Bruce Lee/Martial Arts Fans REJOICE!!!!

[Kam]

Man oh man, my first Jackie Chan experience was at a Chinatown theater when Snake In The Eagle's Shadow got its first U.S. screenings. Snake along with the subsequent follow-up, Drunken Master, were Jackie Chan's big breakthrough roles. It was the first time that he went all out with the kung fu/comedy formula, and it worked insanely well, establishing Jackie Chan as the true heir apparent to Bruce Lee, albeit with a very different screen persona. Before he found a success, Chan was slogging along in one mediocre role after another as one of the many wannabees trying to assume Bruce Lee's mantle by basically imitating him (remember Bruce Li or Bruce Le or Dragon Lee?).

I remember the theater was standing room only with lines going around the block. People were sitting in the aisles and I think the AC wasn't working, so they had to prop open the doors. But, there was an anticipation in the audience that I rarely see, because Snake had already been released overseas and broke Bruce Lee's box office records all over Asia. Everyone was there to see the new martial arts king. And it was weird because Chan's movies were so different from Lee's. The audience enjoyed themselves, but I could tell that a lot of people didn't know what to make of Jackie Chan, considering that Chan was effectively making fun of the genre established by guys like Bruce Lee, Jimmy Wang Yu, and Gordon Liu.

After a couple more hugely successful movies, Chan thought he was ready to conquer America and actually moved to California. But, stinkers like The Big Brawl and the Cannonball Run series snuffed out that ambition in a hurry. At that point, I stopped following the martial arts genre and Jackie Chan. Little did I know that upon his return to Hong Kong, he would totally revolutionize the martial arts genre by putting the films into modern settings and stretching the boundaries of stuntwork starting with the groundbreaking Police Story.

I did not discover these gems until I attended a Hong Kong film festival in 1992, and the Jackie Chan films chosen for that festival were Armour of God 2: Operation Condor, and Project A, Part II. IMO, those are his two best overall movies and they got me totally hooked on Jackie Chan. That same festival was also where I discovered the films of John Woo, Tsui Hark, Jet Li, and Chow Yun Fat. Needless to say, that was quite a groundshaking event in my moviegoing!

IMO, Chan's best fight scenes are probably the mall brawl in Police Story, his fight with Benny "The Jet" Urquidez in Wheels On Meals, and the rickshaw scene in Mr. Canton and Lady Rose (released as a dubbed atrocity in the U.S. as "Miracles").

It's sad, but I think that Jackie Chan is just about at the end of the road as a first-rate martial artist and stuntman. He's still an endearing presence on screen, but it's too much to ask a 51-year old guy to cheat death in every scene (with his stunt accident during the filming of Armour of God he literally did).

I think Drunken Master 2 and Police Story 3: Supercop were his last truly great movies. Drunken Master 2 (released in the U.S. as "Legend of the Drunken Master") is one film in particular that absolutely does not work with English dubbing, because it completely butchers Anita Mui's brilliant comedic role as the mother. Other movies that have come out since then have generally provided decent entertainment value, and I think it's great that Chan finally found fame and fortune in the U.S. For me though, I haven't been quite as enthralled with his more recent movies. This is why I've focused more on finding decent DVD versions of his Hong Kong films from about 1978 thru 1994, which include some of the greatest movies ever in this genre. The only movies from this period that are short of brilliant are Island of Fire (known in the U.S. as "The Prisoner"; just a generally bad and ridiculous movie), the U.S. production The Protector, Crime Story (slow pacing and not a lot of action), Heart of the Dragon (more of a drama than an action comedy; decent movie but well short of the others from that period), and probably City Hunter.

i think what was genius on jackie's part was that, once he found his niche/expertise, he never tried to be 'the next bruce.' i think it was in Fist of Fury, i read that jackie was a stunt performer in the movie and was the only volunteer to take a kick from bruce and be pulled by wires through a window (or a wall, i cant remember which). that and enter the dragon have the two jackie/bruce scenes in them (he got hit by a nun-chuck).

i completely forgot about meels on wheels! what a fun movie that was too! i've seen the dubbed miracles and am trying to find the original Lady Rose version. also loved drunken master, the sequence with the benches, just.... wow. and how he did it then, and still does, his whole flick up the bottle, cup, item and kick it at the badguy all in one continuous take. he talks about this particular move in the documentary My Stunts. another great scene, or stunt actually, (i think from the project a series?) is the clock tower fall!!! holy minkey! that was unbelievable. that was also a good scene to show how much jackie has influenced editing techniques in action movies, allowing (even in hollywood) overlap of action, repeating the same shot from multiple angles, although not to the extent done in hong kong movies.

just saw this special on ifc Chop Socky: Kung Fu in Cinema. and it was really interesting, if you can find it, check it out. they talked about how martial arts in film has gone through so many permutations and changes. how it started real, then moved on to the fantastical for the longest period, then was brought back to stark realism with bruce, who changed the philosophy that 'real' kungfu looks bad on film. he made real moves on film without any major superfluousness and made them look better than anything else. i think the flaw in his logic, however, was in himself. HE made real kungfu look badass, not everyone else would be (or has been able to) pull that off. while real kungfu worked for Bruce, it doesnt for anyone else. the flourish and fancy of movement is alot easier to pull off visually (even though harder, physically in some sense). i've done fight choreography for some indie films and have taken a lot of martial arts myself, and i can attest to this first hand. what's real does NOT look good on film with very few exceptions, and the exceptions arent in the movements, but who is performing them.

have you seen Ong Bak by any chance with Tony Jaa, and ong bak 2 (cant remember the name, but the sequel to it). now that has quite a few HOLY CRUD i can't believe he just did that! which i havent said since watching those early jackie movies. especially since tony jaa is sans wires completely (supposedly). while jackie always used wires, but used them in ways no one else had even thought too, and still does.

so much fun.

[topspeed]

Thanks for the heads-up, Wooch. I've been a huge Bruce Lee fan for as long as I can remember and have seen all of his movies. I even thought Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was terrific! Of course, casting Lauren Holly doesn't hurt . Nice review, brother. I'll have to get this.