on what some of his films are or aren't.

Well then, I dont think you can contain this to the kung fu genre which started in the 1960s. You have to go back to the start of Chinese and Hong Kong cinema after WW2.

The so-called 'martial world' was always pretty much Crouching Tiger territory, with swordfighting movies dominating the screen as soon as the first directors put images on film. If you though kung fu movies were hackneyed, there was the cause. Plots for the then new wave of kung fu movies used the same motifs and story lines as the swordfighting movies before them: Chinese nationalism being the main theme.

When Bruce Lee popularised hitherto unknown Chinese martial arts (not just movies) to global audiences, that hackneyed aspect of the films was exported with them. Narrow plot lines, chivalry, virtuous heroes who never got the girl et al.

Drawing up a timeline will be tricky. Martial arts were known to world audiences already as far back as the 1930s. They were part of the 'yellow peril' mythos. Chinese styles were unknown, so only Japanese styles like judo and jujitsu were seen on screen, usually portrayed as a sneaky way of fighting by villainous 'orientals'.

Well, in that case, several scholars of the genre say that Frank Lloyd's Blood on the Sun (1945), starring James Cagney, was Hollywood's first Asian-martial-arts film.

Edward G. Robinson played a triad enforcer (red pole?) in the 1932 film The Hatchet Man.

[SunWuKong]

here's a good article on the evolution of Chinese and HK martial arts movies:
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/31/hk_brief1.html

according to the article, the first major success of a kungfu movie was in 1928, and the first Wong Fei Hung movie was produced in 1949 in HK.

what the article didn't mention is that in 60s and 70s kungfu movies in HK, it wasn't unusual that the kungfu hero was female. when Bruce Lee came along, all the kungfu heroes then pretty much became all male. hell, a good number of them were straight-out Bruce Lee imitators.

However, I don't know much beyond US or Asian martial arts movies with the exception of maybe Luc Besson's films. SWK will skewer me for bringing that up but I don't feel like writing an essay on what some of his films are or aren't.

hahhah oh man his movies suck.

[kimpossible]

hahhah oh man his movies suck.

With the exception of La Femme Nikita, I agree.



If DaMuo gets a chance to reply to this he can explain it better than I can but in reference to Chinese martial arts movies and nationalism, the way I understand it that isn't necessarily the case - particularly for the films that are dramatizations or inspired by wuxia shao suo.

I expect to get my ass handed to me on this because I'm way out of my element but I'm sure someone else can correct it without hurting me too much.

[SunWuKong]

Plots for the then new wave of kung fu movies used the same motifs and story lines as the swordfighting movies before them: Chinese nationalism being the main theme.

i don't know. i always thought it was Bruce Lee that brought nationalism into kungfu movies. before that it was basically moral/Confucian values.

[Shuriken]

Edward G. Robinson played a triad enforcer (red pole?) in the 1932 film The Hatchet Man.

As did Sessue Hayakawa in the 1919 Hollywood film The Tong Man. But I wouldn't necessarily consider throwing weapons equivalent to fighting.

[Martino]

As did Sessue Hayakawa in the 1919 Hollywood film The Tong Man. But I wouldn't necessarily consider throwing weapons equivalent to fighting.

why?

[Shuriken]

why?

It seems that the average movie-goer thinks of Asian martial arts as what the martial artist does with his or her body. If a Jackie Chan movie came out, and all Jackie did in the film was throw knives or hatchets, most fans would feel ripped off, I believe.

Besides, Kim is asking about the portrayal of Asian-style martial arts in Hollywood.

If you would like to write something about how you believe weapon-throwing — by itself — to be a kind of martial art, I'd be interested in reading it.

[Martino]

i don't know. i always thought it was Bruce Lee that brought nationalism into kungfu movies. before that it was basically moral/Confucian values.

Bruce Lee was the protype of a more overt in-your-face nationalism that was probably in keeping with the times, but the Chinese identity he was projecting so well has always been a part of Hong Kong cinema, albeit wrapped up in a thick layer of romanticism, or disguised in historical or mythical drama.

Studios like Shaw Brothers and MP and GI pumped out a lot of films based on mythic aspects of Chinese culture or personality that Bruce combined so well: scholarly heroes, displaced Shaolin priests, fatalistic heroes etc. with an undercurrent of Chinese virtue triumphing over external forces - most popularly, Japanese karate schools.

If you would like to write something about how you believe weapon-throwing — by itself — to be a kind of martial art, I'd be interested in reading it.

Well, for one, the film to which I refered was a piece of yellowface cinema which showed contemporary (1930s) ignorance of Chinese organised criminal societies and martial arts - the 'hatchet man' character is a triad who earned his living by fighting and killing; a modern audience would regard as a martial artist of some kind: he wasn't back then because the term hadn't really been coined.

The 1930s screenwriters predated the stock Oddjob/Bolo Asian villain, because that is what he was the prototype of. My argument is that this makes it part of the evolution of martial arts movies in Hollywood, at its most embryonic stage.

Weapon based martial arts do exist, of course. Ninjitsu in hollywood is portayed as nothing more than the ability to unsuccessfully throw knives, stars etc before getting beaten up by some flabby white actor.

I hardly see an action sequence on TV or in a movie that doesn't involve Asian style martial arts. What was the history and progression of martial arts movies? Can we break it down by decades? Eh, break it down by whatever influence or trend you'd like to discuss. But I think in modern American filmmaking, the expectation for an action sequence is usually Asian style martial arts.

You could try mapping out the changing styles on screen by director or actor, then look at American film and TV, see how fast they are copied. I suggest the timeline run from Kwan Tak-hing up to ... um ... Ngai Sing in the Matrix films?

[DaMuo]

I think one important influence, a bi-product of Bruce Lee movies, especially Enter the Dragon, is the significance of people like Chuck Norris and Jim Kelly that continued on 70s to create a tremendous franchise of kung-fu movies. I think this truly integrated martial arts as part of American entertainment -- demonstrating that martial arts is not the exclusive domain of asians -- which then led to the truly overdone genre in the 80's of the white ninja/samurai movies.

Also, Hand-to-hand fighting needs to be flashy on the screen; normal pugilistic fist fights are 1. boring and 2. too fast to capture well on the screen. So, to add more "drama" to the fights martial arts looks better and has more variation. Case in point: don't you love all those westerns when the fight start with one guy tackling the other, rolling in the dirt, then straddling the other guy and beating the crud out of him. Repeate for every cowboy movie you see... You see it enough it gets boring... now, David Carradine with Kung Fu really change the game and also contributed to the whole mainstream martial arts schtick.... :)

[Faithless]

http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/images/mzine/1999-4story1.jpg . http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/images/ezine/goulin.jpg

The Dragon and the Eagle: The Shaolin Diaspora in America (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=349)

by Gene Ching
An abridged version of a submission for the 1st Shaolin Kung Fu International Academic Symposium 2003
Shaolin is an essential part of China. Yet since China closed its doors to the outside world for centuries, many Chinese treasures like Shaolin are just beginning to receive the international respect they deserve. In just two centuries (one seventh of Shaolin's illustrious history) the United States has risen to be one of the most formidable world powers. Now, one of the world's youngest nations is learning from one of the world's oldest nations. As Americans begin to discover the legacy and majesty of Shaolin, many challenges to the spread of Shaolin dharma have arisen and are worth examination.

It is said that Buddhism is transmitted from warm hand to warm hand. In ancient times, Shaolin dharma spread from China to Korea, Japan, Indonesia and throughout Asia the same way that Buddhism spread. Monks and masters made pilgrimages, bringing Shaolin Chan and Shaolin kung fu with them, and teaching it directly to the people. But today, there are many other methods to spread Shaolin dharma, such as movies, plays, magazines, even the internet and videogames. America has learned of Shaolin by these new technologies of the last century. And of course, several Shaolin monks (heshang) and warrior disciples (wuseng) have spread Shaolin dharma the old-fashioned way, by coming directly to America and transmitting it from warm hand to warm hand.

For Shaolin to benefit the world, the journey to America is very important. But the great Pacific Ocean is not the only separation between the Dragon of China from the Eagle of America. There are deep cultural differences that often lead to misunderstandings. We hope that by analyzing the spread of Shaolin to the U.S. over the last few decades we will gain insight into how best to promote Shaolin into the new millennium.


The Soil - Shaolin Legends begin in the U.S.A. (1970-1980)
For most Americans, the first Shaolin monk to ever grace American soils was a fictional half-Chinese, half-American named Kwai Chang Caine. On February 2nd, 1972, the groundbreaking TV show Kung Fu first aroused public awareness of the Shaolin Temple and its martial monks. Ironically, although the role of Caine was developed for Bruce Lee, it was played by a Caucasian named David Carradine who had no prior training in the martial arts or Chan Buddhism. Carradine was chosen over Lee because Hollywood felt that Americans were not ready for an Asian in the lead role of a television show. Although the show portrayed many negative Chinese stereotypes, some of which still perpetuate racial prejudice today, it was generally positive for Chinese Americans. The same year, President Nixon visited China, giving Americans their first peek into the sleeping dragon. China reciprocated by sending a Wushu demonstration team, including a young Jet Li, to the White House later. These early cultural exchanges developed some initial understanding of China and its martial arts in America.

In 1973, Bruce Lee appeared as a Shaolin disciple in his masterpiece film, Enter the Dragon. That movie forever reshaped action films, spawning a new genre in the West - the kung fu movie. But the film was released after Lee's death and was significantly reworked, downplaying the connection between Lee's character and Shaolin. Much of Lee's attempt to honor Shaolin was lost in the editing after his death. Twenty-five years later those scenes would be restored, but only the die-hard fans noticed the difference. Enter the Dragon is still considered a great film, and through it Bruce Lee became the first non-white star in America and a hero to all American minorities.

The combination of the Kung Fu TV show and Bruce Lee began a martial arts craze in the U.S.A. Not knowing any better, most Americans called all Asian martial arts by the Japanese term " karate." Japanese Karate and Korean Tae Kwon Do dominated the American martial arts scene, possibly as a result of the war with Japan in World War II and the later conflict with North Korea. Since World War II came first, Karate is still the most dominant term used by the American public for all martial arts even today, despite Tae Kwon Do having a larger population of students here. In some places in the States, kung fu is still referred to as "Chinese Karate." There was even a men's cologne called "Hi Karate" that - for advertisement - showed women swooning before men wearing this cologne as a frenzy of karate chops and screams echoed in the background. Its advertising slogan was "be careful how you use it." Fueling this craze were martial arts movies mostly from Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong. These films played in theaters in Chinatowns across the U.S. and attracted other minorities, mostly African-American and Latin-American. Immigrant minority neighborhoods were often low income and near to each other. The African American's responded by creating their own small but unique genre of martial arts films nicknamed "blaxploitation." These movies were based directly on the Chinese martial arts movies, but with modern urban heroes set to black funk music.

First Seeds - The First Shaolin Monks in the U.S.A. (1980-1990)
The 1982 film Shaolinsi with Li Lianjie played in the U.S., but only the martial arts fans and Chinese-Americans saw it. It was the first real demonstration of modern Wushu since Nixon's trip. While it was very popular in Asia, most Americans were completely unaware of it, and still are, knowing Li only through his American movies.
...

[Shuriken]

agreed, but i think kim was looking for the origin of the martial arts fetish.

Kitty, I'm not exactly sure what Kim is talking about. To discuss the development of the Asian martial-arts movie and its influence on the West is as open-ended and complicated a topic as discussing the development of the Hollywood Western and its influence upon the rest of the world (spaghetti Westerns, etc.). There are plenty of websites that already discuss the history of Asian martial arts on film — with their tons of information that would burst any YW thread — and one can Google-search them oneself. I would suggest that Kim do this. Then, she can tell us all what she's found.

As for the origin of the "martial-arts fetish," if I understand you correctly, I have a partial explanation. This may not be the entire story, but it is certainly part of the story.

When I was very young in the 1960s, I don't remember seeing very many Asian faces in the media. The most reliable presence of Asians on TV was Bonanza's Hop Sing (Victor Sen Yung), Bachelor Father's "houseboy" Peter Tong (Sammee Tong), and the occasional Viet Cong guerilla on the evening news. If you think that Asian Americans are barely on Hollywood's radar now, the community was even farther off the radar back then.

In 1966, I was six-years-old. I distinctly remember watching TV in my parents' basement when a face came on the screen inviting all viewers to watch the new show The Green Hornet "on most of these ABC stations." The face belonged to Bruce Lee. It was the first time I can remember seeing an Asian, male or female, serve as a spokesperson for a TV show — or anything else, for that matter. (Remember, this was about 15 years before VCRs became standard in U.S. homes.) From then until its cancelation a year later, I became an avid Green Hornet fan and would try to tune into ABC every Friday at 7:30 as often as I could.

http://www.emerchandise.com/images/p/TVG/pdMGTVG0002.jpg

The main appeal of the show for me — and for several others, I later found out — was watching Bruce Lee do these amazing acrobatic fight scenes. If it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't have watched the show. I haven't seen this for a long time, but I remember it vividly: a Green Hornet cover of TV Guide had Lee in his Kato costume leaping above co-star Van Williams' head and executing a kick. It seemed to sum up the show for me perfectly: Kato was the very dynamic main attraction, while the title character and purported star just kind of stood there.

Anyway, The Green Hornet was, as I recall, my first meaningful exposure to Asian martial arts. Furthermore, this kind of kinetic fighting was something that an Asian character could do but a white character couldn't. With martial arts, Kato managed to do what Hop Sing and "houseboy" Peter Tong couldn't: upstage the show's white star. Although The Green Hornet ran for only one season, Bruce Lee, through martial arts, put Asians on U.S. pop culture's radar in an unprecedentedly positive way.

Maybe it was because The Green Hornet wasn't a hit, but pop culture's acknowledgement of Asian martial arts seemed to die down — beyond the occasional "judo chop" of white TV action stars. But all that changed around 1972-73. The Kung Fu pilot movie was first broadcast on ABC in February 1972. It became a regular series in September of that year. I didn't watch Kung Fu's first broadcasts because, by then, my parents had forbidden me and my siblings from watching TV on a "school night" (because of bad grades in class), and the show came on Thursday nights. (Again, this was in the days before VCRs.) However, after catching an episode on the evening before a Friday school holiday, I convinced my parents to watch the show. (I vividly remember when David Carradine first appeared as Caine in the episode, my parents asked me, "Is that Kung Fu?") Afterwards, they allowed us each to watch one hour of TV during the week (I had also managed to get my grades up). So, Kung Fu holds a special place in my own pop-culture development.

http://www.gocontinental.com/photos3/douglascarl.jpg

Not long after Kung Fu, Warner Brothers (which also produced the TV show) dubbed the Hong Kong unarmed-combat movie King Boxer and released it as Five Fingers of Death. By the summer of 1973, Kung Fu was a certified hit on TV; dubbed Hong Kong kung-fu movies were popping up all over mainstream movie theatres; Enter the Dragon had entered the top of the box office; and a full-blown Asian martial-arts craze seemed to sweep the country, which was confirmed by Carl Douglas' hit song "Kung-Fu Fighting."

Another thing about kung fu, it was something that Asian people seemed to do better than most whites. Bruce Lee's swift movements put David Carradine's less graceful gestures to shame. At some point, I believe, U.S. pop culture must have gotten the message that if it wanted to portray martial arts in as exciting a manner as they appeared in Bruce Lee movies, it would have to get Asian people to perform them. A community that was once almost invisible was on Hollywood's radar almost overnight. Suddenly, Asian people seemed to be everywhere — in the media, at least. Finally, there was a widely disseminated positive image to balance out the sinister image of the shadowy Viet Cong.

Unfortunately, while Asian involvement in martial arts was duely acknowledged by the broader U.S. culture, that acknowledgement didn't seem to extend to non-action areas. Although the success of Kung Fu probably, I think, had some bearing on other non-martial-arts Asian-themed media projects getting made — such as the TV movies Judge Dee and the Monastery Murder (1974; a mystery set in 17th-century China) and Farewell to Manzanar (1976; the internment told from the perspective of a Japanese American family) — Asian people as popular figures never caught on outside the action genre.

Consequently, when an Asian person appeared in an action show or film, you could predict that he or she would know martial arts. I remember watching the TV movie The Fantastic Seven (obviously inspired by The Seven Samurai) in 1979, and when the Asian guy (Soon-Tek Oh) eventually popped up on screen, he knew kung fu — of course. How cliché! But there's another way to look at this: The character played by Oh was one of the "Fantastic Seven," one of the good guys. If it weren't for martial arts, the TV movie's producers may not have gotten the idea to add an Asian person to the title team. Martial arts at least provided an avenue of representation, however minimal, for Asian people in U.S. popular culture.

During the 1980s, American passion for Asian martial arts seemed to cool, and Americans turned elsewhere for diversion. Even Jackie Chan's first efforts to break into the U.S. market, The Big Brawl (1980) and The Protector (1985), flopped. It wasn't until critical enthusiasm for Tsui Hark's and John Woo's action films from Hong Kong grew in the late '80s that Asian people were once again on pop culture's radar in any major way. But again, this was primarily through action cinema. The small indie character studies of Chinese American director Wayne Wang — Chan Is Missing (1981) and Dim Sum (1985) — had some impact on the cineastes, so did the art films of Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, but nowhere near the Richter-scale level of popularity enjoyed by Hong Kong action movies.

With the successful transplantation of Jackie Chan and John Woo to Hollywood — and with the adoration of Asian action cinema among filmmakers and film enthusiasts like Quentin Tarentino and the Wachowski Brothers — the U.S. entertainment industry drew upon its past acceptance of Asian martial arts and incorporated this fighting style into its movies' scenes of struggle in order to heighten their visual interest. This seems to be where we are today.

To repeat: An Asian knowing martial arts in a Hollywood action movie may be something of a cliché. But martial arts has at least provided Asian people — and by extension, the Asian American community — some sort of representation in U.S. popular culture. Now, if only entertainment media could do more to recognize the depth, richness, and history of the community beyond kung fu.