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“Kung Phooey”

Written by Ben Szwediuk
Thursday, 01 January 2009 00:00

Enter the Dragon remains, in almost every respect, the most successful martial arts movie of all time. And one could, if moved by such compulsions, advance an argument that it is the most influential film of all time – more so than Citizen Kane; more so than The Seventh Seal. In the shadow of its auspices, Federico Fellini’s 8½ trembles in pitiable insignificance; only the repellently racist The Birth of a Nation may be truly said to have exerted so profound an influence on the way that cinema is approached and understood at both a commercial and an aesthetic level. It could also be argued that none of these films have had implications so powerful, either directly or indirectly, for martial arts.

Bruce Lee’s post-humus legacy is testimony to the way in which he so fundamentally understood the common kinesis, imagined or otherwise, between film and hand-to-hand combat, and no action film or martial art may properly be understood without at least lip service being paid to his impact. Though, while the action film may be said to have benefited profoundly from Lee’s physical craft and prowess, though perhaps indirectly, Chinese martial arts, in any credible combative sense, has been profoundly damaged by exploitation in both Hollywood and Hong Kong cinema.

Subsequent to his death and the release of Enter the Dragon, Lee acquired an iconic status previously unknown to an actor of Eastern blood and, conceivably, a more peerless mystique in popular culture than any Western movie star. Certainly, Monroe, Brando and Dean may have a lasting iconography, but few are viewed with the reverence and lasting allure that has been afforded Lee. His bouncing, track-suited body, poised in predatory hunch is still keenly mimicked by adolescent boys from posters on their bedroom walls.

The inevitable consequence of Lee’s stardom was that corporate interests, which so crudely employed similar avariciousness in the demise of his son, Brandon, sought to exploit his image, and the global interest that had been sparked in martial arts. Though Enter the Dragon may be considered a watershed, it was by no means a virgin birth. Lee was known in Hollywood for his performances as Kato in the “Green Hornet” television series and the highly successful “Kung Fu”, starring David Carradine (the concept for which had been developed by Lee) had already piqued the interest of investors.

In Hong Kong, Big Boss had already made Lee a hero, and an expatriate population that had swelled from mainland China, often martial artists that been persecuted in the Cultural Revolution, provided both breeding ground and audience for the legends that surrounded the multifarious systems of Chinese martial arts. In the wake of Lee’s death, the Hong Kong studios attempted to fill the void with a host of unconvincing look-alikes, similarly named “stars”, and streams of derivative titles.

Hollywood, on the other hand, injected the “traditional” martial arts aspect into virtually all films in which fighting is depicted. In the public imagination, the mystical oriental arts retained an otherworldly superiority to the combative traditions of the West. Even that most Western, and more specifically, English, of action heroes, (namely, James Bond), can be seen displaying the dynamic choreographed skills of Jackie Chan or Jet Li; though, of course, in a far more reservedly “British” manner.

However, the strictly delineated “martial arts” film has been a relatively infrequent beast in post-Bruce Lee Hollywood. Of course, there has been the odd hammy “cult” film and the even rarer blockbuster success - most notably the notorious children’s flick The Karate Kid - though, ostensibly, it is the saturation of the action genre that may be said to be its greatest single influence.

Nowhere is this more boldly observed than in a single statement uttered by Keanu Reeves’s Neo in the most successful action franchise of the 21st century, The Matrix. Upon emerging from his simulated training, when he exclaims in wonderment “I know Kung Fu!”, we know that this is far more than a dry declaration of fact. We know that this is significant, that he is sharing in the audience’s reverence for having so easily acquired a mythical, near mystical skill set which cinema has conditioned three generations of cinemagoers to consider the zenith of unarmed combat.

Not long after this, for the first time, the Western and Asian martial arts cinema came back into confluence for the first time since Enter the Dragon in “wire-fu” epic, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This is a film that shared the cross-cultural success of Lee’s film but, this time, the film was made entirely by Chinese studios and filmed in Chinese dialects. It was lauded as revolutionary for its groundbreaking and sophisticated wirework. This really demonstrates the ignorance of Western audiences or, rather, mainstream Western critics, regarding the development of Chinese cinema in the preceding decades.

Since the brutality of Lee’s style became increasingly difficult to market, and people with his genuine fighting skill and charisma almost impossible to find, directors turned more to the athletic and fantastical acts of performers of modern “Wushu”, an acrobatic performance style of modern Kung Fu. The schools of this style, especially the Beijing Opera, produced many names famous worldwide like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Michelle Yeoh and, of course, Jet Li. And, it is such crossover stars acting as either sidekicks or villains in Hollywood action flicks that enabled this film to make the inroads that it did.

It is at this point that we are able to begin to unravel the legacy Enter the Dragon had on Lee’s main passion, the martial arts he so fervently espoused. Practically unknown in the West at the time, Kung Fu exploded across the globe with Chinese immigrants often making small fortunes from the mystique surrounding the techniques and tactics of the traditional Chinese martial arts. However, the extent to which these arts served their purpose of enabling individuals to survive in combat could never credibly be tested either in China or the West, due to the fact that their very nature - to maim or kill an adversary in the shortest time possible to ensure one’s own survival - is wholly incongruous with the conventions of sports in civilized society. Therefore, claims to the efficacy of the martial arts survived on the mystique surrounding their origins and ubiquitous representations in film.

This was until 1993. A tournament called the “Ultimate Fighting Championship” (UFC) was established in the United Sates by a martial artist called Rorion Gracie, in which fighters of all styles fought in (nearly) no-holds-barred matches staged in an octagonal cage. The world waited with bated breath for a little Chinese man to affect a “death touch” and, history shows, nothing happened. A brother of Gracie called Royce, a submission grappler in the style of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, won the tournament without so much as taking a direct hit to the face.

The event provided a watershed in the way in which martial arts were perceived. The reputation of Kung Fu, and numerous other traditional styles were ripped apart and, over time, analysis has revealed certain truisms regarding the ways in which the arts were learned, and the popularity of martial arts movies - much of it engendered by Enter the Dragon - must shoulder a portion of the blame.

So now, the UFC has become an unlikely success with the sport it has spawned - “Mixed Martial Arts” (MMA), where a predominating combination of submissions grappling, kickboxing and Judo predominates - growing in popularity worldwide. Like Kung Fu, will cinema seize upon this fashion with similarly negative results? Certainly, films showcasing these skills are being made, most recently the abysmal Don’t Back Down.

It remains to be seen, however, whether these practices will have the same diminished efficacy as a consequence of their Hollywood rendering. The emphasis in schools that teach these modern sports for competition would seem to predicate against this, but what would Lee have made of what has become of martial arts as a consequence of a movie genre he almost single-handedly popularised in the West? Would he be saddened that it would appear his filmic legacy has killed Kung Fu?

In my opinion, it would not. Lee, so often a vocal critic of traditional practices, would have seen these modern sports as a way of highlighting and analysing weakness. And, in the aftermath of the explosion of MMA, there may be a role for traditional Kung Fu, if practised as ought, in modern combat. A few holders of these ancient combat skills today have noted the qualities required by modern combat sports to be effective are now, though in modest numbers, making inroads into such competitions. Baguazhang teacher, Tim Cartmell, has several students competing successfully in California; Ayron Howey, a Canadian Kung Fu teacher, has been successful in Vancouver, and Alan Orr, a practitioner of Lee’s own Wing Chun has several successful fighting students in London.

While Lee may have baulked at the notion he may have had a role in killing Kung Fu, he would be pleased that the way he portrayed the realities of fighting have been borne out by the modern MMA phenomenon. That he so vividly demonstrated the way in which cinema can reveal the beauty of such a brutal truth - where his successors sought to conceal - marks him out as not only a true martial artist, but a filmmaker of rare insight.