8.09.2011

Fist of Fury (1972)

Treacherous Japanese are giving grief to Chinese folks! Bruce Lee has had enough. He goes feral, dons crazy disguises, and fights back the only way he knows how- by fighting back!

Fist of Fury is a hugely entertaining movie and the mistreatment of the Chinese heroes is hilarious in how over the top it is. My favorite part is where Bruce Lee decides to go to a park for no reason and the obviously Chinese guy in the equivalent of Indian blackface tells him that Chinese and dogs are not allowed. And then on cue a woman walks up with a dog and he lets them pass. It's so ridiculous it crosses the line into parody.

There's a great character who is a Chinese guy that has sold his dignity in exchange for becoming a lackey of the Japanese devils. In a more serious movie you'd hate this guy, but here he's such a sniveling, wimpy, detestable character that you can't help but laugh and roll your eyes at how heavy-handed the entire movie is.

Also heavy-handed in this movie: Bruce Lee when he punches dastardly race-traitors in the stinking guts! He's not a great actor and his ability as an actual martial artist is shrouded in controversy but that guy is fast and knows how to do a good fight scene. Every battle he gets into is amazing and it's too bad there are only really a handful of fight scenes in the whole movie, with the rest of the running time taken up by repetitive scenes of heroic and humble Chinese people refusing to sink to the level of the Japanese, and- much more entertaining but just as repetitive- scenes of outrageous acts of evil committed by the unlawful Japanese guys.

If you can get through all the talky parts, or at least find them charmingly ridiculous, it's worth it just to see an action movie master at work.