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Fist of Fury (1972) essay


DrNgor

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Hong Kong cinephiles and genre fans generally accept that the first modern kung fu movie was 1970’s The Chinese Boxer, produced by the illustrious Shaw Brothers studio and starring Jimmy Wang Yu. In that film, a Chinese kung fu school is wrecked by a trio of Japanese karate experts in the employ of a local criminal. One of the survivors of the massacre, played by Jimmy Wang Yu (who also directed the movie), trains in his master’s “Iron Fist” technique to get revenge against his master’s killers. Of the many tropes that The Chinese Boxer establishes, one of the most notable was featuring the Japanese as the movie’s villains. This particular practice has gone almost unabated in Chinese martial arts cinema for 50 years now.

                Interestingly enough, the portrayal of the Japanese fighters in this movie is decidedly less racist than it would be in subsequent “chopsockey” movies. For one, the most derogatory thing said about the Japanese characters is that they “look like vampires
[1].” And while the Japanese are portrayed as extremely brutal fighters, they are nonetheless in the employee of a Chinese person, which softens the racism a bit, as it points out that the Chinese’ worst enemy is ultimately their own countrymen.

                At the same time, the way they are portrayed in this film comes across as a backhanded compliment of sorts: when the main Chinese villain shows up in the beginning, he has mastered that Japanese martial art of judô and proceeds to manhandle the entire school until the master shows up and teaches him a lesson. With that scene, Wang Yu inadvertently suggests that for all of its merits against other Chinese fighters, or unskilled fighters in general, kung fu is an inferior martial art compared to Japanese styles. This is compounded by establishing that the karate masters are not only better than the Chinese kung fu master, but that only a combination of different esoteric styles is enough to defeat karate. That approach to the story subtely undermines the power of Chinese kung fu, and recent matches between traditional kung fu masters and MMA fighters—who routinely incorporate judô or jiu-jitsu into their repertoire—suggest that Wang Yu was onto something, even if it wasn’t the exact message he wanted to convey.

                A year later, the low-budget film Duel of Karate came out of Taiwan. The first hour of the movie is essentially a remake of The Chinese Boxer, with the Japanese fighters once more being in the employ of a Chinese villain. The film isn’t so dismissive of kung fu, however, and our hero dispatches all of the Japanese opponents by the end of the second act. That same year, another Taiwanese effort, a wuxia film called Duel with Samurai was released. The story, which revolves around a group of samurai with nigh-magical powers running amok around the Chinese countryside, establishes the Japanese as being an independent threat to China and Chinese martial arts. As villains, the Japanese are portrayed as cold-blooded killers who fight their victims on unfair terms, and occasionally as rapists as well. Much like The Chinese Boxer, it is only through a secret esoteric swordplay technique that our hero is able to defeat the villain at the end.

                This brings us to March of 1972 and the release of Bruce Lee’s sophomore kung fu extravaganza Fist of Fury. A huge hit in Asia at the time of its release and an influential film in the genre to this day, Fist of Fury drew on the negative feelings that many Chinese people had for Japan and Japanese people at the time, much of which still exists to this day. The story follows the mysterious death of Huo Yuanjia
[2], a real-life martial arts master and founder of the famous Ching Woo Academy, which exists to this very day and has branches in several different countries. His top student, Chen Zhen (played by Lee), refuses to believe that his master would just keel over dead and suspects foul play, tracing his murderers back to the Japanese Hongkyu School. The film is set in the international territory of Shanghai in 1910, thus for all of Chen Zhen’s physical talents, he’s ultimately no match for his enemies’ diplomatic power and sway over the local authorities. The film ends with a final, fatal act of defiance of Chen Zhen in the face of Japanese treachery, a sad reminder of how the Chinese were often treated like second-class citizens in their own country.

                Indeed, I may be justified in suggesting that Chinese people were treated like third-class citizens. In an early scene, Chen Zhen visits Huangpu Park and is stopped at the entrance by an Indian guard, who points him to a sign that reads, “No Dogs or Chinese Allowed.” Immediately, we see a British couple entering the park with their dog. Chen Zhen points out the discrepancy in the guard’s partial enforcement of the park rules, which goes ignored. At that moment, a Japanese man—played by Yuen Wah, who studied with Jackie Chan at the same Peking Opera Academy and even did some acrobatic doubling for Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon—offers to let Chen Zhen in the park if he agrees to follow him, walking on all fours like a dog(!). Obviously, this is a Bruce Lee film, so the scene ends with him beating the holy hell out of his mockers, but the sad reality is there for all to see.

                Throughout the film, the powerlessness of the Chinese against the international laws that govern the international territory in Shanghai is evident, even when the Japanese aren’t actively oppressing the locals. Even the local inspector, played by director Lo Wei, finds himself succumbing to the pressure of both the head of the Hongkew School, Mr. Suzuki (Riki Hashimoto, best known for wearing the monster suit in the Japanese Daimajin films), and the Japanese consulate. The Ching Woo School, who have nothing to do with Chen Zhen’s renegade actions against the Japanese, are forced to shoulder the blame, given the ultimatum to turn in their friend or be closed (and maybe even arrested as well).

                It is this injustice— the double standard of the Chinese laws being subject to pressure from foreign powers, while those foreign powers were free to work around their own laws with absolute impunity—that most likely spoke more to the hearts and minds of the Chinese audiences than its fight scenes. After all, the entire concept of the Shanghai International Settlement grew out of an injustice, namely the British Opium Wars waged against China in the first half of the 19th century. While initially a merger of British and American settlements, the Shanghai International Settlement was eventually administered by a council of diginitaries of other nations, including Germany, France and Denmark. Imperial Japan also joined the “club” in the early 20th century, and by the end of World War I, had the largest number of citizens living in the settlement. They quickly grew in power, ultimately surpassing the British. By the 1930s, the Japanese army had invaded Shanghai and a Japanese police force was set up to enforce Japanese laws within the settlement. By the time the United States got involved with World War II in 1941, the Japanese had exclusive control over the settlement.

                During the 1930s, there was much conflict between the Japanese military and Chinese revolutionaries in and around the settlement. Despite the resistance, the Japanese ultimately took over the entirety of Shanghai and other key cities, including its then-capital of Nanjing. The latter event resulted in The Rape of Nanjing, a Japanese military offensive in 1937 that resulted in the death of about 300,000 Chinese civilians living in the capital, plus the widespread raping of Chinese women and looting of local businesses. The Japanese would continue to occupy China—despite resistance from both Communist and Nationalist forces—until 1945, when they lost the War. While this movie is set before many of those historical events, there’s no doubt that many adult viewers were reminded of those incidents as they watched this film. In that case, the pent-up rage and subsequente explosion of violence instigated by Chen Zhen must’ve been cathartic to Chinese audiences. The film doesn’t change history and make Chen Zhen responsible for kicking the Japanese out of Shanghai, as his actions come with a cost for him and others at the end. But those viewers who carried traumatic memories of the war were at least afforded the opportunity to see some of their tormentors suffer retribution at the hands of another Chinese citizen: the fictional character of Chen Zhen.

                Unlike The Chinese Boxer and Duel with Samurai, the Japanese martial artists in Fist of Fury are not portrayed as being invincible. In the film’s first and most iconic fight sequence, Chen Zhen enters the Hongkyu Dojo and proceeds to beat up every single student, including the instructor (played by Chinese actor Fung Ngai). It’s significant that Chen Zhen’s character at this point is established only as being Huo Yuanjia’s most zealous student, but not a master of any style different from what his colleagues are training in. Later on, when the Hongkew Dojo attacks the Ching Woo Academy, the Chinese students are able to get their licks in, getting beaten mainly when getting double teamed or contending with the instructor. Thus, the enemy isn’t Japanese karate per se, but the diplomatic power and hypocritical administration of the International Settlement behind it that empowered the Japanese.

                Four years after Fist of Fury made waves among Asian audiences and became Bruce Lee’s most beloved, if not most successful, movie in his limited filmography, director Lo Wei directed a sequel in a failed attempt to recoup some of that lost glory. New Fist of Fury was a wrong-headed effort that made little impact in the box office and did nothing for the career of its star, a young unknown named Jacky Chan. Overlong, with too many characters and subplots and too little fighting—especially from Chan, who doesn’t even start learning kung fu until the 70-minute mark—the film is inferior to Fist of Fury in all regards. In a nutshell, the film starts some months after the events of Fist of Fury, in which we learn that the Japanese consul reneged on his promise to leave Ching Woo along and instead has been hunting down the students. Three of them, including Ma Li’er (Nora Miao, reprising her role from the first film), flee to Taiwan to stay with Ma’s grandfather, who’s secretly part of a resistance group. Ma tries to open the Ching Woo school in Taiwan, but have to contend with Okimura, the sensei of a Japanese dojo, played by perennial kung fu villain Chen Sing.

                The film was filmed and set in Taiwan, which had been ceded to Japan about two decades prior to when the film was set. Unlike the Shanghai International Settlement, where Japan might get away with whatever they wanted as long as the other countries didn’t step in, they had free reign in Taiwan to do as they wished. That said, New Fist of Fury doesn’t dwell too much on the politics of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, overtly or otherwise. The Japanese school is portrayed more or less as a group of bullies who go around making trouble for other Chinese schools, and then accusing any perceived enemy of being a rebel to the army if need be. The language of the film, in which the protagonists say “those damn Japs” about every five sentences, reflects the film’s more racist atitude, albeit one that assumes the protagonists are justified in acting so. That said, the overwhelming feeling of unfairness and futility that permeated Fist of Fury is absent here whenever the Japanese aren’t onscreen. And even when they are, they come across more like a bunch of jerks than anything else, at least until the final reel, when Okimura’s actions become downright treacherous.

                A second, unrelated
[3] sequel was produced the following year by another group of filmmakers, including Brucesploitation auteur Jimmy Shaw and Taiwanese director Lee Tso-Nam, who had hit it big internationally with the success of Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger. That film’s star, James Ho Chung Tao (using the moniker “Bruce Li”), also starred in this film, titled Fist of Fury, Part 2. The film is a step up from New Fist of Fury, benefitting from a shorter running time, a tighter story and more (and better) fight scenes. The plot follows the Hongkew School, now under the command of a man named Miyamoto (played by Shaw Brothers veteran Lo Lieh), and their bloodthirsty quest for revenge against the Ching Woo Academy for the events of the first film.

                The original Fist of Fury was heavy-handed in its message about the injustices the Chinese suffered at the hands of Imperial Japan in the first half of the 20th century, but the film was more of a commentary on the corruption of the system that allowed it. In Fist of Fury Part Two, violence and brutality is the system. Not a single fight breaks out that doesn’t end with at least one Chinese person receiving the business end of a Japanese katana blade. The students of the Japanese Hongkew School are portrayed as a band of government-sanctioned murderers, free to torture and murder at a whim, with no consequences whatsoever for their actions. The film skirts the political questions of what the Shanghai Municipal Council would say about Japanese nationals killing Chinese people in broad daylight simply by ignoring their existence. Unrealistically, at least for the time period in which the film is set, the film portrays the Japanese in Shanghai circa 1911 as simply being free do as they wish. The approach is similar to that in New Fist of Fury, and is par for the course for an anti-Japanese kung fu film made in the wake of Fist of Fury, but doesn’t necessarily reflect reality of that period. Nonetheless, of the films discused in this essay, Fist of Fury, Part Two is easily the most negative and bleakest in its portrayal of the relationship between Chinese citizens and Japanese nationals residing in China in the early 20th century.

                There are dozens, if not hundreds, of kung fu movies produced in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, plus a dozen more produced in South Korea, that portray the Japanese in a negative light. The Chinese Boxer (1970) started the trend, but it was the runaway success of Fist of Fury that really made it popular. It wouldn’t be until 1978 that director Lau Kar-Leung saw fit to portray both Japanese people and Japanese martial arts in a more respectful light, with his magnum opus Heroes of the East. That film also was the first to point out that racist attitudes directed at the Japanese ultimately did more harm than good. Few films followed its example, most notably Fist of Legend with Jet Li. At what point the wounds of the past will completely heal and the atrocities committed by the Japanese will be left in the past we do not know. For now, this cliché, as hoary as it’s become, will continue to be one of the major tropes of martial arts films made for the Jade Screen.

 

[1] - Jimmy Wang Yu would take this a step further in his 1972 opus The One Armed Boxer, by casting Taiwanese actor Lung Fei as an Okinawan karate expert who sports a pair of fangs(!).

[2] - The story of Huo Yuanjia is told/sensationalized in classic films like Legend of a Fighter (1982) and Fearless (2006), and in popular TV series like The Legendary Fok (1981).

[3] - Although the two films are not related, if the viewer were to watch them both back to back and ignore a three-second scene at the beginning of Fist of Fury, Part 2, they could say that both films existed in the same universe, and that they simply followed the lives of different characters that survived Fist of Fury, In the case of Fist of Fury, part 2, the focus is on Tin Man-Kwai, the lead instructor of Ching Woo (played in both films by Tien Feng).

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Surprisingly, this is my first lesson on why Chinese film makers hate those damn Japs’ so much.

 

Good write up Doc.

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Killer Meteor
7 hours ago, paimeifist said:

Surprisingly, this is my first lesson on why Chinese film makers hate those damn Japs’ so much.

 

Good write up Doc.

Anti-Japanese sentiment was on the up in the early 70s due to the Senkaku Islands dispute.

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15 hours ago, ShaOW!linDude said:

I enjoy the the comparisons and contrasts of this essay. Nicely written, @DrNgor

 

13 hours ago, paimeifist said:

Surprisingly, this is my first lesson on why Chinese film makers hate those damn Japs’ so much.

 

 

6 hours ago, Killer Meteor said:

Great stuff!

Thank you all for reading and commenting!

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NoKUNGFUforYU

I think one of the issues you see with the Chinese approach to training is hiding techniques from a great majority of students, or at least pretending to.  What these MMA incidents have exposed is that there may have been little to hide, as no one has come up with an ancient, esoteric technique to defeat any of them. Chen Chen being the only student able to handle the Japanese really reflects badly on the school in a sense. At the end when the Japanese have finished off most of the school, it seems there are no Japanese laying around dead, only the Chinese students. This is seen in many other films where Wang Yu or Lo Lieh is given the deadly Iron Palm book or whatever. My belief is that after the colossal failure of the boxer rebellion and having that many martial artists killed in one go, China wanted nothing to do with martial arts for the most part, and what remained was some security transport people. When the Republic formed there was a new interest in physical culture, but most likely no one want to do the hard work of hitting bags, free sparring, wrestling and so forth. So forms and pre-arranged sparring flourished.  Meanwhile the Japanese martial arts were "what you see is what you get". If you showed up for Judo and behaved yourself you learned all the throws. Also, in Judo you avoided throws that could seriously injury the training partner. Chinese Wrestling allows for very dangerous throws, (I have witnessed it in a demo/match where a poor fellow was writhing on the ground) and you can see how they would run out of training partners, and also not be able to drill certain throws. Same with Karate (though it was not that big in Japan until long after the events of Fist of Fury) where you would see very vigorous training and sparring. My theory is that a lot of the real masters of the rough and tumble style of illerate, working class Kung fu were killed off and the gap was filled by the ones that could write manuals, or were in the Opera, etc. Musical theater types, if you will.

There was even a Tai Chi master who claimed one must not sweat when training! 

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30 minutes ago, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

I think one of the issues you see with the Chinese approach to training is hiding techniques from a great majority of students, or at least pretending to.  What these MMA incidents have exposed is that there may have been little to hide, as no one has come up with an ancient, esoteric technique to defeat any of them. Chen Chen being the only student able to handle the Japanese really reflects badly on the school in a sense. At the end when the Japanese have finished off most of the school, it seems there are no Japanese laying around dead, only the Chinese students. This is seen in many other films where Wang Yu or Lo Lieh is given the deadly Iron Palm book or whatever. My belief is that after the colossal failure of the boxer rebellion and having that many martial artists killed in one go, China wanted nothing to do with martial arts for the most part, and what remained was some security transport people. When the Republic formed there was a new interest in physical culture, but most likely no one want to do the hard work of hitting bags, free sparring, wrestling and so forth. So forms and pre-arranged sparring flourished.  Meanwhile the Japanese martial arts were "what you see is what you get". If you showed up for Judo and behaved yourself you learned all the throws. Also, in Judo you avoided throws that could seriously injury the training partner. Chinese Wrestling allows for very dangerous throws, (I have witnessed it in a demo/match where a poor fellow was writhing on the ground) and you can see how they would run out of training partners, and also not be able to drill certain throws. Same with Karate (though it was not that big in Japan until long after the events of Fist of Fury) where you would see very vigorous training and sparring. My theory is that a lot of the real masters of the rough and tumble style of illerate, working class Kung fu were killed off and the gap was filled by the ones that could write manuals, or were in the Opera, etc. Musical theater types, if you will.

Thank you for your insight. I try to talk about a little of that in my Fist of Legend essay in the review section.

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Killer Meteor
15 hours ago, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

I think one of the issues you see with the Chinese approach to training is hiding techniques from a great majority of students, or at least pretending to.  What these MMA incidents have exposed is that there may have been little to hide, as no one has come up with an ancient, esoteric technique to defeat any of them. Chen Chen being the only student able to handle the Japanese really reflects badly on the school in a sense. At the end when the Japanese have finished off most of the school, it seems there are no Japanese laying around dead, only the Chinese students. This is seen in many other films where Wang Yu or Lo Lieh is given the deadly Iron Palm book or whatever. My belief is that after the colossal failure of the boxer rebellion and having that many martial artists killed in one go, China wanted nothing to do with martial arts for the most part, and what remained was some security transport people. When the Republic formed there was a new interest in physical culture, but most likely no one want to do the hard work of hitting bags, free sparring, wrestling and so forth. So forms and pre-arranged sparring flourished.  Meanwhile the Japanese martial arts were "what you see is what you get". If you showed up for Judo and behaved yourself you learned all the throws. Also, in Judo you avoided throws that could seriously injury the training partner. Chinese Wrestling allows for very dangerous throws, (I have witnessed it in a demo/match where a poor fellow was writhing on the ground) and you can see how they would run out of training partners, and also not be able to drill certain throws. Same with Karate (though it was not that big in Japan until long after the events of Fist of Fury) where you would see very vigorous training and sparring. My theory is that a lot of the real masters of the rough and tumble style of illerate, working class Kung fu were killed off and the gap was filled by the ones that could write manuals, or were in the Opera, etc. Musical theater types, if you will.

There was even a Tai Chi master who claimed one must not sweat when training! 

It's hinted in Fist of Fury, and made explicit in Fist of Fury II, that it's not so much Chinese kung fu that's at fault as the fact the Chinese aren't bloodthirsty enough!

New Fist of Fury does at least have a Ching Wu school that can fight, but the problem is that they spend too much time jabbering!

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NoKUNGFUforYU
4 hours ago, Killer Meteor said:

It's hinted in Fist of Fury, and made explicit in Fist of Fury II, that it's not so much Chinese kung fu that's at fault as the fact the Chinese aren't bloodthirsty enough!

New Fist of Fury does at least have a Ching Wu school that can fight, but the problem is that they spend too much time jabbering!

The focus of the Chinese is commerce and business. Dueling was not a big part of their history, and warfare was handled through conscription and massive armies, and not unlike the Roman flanks. They were not a feudal system, and pretty early on their warrior class of elites just turned into elites that let the peasants do all the fighting. Not saying there were not tough guys, but they didn't have samurai and ronin rolling around, or swordsmen who wandered around fighting, etc. 

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On 6/10/2020 at 10:17 AM, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

My theory is that a lot of the real masters of the rough and tumble style of illerate, working class Kung fu were killed off and the gap was filled by the ones that could write manuals, or were in the Opera, etc. Musical theater types, if you will.

 

Do you think the Opera School's helped to keep the Martial Arts alive in China & Hong Kong?.

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NoKUNGFUforYU
6 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

Do you think the Opera School's helped to keep the Martial Arts alive in China & Hong Kong?.

Yes, but many of the martial arts are for show. Very different from some of the arts that have a few good moves. Also, wrestling was huge in China, but movies neglect this. Many times in historical entries when they are speaking of martial arts, they are talking about wrestling not doing fancy animal forms and shapes.

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Very interesting essay, @DrNgor !

I noticed that you didn't mention Fist of fury III...I know that the plot is  a little bit different than the other ones you mentioned, maybe it's the reason why you didn't talk about it.

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NoKUNGFUforYU
1 hour ago, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

Yes, but many of the martial arts are for show. Very different from some of the arts that have a few good moves. Also, wrestling was huge in China, but movies neglect this. Many times in historical entries when they are speaking of martial arts, they are talking about wrestling not doing fancy animal forms and shapes.

PS, what I mean is that some of the historically famous Northern arts, unlike say, Long Fist which as turned into a performance art, arts like Hsing Yi and BaJi were very direct and had short, fast forms, more like "lines" as the were called. Baji was used by the Manchu emperor's bodyguards. It is not flashy, though I suppose some Wu Shu performers can flower it up.

Notice that the effort is there, but also no training on how to break falls. Take downs were an important part of Chinese Martial Arts but they did not ban dangerous throws and did not train how to fall. Historians from the west mentioned this in the 50's and 60's. While Judo did not use dangerous throws, they got really good at non lethal takedowns, and were much better than their Chinese counterparts. When Tang Hao went to see Japanese martial art in the 1900's to 1920's he wrote that they had surpassed China and that his country was way behind.  You can see here that there is an attempt to make the arts full contact (of course this is in some rough area of northern China) but not enough focus on protecting the athlete. The more you can do something, the better you get at it. I your "art" relies on kicks to the groin, pokes to the eyes and chops to the throat you will run out of sparring partners, if you can even find them, LOL! This is why wrestlers and submission experts dominated for 10 years in the UFC. They could train and train without getting concussions and so on. Most likely the real Huo Yuan Jia and Chen Zhen knew how to wrestle, amongst other thing.

 

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On 11/8/2020 at 10:21 AM, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

Yes, but many of the martial arts are for show. Very different from some of the arts that have a few good moves. Also, wrestling was huge in China, but movies neglect this. Many times in historical entries when they are speaking of martial arts, they are talking about wrestling not doing fancy animal forms and shapes.

 

Thanks for the informative reply @NoKUNGFUforYU, you clearly know a lot in regards to genuine Martial Arts and their histories.

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22 hours ago, ShawAngela said:

I noticed that you didn't mention Fist of fury III...I know that the plot is  a little bit different than the other ones you mentioned, maybe it's the reason why you didn't talk about it.

Yeah, it wasn't necessary to discuss Part III in order to make my point.

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Secret Executioner

I figured it would be because Fist of Fury III had as much to do with the original as Halloween 3 had to do with the first two Halloween.

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4 minutes ago, Secret Executioner said:

I figured it would be because Fist of Fury III had as much to do with the original as Halloween 3 had to do with the first two Halloween.

Well, it does continue the story of Bruce Li's character from part 2, and the Japanese (and their interpreter) are still the villains, but it's less about the general oppression caused by the Japanese and more about their half-assed attempts at retribution for Chen's killing Lo Lieh in the last movie.

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NoKUNGFUforYU
3 hours ago, DrNgor said:

Well, it does continue the story of Bruce Li's character from part 2, and the Japanese (and their interpreter) are still the villains, but it's less about the general oppression caused by the Japanese and more about their half-assed attempts at retribution for Chen's killing Lo Lieh in the last movie.

At least in the 3rd movie we see that the Ching Woo school still exist, unlike Lo Wei's terrible sequel with Jackie doing one of his worst performances. If you even watch the first Fist of Fury you would think that Ching Woo died out. It's huge! The forms are practiced around the world and the school still exists.

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Killer Meteor

New Fist of Fury is such a damn defeatist movie. Doesn't help that the Ching Wu School and the rebels in it are a bunch of incompetents!

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Cognoscente

Bob Baker wrote a journal about being in Hong Kong around this time.

Thanks to Monkey King for publicizing the Baker-themed auction over at the Bruce Lee Lives forum.

https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/movie-tv-memorabilia/documents/robert-baker-journal-making-fist-of-fury-with-color-fight-scene-snapshots-from-the-set/a/7241-89466.s?ic16=ViewItem-Auction-Open-AlsoViewed-Thumbnail-081514&tab=BrowseAlsoViewed-012417

lf (6).jpg

lf (7).jpg

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lf (1).jpg

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