CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: An Eye for an Eye (1981)

Mr. Norris' previous three motion pictures were all produced and distributed by American Cinema Releasing, proving to be some of the low-budget company's most successful films. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, the studio overextended itself by trying out some bigger budget projects. A few flops and expensive re-shoots on “I, the Jury” led American Cinema Releasing to close their doors by 1981. Chuck was on a roll though and would have no reason to slow down his one-a-year pace. He simply roundhouse kicked his way over to Avco-Embassy, a company that had their name on so many cult favorites in the eighties. In no time at all, he was right at work on “An Eye for an Eye,” the Chuck Norris vehicle of 1981 How does it stand up to those that came before and after?

Once again, Chuck plays a city cop on the narcotics beat. He's Detective Sean Kane and, along with his partner Dave, they are meeting an informant in a dark alley. It turns out to be a set-up, Dave getting shot, crushed by a speeding car, and burned alive. In a vengeful rage, Kane immediately hunts down the shooter and punches him out an apartment window. The driver of the car remains unidentified and Kane turns in his badge, haunted by the memories. It also haunts Dave's widow, a respectable TV reporter named Linda Chan. She digs into the case further, uncovering something that gets her pursued by a giant Asian man. She calls Sean in a panic before being brutally strangled to death by her attacker. Sean teams up with Linda's dad, a martial arts master who taught him how to fight, and takes the law into his own hands. They soon uncover that the Triads are running an international drug running operation out of the city and it's connected with some powerful names

The first act of “An Eye for an Eye” resembles a darker, gritter type of action/crime movie than what you usually expect from a Chuck Norris flick. When Dave is murdered – the first of several times Terry Kiser would appear as a corpse in an eighties movie – there's a close-up on the body's burned, bloodied face. Afterwards, Kane is driven into such a rage that he's pointing his gun at old ladies in the hallway. There's a visible pissed-off aura radiating from Chuck in these scenes that is intense and different from the kind of roles he's played up to this point. This leads into the sequence of a terrified heroine being pursued by Professor Toru Tanaka, all his mass squeezed into a turtle neck and propped up on one elevated shoe. It's a surprisingly tense chase, ending with a shot of Tanaka's fist exploding through a door like it's Jason Voorhees' machete. I found myself wondering if “An Eye for an Eye” was going to continue in this mold, bringing some slasher energy to its gritty inner city setting. 

I would have liked to have seen a little more of that but this grim first act doesn't really represent what “An Eye for an Eye” is like. Instead, the film immediately veers in a much lighter direction. I guess a few weeks off from the force is enough to mellow Kane out, cause he almost seems like a different character in these scenes. He has an adorable dog, who has a habit of running off with his shirts. This is the focus of several scenes, including when he brings his love interest home. That love interest would be Heather, played by Maggie Cooper. Her and Norris have actual chemistry, better than the leading ladies in his prior movies. When he does things like carry a stack of VHS tapes or promises her she'll be safe in his home, it actually comes across as sweet. There is some tonal whiplash from swinging so hard between a gritty action flick and a cutesy romantic comedy but, weirdly, it works.

 

That's the mood “An Eye for an Eye” operates in for most of the rest of its runtime. Chuck cracks a few quibs here and one actually got a laugh out of me. Most of the film pairs him with Mako, as John Chan. It's another example of the obviously Japanese actor playing a Chinese character. (Professor Toru Tanaka, who was of Hawaiian/Chinese lineage in real life despite his stereotypically Japanese stage name, is as well.) However, Mako slips into the role of a martial arts master really easily, to the point that I'm surprised he didn't do it more often. Either he's doing some of these throws and tumbles himself or the stunt team did a good job of matching him. Either way, he has an amusing gimmick where he always criticizes Kane's martial arts, no matter how much he just saved his ass. The two do not tag along with each other for the whole movie, “An Eye for an Eye” stopping just short of being a proper buddy cop action flick. However, I would have happily watched a whole movie of Mako being Chuck's smart-ass sensai type as they fight the bad guys together. 

This is another Norris vehicle that seeks to compensate for any lack of charisma the star might have by filling out the supporting cast with reliable performers. Aside from Mako, Richard Roundtree shows up as the police chief. Definitely needed a few more scenes of him gruffly reading the cowboy cop the riot act. Christopher Lee plays the head of the network, a role the script does a very poor job of disguising is villainous. Mostly because they cast Count Dracula in the part. Stock though the role may be, Lee was a master at elevating nothing parts to grand poetry. An exchange he has about his preference for Asian woman drips with sinister intent that I don't think a lesser performer could have sold with the same weird level of dignity. Matt Clark, another instantly recognizable but not always easy to name character actor, also has a memorable part. If nothing else, he gets the grisliest death scene in the whole movie. 

After his first few films almost seemed to apologize for being martial arts movie, the eighties finally let Chuck Norris fight more than a few times in each of his flicks. This trend continues with “An Eye for an Eye,” which features some excellent action over all. The showdown between him, Mako, and a horde of Triad enforcers is very well done. Chuck's trademark moves, not only the roundhouse kicks but when he delivers multiple blows in quick succession or trips someone up by hooking his leg around their necks, all get a big workout here. The gag of kicking some bad guys off a railing or cliff is repeated a few times and works nicely. The proper finale of the film is the showdown with Toru Tanaka. It's a stand-out because Chuck actually gets his ass kicked during it, tossed across the room repeatedly. Much like “The Octagon,” the finale doesn't merely focus on Norris kicking and punching his way through the villain's army. There's plenty of that – an amusing beat-down takes place on a pool diving board – but throws in some shoot-outs and explosions too. Basically giving the audience as big of a bang for their buck as possible. 

If you go back and look at the reviews of “An Eye for an Eye,” you find a succession of critics saying that it's simply another Chuck Norris movie, doing all the same things his other films have done. This is basically true. If you aren't already a fan of this strain of bullshit, you are unlikely to find much compelling here. However, “An Eye for an Eye” actually presents some interesting tonal shifts that keep the same old kicking and fighting more compelling than usual. When combined with some strong action choreography and a supporting cast full of familiar faces that you are always happy to see, it makes this one go down real smooth. [7/10]

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 2 outta 5]
[] Facial Hair
[] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

 

 

CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: The Octagon (1980)

The first references in Japanese history to the descendants of a disposed samurai founding a school to train soldiers in guerilla warfare appear around 1160. By the 15th century, the word shinobi-no-mono – literally translated as "one who hides or steals" – had come to refer to soldiers specializing in espionage and stealth. During the Sengoku era, a 150 year period of political instability and civil war between feudal lords, clans and villages devoted to the training of shinobi are said to have existed. They were hired as mercenaries, spies and bodyguards. Actual appearances of soldiers like this in the historical record are uncommon. Details on the techniques they practiced and the tools of their trade – collectively known as ninjutsu, a term that does not seem to have been in common usage at the time – are limited to a few sources. Much of what we think we know about the practitioners of ninjutsu, what you might call ninjas, actually emerges from pop culture. Folk tales, novels, and plays about these mysterious warriors have been popular since the early 1800s, often giving them fantastical abilities and depicting them clad all in black. (A cliché that got started in kabuki theatre.) A series of popular kids books on the subject extended the public fascination with the ninja into the modern age and it's been going ever since. 

That's how the ninja became a pop culture phenomenon in Japan. What about here in stupid ol' America, where we don't know a daimyo from a dip shit? It's mostly James Bond's fault, as "You Only Live Twice" would introduce the world at large to the pop culture conception of the ninja. While a little bit of ninja media would be imported abroad during the seventies martial arts craze, it wasn't really until 1980 that the shadow warriors started to catch on globally. That year saw the release of a best selling novel and, later, a Chuck Norris movie called "The Octagon." That is the humble well from which several Marvel Comics characters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a plethora of video games, thousands of Halloween costumes, Sho Kosugi's entire career, and another internet meme about exaggerated acts of masculine super prowess emerged. But let's go back to "The Octagon" for a minute and consider its worth, apart from the ninja boom that followed it.

Martial arts pro Scott James is invited to a ballet performance, where the prima ballerina incorporates some karate into her dancing. Their date afterwards is ruined by ninja attacking and killing the girl. This is the latest in a series of high-profile assassinations that bear the marks of the Shinobi. Scott knows this because he was raised within a secret camp to train ninjas. There, he formed a bond and then a rivalry with Seikura, his ninja foster sibling who was kicked out of the order for being too bloodthirsty. Seikura has now returned to take over the family business and the increased global presence of ninja assassinations is his work. Scott attempts to get to the bottom of this. His investigation leads him to an heiress with an anti-ninja agenda, his old mercenary friends, a recent disaffected trainee from the ninja school, and to the fortified fortress known as the Octagon. 

As I watch my way through the oeuvre of Mr. Carlos Norris, I'm noticing a frustrating trend. His movies tend to take too long to get to the good shit. Perhaps it was his previously stated desire to make more story-driven action movies at play. In effect, this means we've had to wait through some half-ass attempts to build up a proper story before we get to the ass-kicking. This is definitely true of "The Octagon," a film to which the maxim of "there's too much plot getting in the way of the story" can be applied. The film follows multiple story threads, cutting between Scott's journey, flashbacks to his past, the trainees being molded into professional killers at shinobi boot camp, the behind-the-scenes drama of Seikura seizing control, and the fates of several supporting characters who get entangled with this ninja business. The result is a motion picture that never seems to truly get moving, cutting away to some other event any time the promise of chopping and fighting seems ready to ensue. 

"The Octagon" is thankfully less of a slog than "Good Guys Wear Black" nor as squeaky clean as "A Force of One." In fact, the movie starts with a brutal execution featuring some extra juicy squibs, as if to announce that we are in the eighties now. While all the ninja training does feel more like an extended prologue to the actual action, a demonstration involving a sai and a melon amused me. Strangely, these warriors of the invisible arts seem to do a lot of recruiting among barns and tractor pulls, leading to more than a few scenes of Chuck intimidating some rednecks. There's also a decent car chase in the first half-hour. Much like Norris' previous few flicks, this one also has some recognizable faces in the supporting roles. Chuck has good banter with Lee Van Cleef as his grizzled mentor, one generation of tough guy actor interacting with another. Art Hindle has some nice smart-ass energy as AJ, Scott's sidekick. Mostly, I got a kick out of random familiar faces popping in for some minor parts. Such as Ernie Hudson randomly appearing in two scenes or Tracey Walter doing an above-average Peter Lorre as the creepy recruiter for the bad guys. I'm always happy to see these guys. 

Hindle's role points to another curious reoccurring trope in Chuck's flicks. Once again, a guy younger than Norris' hero, who seems to definitely look up to him, gets brutalized and captured by some bad guys. As in "Good Guys Wear Black" and "A Force of One," Chuck ultimately fails to rescue this surrogate little brother or son figure. Normally, such a plot point would motivate the hero to more extreme measures or make his mission against the bad guys all the more personal. This comes across as especially gratuitous in "The Octagon," as Scott's former foster brother being the villain already makes this a long-brewing vendetta for the hero. Moreover, the death blow occurs right before the climax, just a little extra escalation for the final fight.

 

When you read about the man's personal life, the auteur theory as applied to formulaic action stars seems to ring true once again. Chuck was the oldest of three siblings. His youngest brother, Aaron, plays his character in the flashbacks here. His middle brother, Wieland, died in Vietnam at the age of 27. You would think that, if Norris was going to play-act this formative trauma over and over again in his movies, he would rescue the kid every time and symbolically bring his little brother home. But he frequently doesn't and it adds an intriguing melancholy quality to these movies. Or maybe I'm reading too much into a dumb-ass action movie. Perhaps. However, "The Octagon" does feel a bit more introspective in other ways too. From the red-tinted opening credits, the movie repeatedly gives us a peek at the main character's inner thoughts. This play out as whispered, repetitive phrases that echo in his head during multiple key moments. It's, surprisingly, one of the more realistic depictions of how thoughts and an inner monologue work that I've seen in a film. 

Another interesting reoccurring element is the role of women in these movies. The hyper-masculine ubermensch that would come to dominate the action genre in the eighties rarely had any use for women beyond a token role. While the tough guys in earlier decades, your Bonds and Eastwoods, seem to disregard women in gruffer, openly sexist ways. Chuck is not in-touch with his feminine side and the love interests in his films have yet to truly distinguish themselves. At the same time, the movies do keep playing him as a romantic figure, usually unreachable by women but often desired by them nevertheless. "The Octagon" gives Chuck three ladies to bounce off through its runtime. The cute Kim Lankford exits early on, while Chuck's scenes with Karen Carlson are characterized by a more combative chemistry. Scott James is too focused on his mission to be distracted by a woman's charms... Except when he isn't, as he shares a love interest with Carol Bagdasarian as the ninja deserter. It's a fairly gratuitous moment, surely including for titillating purposes, but moments like these do distinguish Norris from his contemporaries. He was definitely being sold not just as a macho figure of wish fulfillment fantasy for the guys but also obviously as a sex symbol for women. 

But what the hell am I talking about? You don't rent a Chuck Norris tape from your local Ma and Pa video store because you want to see this guy mourn or emote. You wanna see him punch and kick some dudes. For what feels like the first time since he left Hong Kong, "The Octagon" sees the karate champ really showing off his skills. The entire last act of the movie is Scott navigating the titular fortress, fighting and killing every ninja attacker that gets in his way. And it's pretty damn cool, Norris' smooth but powerful fighting moves actually getting a proper display here. It makes "The Octagon" a proto-video game movie, the hero navigating an obstacle course and the enemies within, taking them out with his special moves, before reaching the area where he battles the big boss. In this case, that being decorated martial artist and stuntman Richard Norton. This is his film debut in the memorable role of a hissing, mute ninja in a bitchin' looking mask and he is clearly a good match against Norris. That bout ends in a spectacular manner, worthy of an early pixelated cut scene from a "Double Dragon" or "Final Fight" game. If that isn't enough action for you either, the film also throws in some shoot-outs and a big-ass explosion. 

This means that "The Octagon" does indeed make up for its slow start. If the movie was as awesome as its final third throughout its whole runtime, it would easily be the best movie of the star's career up to this point. Even with a belabored set-up, this one does reveal some quirkier notes than you might expect, in terms of its approach to its hero's inner pain and how that may or may not have reflected on the public image Norris was creating. It definitely needed way more ninja theatrics. Next year's "Enter the Ninja" and its sequels would build much more on the mystique of the stealth killers, eighties ninja-mania getting well underway at that point. (And this one's director, Eric Karson, would later direct Sho Kosugi in "Black Eagle.") However, at least this one is not so timid with the ass kicking once it finally gets around to it. [7/10]

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

 

CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: A Force of One (1979)

Largely because of the influence of Mr. Norris, it eventually became increasingly common for heroes in the action genre to have some sort of martial arts training. When that is the case, it's always a fun game to play to see if the film bothers to justify this or not. By the end of the seventies, when high-kicking skills were still a bit more out-of-the-ordinary for brawlers, Norris' films usually felt the need to cook up some vague reason. His “Breaker! Breaker!” trucker practiced martial arts for discipline while his “Good Guys Wear Black” hero was former special forces. His next movie, “A Force of One,” explicitly makes his character a professional kickboxer who owns a dojo. Much like his previous work for American Cinema Productions, “A Force of One” would inexplicably attract a high-profile writer to pen this low budget punching-and-kicking movie. In this case it was Ernest Tidyman, the crime reporter and novelist who wrote “Shaft” and “High Plains Drifter.” Tidyman would be nominated for an Oscar for “The French Connection” but his presence on a standard potboiler is easy to explain, as the author flatly admitted he “wrote for money.” Either way, Tidyman must've figured that a Chuck Norris hero being an experienced kick-fighter was the easiest way to incorporate that necessary element. 

It's Christmas time in California but the local cops are not having a holly jolly holiday. They are more concerned about a snow of a decidedly non-festive variety hitting the streets. Yes, drugs have flooded our dear city. Worst yet, the local kingpin has apparently hired a karate expert to protect his operation. Two cops are punched and choked to death. Officer Mandy Rust theorizes that only an experienced martial artist could pull off such blows and decides to look into the local scene. That brings her to Matt Logan, a pro-fighter who runs a gym. Logan is invited to train the whole police force in karate. Logan's ex-girlfriend died of a drug overdose and he adopted her son, Charlie, meaning he has a personal investment in stopping the smugglers. When more cops are murdered while hunting down the drug operation, Logan becomes a target of the karate killer too. His involvement is about to get a whole lot more personal too. 

Ted Post, “Good Guys Wear Black's” director, was originally going to helm “A Force of One” but dropped out before filming started. The relatively inexperienced Paul Aaron would take his place, a guy who went on to make several TV movies. That's exactly what “A Force of One” feels like. The unambitious cinematography and story of plainclothes cops tracking down leads makes this feel a bit like an episode of “Hill Street Blues” with Special Guest Star Chuck Norris. As somebody fond of old television, this actually doesn't bother me. The scenes of Chuck hanging out with his adopted son and secretary, exchanging banter while he chuckles from his weight bench, are amusing. As are moments when he's training kids or when two of the goofier officers are acting as comic relief. On the other hand, the fight scenes being emphasized by dorky slow-motion or the car chases being framed in flat medium shots remind me of seventies television in a bad way. Aaron would not direct too many fight movies after this, unsurprisingly. 

“A Force of One” feels like a TV show in its incredibly corny moral too. The Just Say No era was not upon America yet but the War on Drugs was well underway. The film is melodramatically fixated on this point. Officer Rust shows Logan a teenage girl with track marks on her arms with a dealer boyfriend. After the cops show him all the contraband they've taken off the streets, Logan has an enraged flashback while beating on a speed bag. The thought of drugs circulating among the youths angers him so much, he becomes bathed in sweat in seemingly a few seconds. Combined with his weepy back story and how much the thought of kids getting hooked infuriates him, I was immediately reminded of “Black Dynamite” and “Disco Godfather.” Yes, angel dust is among the illegal substances being distributed. The film doesn't consider the proliferation of addictive drugs in cities merely a social ill with many complicated moral questions around it. It reacts with abject horror, in a way that can only read as camp to modern eyes. 

The title of “A Force of One” presumably refers to how Logan is such a master of physical combat that he can substitute for the entire police force he's training. When the drug runners take the life of someone he cares for once again, I was fully expecting him to go full vigilante on the crooks. That does not happen. In fact, Chuck disappears from the movie for a surprisingly long stretch, not appearing again until kickboxing weaves its way back into the plot. This is probably when you notice that Mr. Norris is actually second-billed in “A Force of One.” Jennifer O'Neill, who I recognize from “Scanners” and Lucio Fulci's “The Psychic,” is technically the main star. She's a likable enough presence and I do think she has better chemistry with Norris than his past leading ladies. However, when her sleuthing takes center stage in the second half, the film's pacing undeniably slows. In general, there's not nearly enough action here, most of the fisticuffs taking place within the boxing ring. 

O'Neill is not the only recognizable name in the supporting cast. Nor the only one with a name pronounce like that. Ron O'Neal plays one of the cops. If you're tempted to think that Superfly TNT has switched from dealing dope to fighting it, well, just keep watching the movie. O'Neal gets some decent moments, managing to generate some suspense with just a look or nod. Clu Gallagher also shows up as the police chief, bringing the exact level of crusty charisma you expect from him. Not-so-experienced an actor is Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. He plays the other most prominent fighter in the film, making his eventual role easy enough to guess. Wallace, a pro kickboxer obviously, was making his screen debut here. Amusingly, he is clearly not an actor. His big puppy dog eyes and perpetually doofy expression do not make for an intimidating villain but that kind of adds to the movie's charm.

Also, you partially see a movie theater marquee advertising “Message from Space” in the background of one scene. I liked that. I also got a laugh out of the super abrupt ending, the film going to credits right after its villain is dispatched. That too feels like something a TV episode, squeezed into an hour time slot, would do. (That Norris and his co-star are then forced to awkwardly maintain a pose all throughout the credits also made me chuckle.) “A Force of One” probably isn't very good. Like too many of Norris' early movies, it limits his on-screen abilities as a fighter. The plot is nothing special, the production values are fairly minimal, and it's likely to leave your memory right after you finish watching it. However, it is worth it for that angry speed bag montage. [6/10]

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: Good Guys Wear Black (1978)

 

In 1977, Chuck Norris' career was at a turning point. Kickboxing champ Benny “The Jet” Urquidez – who would later have a memorable bout with Jackie Chan in “Wheels on Meals” – reached out to him about starting a new professional fighting league. At the same time, “Breaker! Breaker!” was about to come out and potentially launch a proper film career for Norris. Obviously, Chuck went with the latter option and he pursued it seriously. He had a hand in conceiving the story for his next movie, “Good Guys Wear Black.” He sought out producers for the film personally, banking on his karate cred. When a distributor couldn't be secured, the producers four-walled the movie themselves and Chuck promoted it heavily. The strategy worked. The film grossed 18 million against its small budget and set Chuck up for a very busy eighties. A perhaps more important question remains though: Is the movie any good? 

During the waning days of the Vietnam War, John T. Booker would lead a team of CIA-backed commandos known as the Black Tigers. Their final mission was to go behind enemy lines and bust American POWs out of a prison camp. The mission goes badly, all but four members of the team are killed, and no helicopter arrives to pull Booker and the boys out. This was the work of Senator Conrad Morgan, part of a sketchy negotiation to end the war. Five years later, Booker and the other guys are in the U.S. and trying to move on with their lives. A female reporter named Margaret reaches out to him and clearly has secret information about the Black Tigers and their botched mission. At the same time, someone is hunting down and killing the remaining members of Booker's team. He sets out on a journey across the U.S., uncertain of Margaret's loyalties but keeping her close-by, and tries to rescue his teammates before the killer finds them.

Looking at how the American mass consciousness processed the Vietnam War through our pulpiest pulp fiction is fascinating. By the time “Rambo: First Blood Part II” had come out in 1985, the narrative that neither the American armed forces nor capitalism were beaten but were instead let down by politicians in D.C. was firmly established. The war had only been over for five years by the time “Good Guys Wear Black” came out but it features almost this same attitude. The machine gun wielding soldiers sent overseas to kill, who did so without question, certainly weren't wrong. They're heroes, by gum! Instead, they were failed by a deliberate conspiracy within Washington to get the war over with, who only cared about their own popularity and power and not the lives lost. Chuck's character is a political science professor in his day job and admits during a lecture that the war in Vietnam was a mistake, that the U.S. never should've been involved. This feels like a weird half-way point to the Reagan era's full-bore revisionism, when brawny super-soldiers were allowed to retroactively win the war. It's a half-hearted admission that, yes, the Vietnam War was wrong. John T. Booker and his team of black-clad super secret assassins are the good guys though. The title says so! You can root for him. Don't think about what the CIA was doing in Vietnam. 

Despite possibly containing some insight into how All-American types compartmentalized the Vietnam War, “Good Guys Wear Black” unfortunately is not actually about that. It simply uses the war as background for its hero and villain, as a motivating factor for why Chuck Norris is awesome and why somebody wants him and his buddies dead. Instead, the film is trying to be a conspiracy thriller of sorts. It has Booker traveling the country, looking over his shoulders for possible attackers, being paranoid at airports and in parking lots. There are repeated scenes of Booker being met by Lloyd Haynes in offices, while the latter stares at terse read-outs on computer screens. While the film is clearly trying to build tension over who is doing these killings and why, any suspense is wasted by the very first scene. That depicts Senator Morgan explaining his plan to screw over the Black Tigers and his reasoning why. Kind of deludes the mystery when the movie informs us right from the get-go who ordered the screw job and why!

On one level, I suspect screenwriters Bruce Cohn and Mark Medoff – the esteemed playwright of “When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?” and “Children of a Lesser God,” who must've needed a paycheck – were aware that the film shoots itself in the foot from the get-go. There is an attempt to create tension with another story element. When Anne Archer first meets Chuck, she immediately begins asking him about the black ops. shit he did during the war. That is clearly suspicious and Booker is rightly uncertain of her loyalties. (Though not, in the proud tradition of James Bond, enough to turn down sleeping with her.) This angle is repeatedly brought up by Norris sneering at Archer about who she is and what she actually wants. That's some weird spy movie version of your classical romantic subplot, built on whether these two will end up together. With the question of “they might not,” being followed by “because she's a CIA spook out to kill him.” While Chuck was not without his charms, they are not on-display here. He has little chemistry with Archer, the romance never materializing over the improbability of these two having much interaction at all. I feel like a former special forces guy would not humor any questions about his secret missions, not even from an attractive woman. 

While Norris himself was a driving force on “Good Guys Wear Black,” the film seems to misunderstand his appeal some. Out of everything I've mentioned in this review, have you noticed what hasn't come up much? The kicking and the punching, what we're here to see this karate champ do. “Good Guys Wear Black” does have some strong action scenes. There's a decent fight outside an airport and another that ends with Chuck jump kicking through a car's windshield, probably the highlight of the entire film. Aside from a overly dark opening raid in Vietnam, a punch isn't thrown until an hour into the movie though. The climax is not a one-and-one fight between the hero and villain but instead a terse conversation in a car. I'm sure Norris was eager to prove he could do more than just fight but “Good Guys Wear Black” deliberately turning away from his strengths is a baffling choice.

While “Good Guys Wear Black” is disappointingly short on fisticuffs, it does have a weirdly stacked cast of recognizable character actors. Haynes brings some mild authority to a thankless part. Dana Andrews pops in as a foppish government director who goes out in a silk bathrobe while swilling Scotch. Maybe the most unexpected name in the credits is Jim Backus, Mr. Howell himself, who gets surprisingly high billing despite playing a comedic hotel doorman in one sequence. Another former Bruce Lee co-star, James Franciscus, plays the scheming senator. He does fine in the role, better than he did filling in Charlton Heston in director Ted Post's earlier “Beneath the Planet of the Apes.” Little of the eccentricity of that film or “The Baby” are on display here, the action scenes being flatly shot and most of the movie looking like a TV cop drama. Though this is the second Chuck Norris movie in a row to feature a Faulkerian man-child, which is unexpected. Weirdly, he's one of the Black Tigers, which seems to say something about the CIA's qualifications for a black operations team. “Good Guys Wear Black” made money and Chuck credits this one for truly launching his career but I found it to be a misconceived snooze. [5/10]

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 4 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy's Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: Breaker! Breaker! (1977)

If you are reading these words, I probably don't have to explain any of the following. Indulge me, please: Rising oil prices in the seventies led to the U.S. government enforcing a national speed limit of 55 miles-per-hour. This was very unpopular with long haul truckers, under strict deadlines to make big deliveries. The drivers would employ citizen band radio to inform each other of where to find the best prices, how to avoid the highway patrol, and other such things truckers would need to know. Rather unexpectedly, this would make truck drivers, of all professions, cool. These blue collar workers were now anti-establishment types, sticking it to the man and fighting the powers that be. Or maybe it was just because of the goofy trucker's slang used over CB air waves, full of baffling jargon specifically designed to confuse authorities, began to penetrate into the wider culture. It then, essentially, became the seventies version of a modern meme. Today, the kids say “Six seven!” Fifty years ago, they said “Ten four!” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Also much like today, the ever opportunistic entertainment industry figured they could make a little money off the latest stupid fad. The pioneer of this new trucker-sploitation movement was a very silly, very catchy song performed by the mascot from a series of bread commercials. A blockbuster film franchise and a semi-popular TV show would follow in C.W. McCall's exhaust. However, plenty of low budget also-rans and sleazy knock-offs were also there to feed America's newfound appetite for big rigs. Filmmakers already catering to drive-in audiences with B-movies about rednecks and good ol' boys were more than happy to include a truck or two to take advantage of what was hot at the moment. 

Enter: Chuck Norris. The karate pro would claim, years later, that he had been offered other martial arts movies since getting kicked in the face by Bruce Lee. He turned them all down because, quote, he "wanted to do films that had a story and where the action would take place when it is emotionally right." Surely, the directorial debut of the composer of "They Saved Hitler's Brain!" would provide the kind of story-driven, emotionally nuanced film making Chuck was looking for with his star debut. Whatever the reason behind its production, "Breaker! Breaker!" would roll out into theaters two months before "Smokey and the Bandits" went into wide release. It was the right time and place, the low budget flick making a sturdy little profit and proving that Chuck could carry a whole motion picture on his burly, hairy shoulders.

When not practicing meditation, getting into bar room brawls, or perfecting that sweet Laurel canyon sound, J.D. Dawes is a truck driver by trade. He loans his little brother, Billy, his truck and lets him have a go at the family business. Billy is led by a deceptive C.B. broadcast into the obscure town of Texas City, California. Ruled over by the eccentric Judge Trimmings, whose maniacal whims are enforced by an alcoholic town sheriff, the village extorts and harasses any villages that pass through its boundaries. When Billy tries to escape, he's held captive. J.D. heads out in his van with a bitchin' eagle painted on the side in search of his brother. He tracks the trail to Texas City, where a local shoots the tires out of his vehicle. On his quest to rescue his brother, J.D. uncovers the criminal activities the town authorities are running and seeks to free those forced to live under their rule with all the spin punches and high kicks he can muster.

While “Breaker! Breaker!” was obviously trying to capitalize on the seventies trucker fad, the film is actually a weird-ass fusion of several different genres that were prominent in grindhouses and drive-ins. The film is set mostly in California. However, the sweaty faces, greasy overalls, poor dental hygiene, and exaggerated accents of the locals bring the deep south to mind. The antagonistic residents of Texas City – which, aside from the judge and the cop, include a wild-eyed mechanic swinging a tire iron – are clearly cut from the same cloth as the bucktoothed, inbred attackers of “Deliverance” and its many imitators. The narrative, of civilized outsiders stumbling into some savage hick town, brings these kind of killer redneck stories to mind. 

However, these kind of good ol' boys are also the heroes of the story. J.D. also meets an ambiguously mentally disabled younger brother of one of the locals, who also speaks with a stutter and is extremely friendly in that childish manner that typically characterizes patronizing depictions such as these. JD also shacks up with a local single mom. An earlier scene has our hero playfully participating in bar room brawls and getting pointers from his wild-eyed, cowboy hat wearing pal. (Played by none other than Jack Nance!) In its last half-hour, “Breaker! Breaker!” remembers its supposed to be a trucker movie. J.D. calls in his long-haulin' friends to smash their 18-wheelers through the buildings, vehicles, and armaments of Texas City's corrupt authorities. It's a joyful explosion of mayhem, scored to hillbilly banjo music and the inanest of inane C.B. radio chatter. This inexplicably makes “Breaker! Breaker!” both flavors of hicksploitation, in which the simple country folk are both hostile freaks attacking outsiders and underclass anti-heroes striking back at the cops, lawmen, and all other enforcers of the system that oppress them. 

This does not represent the end of “Breaker! Breaker!'s” eccentric mixing of genres. Judge Trimmings dresses like Boss Hogg but behaves almost like a cult leader, enrapturing his followers with his words and shouting condemnation at his enemies. You wouldn't have to change much to turn this into a horror movie, of weirdo backwoods rednecks sacrificing outsiders unlucky enough to stumble into their territory. Obviously, the story of a lone hero wandering into a beleaguered town to clear out the corrupt boss in control recalls “A Fistful of Dollars.” The climax even zooms in on Chuck's eyes, like he's in a Sergio Leone movie. Said climax is also a one-on-one showdown between the hero and villain, with roundhouse kicks and a broken liquor bottle standing in for six-shooters. This also draws attention to how the ramshackle wooden sets look like a western ghost back lot. 

That final fight, by the way, ends with a freeze frame of a horse leaping over a face. It is a melodramatically shot moment, that seemingly has little connection to both this specific scene and the movie around it. Which points towards the most endearing thing about “Breaker, Breaker!” It's fucking goofy. Trimmings is played by experienced character actor George Murdock, who invests the villain with far more sinister intent and diabolic style than the material called for. He also randomly quotes Shakespeare and seems to be having some sort of puppet-based romantic role play with a doll-obsessed woman in town. This plays out against ridiculous images like Chuck's shaggin' wagon, a number of underwhelmingly choreographed vehicle chases, or a random redneck emerging to fight Chuck with a pitch fork. The film somehow manages to repeatedly top itself in terms of silly bullshit and I, for one, welcome that. 

The one thing “Breaker! Breaker!” never quite feels like is a martial arts movie, perhaps solidifying Norris' claim that he chose the project because it wasn't a mindless fight flick. Don't think that means there aren't plenty of high kicks and punches here. The script seems to inject an excuse for Chuck to fight some guys about every fifteen minutes, no matter how out-of-place it might seem. This builds to a joyously silly extended sequence midway through the film, where Norris battles his way through a succession of rednecks after the other. Though this was only his first starring role, J.D. Dawes does seem to be the prototypical Chuck Norris hero in many ways. He's a soft-spoken guy who is seemingly found by violent circumstances, rather than seeking them out. Though Chuck never puts on a cowboy hat or boots, his character undeniably has that kind of rustic, western hero energy. This stands at odds with his embracing of Asian mysticism. In fact, the character seems to be teaching zen yoga techniques to some of the random rednecks he meets at a truck stop before using his meditation skills to, seemingly, heal a wound later in the film. He's a cowboy, a karate master, a mystic and a warrior monk all at once.

He's also, like many heroes played by Norris and others, kind of gay. J.D. gets a female love interest and an implied romantic night with her, sure. At the same time, his need to find his little brother is what motivates the entire plot. To the point that he has traumatic nightmares about losing the boy. When he finally does rescue Billy, he softly caresses the kid's face before pulling him into an embrace I thought for sure was going to turn into a kiss. The bond between the two is also introduced with some on-the-ground, in-the-dirt roughhousing, that ends with both of their blue jean clad asses up in the air. Maybe these two are brothers in more of a communal sense, if you get my meaning. That's when you notice the contrast between muscular, hirsute Norris and the smaller, skinnier, hairless Terry O'Conner as the brother, making me wonder how in on the joke the producers were. Who knows what kind of stuff two strapping bucks might get up to during those long, lonely nights on the road? 

In other words, I went into “Breaker! Breaker!” expecting a standard seventies redneck car chase movie that starred Cordell Walker in the fetal stages of his career. Basically, “Convoy” but with Chuck Norris kicking people intermittently inserted. While that isn't an entirely inaccurate description of the film, it's also much wackier than I expected. This is the kind of fast and loose B-movie the seventies ran on, where the audience never misses the feeling that the filmmakers would randomly make up a new set piece every day. I mean that as a compliment, as it lends the motion picture a giddy, unhinged quality that makes it ridiculously entertaining for its entire runtime. The MST3k boys riffed on it recently for a RiffTrax special but I honestly can't imagine the film being funnier or sillier than it already is. In other words, quality drive-in entertainment. Zack says check it out. [9/10]

 

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5]
[] Facial Hair
[X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy’s Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

 

CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: Yellow-Faced Tiger (1974)

Bruce Lee's unexpected death in 1973 would leave a number of his proposed projects unrealized. The most well-known is probably his TV martial arts western that may or may not have morphed into “Kung Fu.” The most notorious is the partially filmed “Game of Death,” which later emerged as a widely loathed hodgepodge. Unlikely to be mentioned is a project Lee supposedly intended to star in for Lo Wei, his “The Big Boss/Fists of Fury” director. “Yellow-Faced Tiger” was to be about a jaundiced martial arts master. It would eventually be filmed as “The Man Called Tiger” with Jimmy Wang Yu in the starring role. That original title, however, would later be reused for a different project of Wei's. Starring the much less famous Wong Tao, 1974's “Yellow-Faced Tiger” furthered the Lee connection by emulating “Way of the Dragon” and casting Chuck Norris as the bad guy. The movie remained in obscurity until the early eighties, after Mr. Norris had been established as a box office attraction in his own right. A U.S. distributor scooped it up, dubbed it, cut out twenty minutes, re-titled the film “Slaughter in San Francisco,” and stuck Chuck's name above the title. The movie immediately fell back into obscurity after that, subsequent VHS releases furthering the misleading claim that this was a lost Chuck Norris vehicle. Cult movie nerds, however, rarely forget. Recently, Eureka Films would give it a Blu-Ray that includes both the original “Yellow-Faced Tiger” cut alongside the abbreviated American edit.

Wong stars as Wong, a Chinese man born in Korea and raised in the United States. He is a cop and close with his partner, John, the two fighting crime with their mutual kung-fu skills. An attempted arrest results in John being beaten by thugs on the beach, Wong killing one of the attackers to save his friend. He is arrested and his badge taken away. Years later, Wong and John remain good friends. After witnessing a bank robbery, John is pursued into the backyard of the Chus, where he's killed. The crooked police chief assumes the Chus are connected and locks them up. Looking to avenge his friend and protect the innocent Chinese family, Wong starts to investigate the crime. He uncovers a web of corruption involving the San Francisco police force that leads all the way to the city's most powerful drug lord.

Depending on one's perspective, “Yellow-Faced Tiger” represents either an interesting melding of a few different cinematic styles or a desperate chasing of several trends at the same time. Setting a kung-fu movie in San Francisco, right away, shows an intent to have a more international appeal than most Golden Harvest productions. Teaming up Wong with the afro-ed Robert Jones was clearly an emulation of Jim Kelly in "Enter the Dragon," speaking to the crossover in audiences between kung-fu flicks and blaxploition movies. This is also rather evident in the film's funky soundtrack, heavy on the groovy bass and rolling rhythm. The choice in setting was possibly influenced by "Dirty Harry" as well, another film about a vigilante cop. That aligns "Yellow-Faced Tiger" with the noir genre a little bit. That connection is most visible in the movie featuring a few too many story lines on the hero's way to confronting the bad guy. The corrupt police chief, a time skip, references to drug running, and the subplot about an innocent family and their imperiled lawyer feel like attempts to put more narrative meat on the script's bones. While it is interesting to see how the film blends various elements that were floating around in pop culture in 1974, it's not the most successful fusion. John's story line never feels fully formed, the conspiracy is underwritten, and the legal subplot drags the pacing down. 

Many a fight movie has overcome a shaky script thanks to the quality of its action and its star's charisma. Don Wong Tao doesn't have the magnetic physicality or charm of Bruce Lee, who he is clearly called upon to imitate a few times. However, he's not bad either. He does a lot with an angry glare, conveying the hero's outrage at injustices going unpunished. He can't be as funny as the script needs him to be when shaking down witnesses but he otherwise does okay. He's also a competent fighter and the action in "Yellow-Faced Tiger" is solid throughout. His moves are fast and acrobatic. This really peaks during the last act, when Wong finally confronts the bad guy at his base of operations. There's an impressive mid-air double kick, a shovel being used as a melee weapon, a thug being kicked head over heels, and a few well done suplexes. While the final fight with Norris features a few awkward steps around a fountain, it still makes for a satisfyingly drawn out showdown. 

And what of Chuck? The "Slaughter in San Francisco" cut renames his character Chuck Slaughter while the original version only refers to him as "The Boss." Amusingly, some prints seem to credit Norris as himself, giving the impression that the karate champ had a side gig as a West Coast drug kingpin. He doesn't appear until over an hour into the movie and doesn't actually fight anyone until the finale, save for some random sparring practice. When asked to smirk wickedly behind big sunglasses, put a cigar out on a waiter's hand, or  make offers you shouldn't refuse, Norris does not seem that confident. The Boss' villainous attributes are more informed than detailed. However, a sequence where he unsuccessfully attempts to assault the female lead clarifies that this character is a real scumbag and not only one by reputation. There is indeed some novelty in seeing Chuck play a cocky rich bastard with no redeemable qualities. When operating as a physical force against the hero, he manages to be intimidating. I'd go so far as to say he does more actual acting here than he did in "Way of the Dragon," a role that didn't ask him to do much more than fight. 

The more widely available "Slaughter in San Francisco" largely excises the subplot concerning the Chu family and their attempts to defend themselves against a crooked system. This also links the movie to Bruce Lee's work, by adding an element of Chinese people and Chinese-Americans as social outsiders in a racist city. A local committee in Chinatown has to pool their resources to fund the Chu's defense team and the lawyer meets an unfortunate end as part of an organized cover-up. An innocent Asian family being accused by a white cop of being involved in an unrelated crime is clearly meant to comment on how the system protects the wealthy and persecutes the powerless, like racial minorities. The elder Chu tries to bribe the cop at first, knowing these guys only respect money but is still punished for not doing things the "right" way. This bends towards an unavoidable A.C.A.B. subtext. Wong is kicked off the force, turning in his badge, and that is when he really begins to protect the innocent and fight crime. The idea seems to be that true justice can not be served by an unjust system. Unfortunately, "Yellow-Faced Tiger" backs away suddenly and awkwardly from any bolder themes in its last act. The dirty chief is imprisoned, a good man takes his job. The cops arrive to restore order at the end, Wong being reinstated treated like a triumphant victory. It's a bummer that the movie takes aim at the status quo at first before seemingly changing its mind and deciding that the status quo is actually great at the end. 

Perhaps this last minute backtracking on the powers that be is an indicator of the time "Yellow-Faced Tiger" was made. Other indicators of that include everything else about the movie, most noticeably it's fashion, music, and interior designs. Which makes it pretty funny that, at the start of the eighties, some producers tried to sell this as a brand new movie. (Also, the subtitles show Wong referring to John as "Blackie," which definitely suggests to me that no Americans were involved in the writing of the dialogue.) The "Slaughter in San Francisco" cut is badly dubbed and I would recommend the original version if you get a chance to see it. I don't know how successful the film was in Asia. Don Wong Tao got top billing in a few other martial arts movies, mostly made in Taiwan, but his career doesn't seem like it took off to the degree that many of his contemporaries did. Clearly, it didn't do much for Chuck Norris' career either. However, taken on its own merits, it's a not-bad fight flick with some interesting elements to it. [6/10]

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5]
[X] Facial Hair
[] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy’s Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

CHUCK'S ROUNDHOUSE: The Way of the Dragon (1972)

The cultural legacy left behind by Carlos Ray Norris, far better known as Chuck Norris, is a varied one. Within the world of professional competitive martial arts, he was a respected elder statesman. Experts in such matters seems to be regard him as actually a good fighter. For those within cult movie circles, he was the second of Cannon Films' go-to action stars, the bridge between the classic Americana school of stoic masculinity represented by Charles Bronson to the waxed and glowing karate camp of Jean-Claude Van Damme. For people who grew up watching too much television in the nineties, he might be a source of fleeting nostalgia as the star of an inexplicably long-running, cheesy cop show and endless Total Gym infomercials. 

Those a little younger than that probably best know him as an internet meme. Chuck Norris' later fame became inseparable from the farcical “Chuck Norris facts.” These exaggerated claims of bad-assery expanded so far outside of their target audience of irony-poisoned message board dwellers that most people don't seem to know that the joke was originally that everyone thought Chuck Norris was a ridiculous figure. He was so worthy of mockery and scorn that suggesting he could do anything as cool as what he did in his movies was a source of laughter. How soon we forget the Walker, Texas Ranger lever. The late Mr. Norris would mostly use that resurgence to express support for his shitty political and religious beliefs, cutting multiple ads endorsing Mike Huckabee for president. Which did very little to dissuade the notion that we should only be laughing at this clown, not celebrating him. 

But to me, he was always Dad. I mean, not really. However, my mom's taste in guys tended towards burly mountain man types, meaning Chuck Norris was her most prominent movie star crush for many years. I attribute this to her having access to HBO in the mid-eighties when she was single and lonely. While not usually a fan of cheesy shoot-em-up flicks, she had a fondness for his films because of his hairy-chested macho appeal and a slight willingness to make fun of himself from time to time. This led to many light-hearted jokes about how Chuck was my “real father” and how, surely, any day now would be returning to claim me. Alas, I don't think that's gonna happen now, ma! What this really meant is I grew up with the roundhouse kicking star being an unusually common presence in my childhood. All of which is to say that I have a fondness for the work of Mr. Norris that extends beyond just being a fan of eighties action schlock and watching people get kicked, sometimes through windows. 

I haven't done one of these action star retrospectives in, uhh, about nine years but I always had a really good time with them. Chuck has been on my list of careers to do a proper retrospective of since the beginning. Once you start watching through every movie one of the “Expendables” guys has made, you kind of have to watch all of them. Obviously, with his recent passing, now would be the best time to pay tribute to whatever merits Mr. Norris had as a performer, a screen presence, and a kicker of men. Like I have done in the past, I am ripping off my buddies at All Outta Bubble Gum. When writing about Norris' movies, they would sometimes include a list of trademarks Chuck often does in his movie. I'll be doing this too, so I'll be watching out for these tropes as I work my way through four decades of this guy.

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS]
[] Facial Hair
[] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy’s Face
[] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup

I don't know how much of “Walker, Texas Ranger” or “Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos” I'll be watching for this. Depends on how bored I get, I guess. Anyway, let's put on your action jeans and get kickin'. 

 

 

Of all the iconic faces and names in cinema, few have been as mythologized as Bruce Lee. In addition to being the most beloved and imitated martial artists of all time, he was a philosopher, a poet, a teacher, a roof top brawler against punk-ass Triad kids. Lee's screen presence and style was such that every movie he starred in essentially belonged to him. However, Bruce only officially directed two films and only completed one within his life time: Known in its native language as “Ferocious Dragon Crosses the River,” released in the U.S. after Lee's passing as “Return of the Dragon” and today best known as “The Way of the Dragon.” The film's overseas setting would show Lee's commitment to his belief that martial arts could have a place in any culture. To further that idea, he would cast an American karate champ he befriended as the movie's final boss, inadvertently launching another star's career along the way. 

Lee wrote the script for “Way of the Dragon” too and you can tell he didn't want to complicate matters too much for his directorial debut. It's a simple story. Tang Lung arrives in Rome, at the behest of Chen Ching-hua and her uncle Wang. Their Chinese restaurant has come under fire from local gangsters, who desperately want the land the building resides on for otherwise undisclosed reasons. The co-workers are skeptical of this “Chinese boxer's” prowess at first until he shows off his considerable skill by fighting off the mob enforcers. This infuriates the local boss, who sends more thugs, assassins, and bribes to get Tang out of the picture. When the martial artist continues to fight off their attempts, the gangster call in an American karate expert named Colt to escalate matters. The two men end up fighting to the death within the Coliseum, the entire reason, one suspects, the film was set in Rome in the first place. 

In addition to its standard “fighting to protect somebody's business from the mob” plot, “Way of the Dragon” is generally light-hearted in its approach. Lee introduces himself by gulping down four giant bowls of soup. This proceeds multiple moments where Tang Lung has to use the bathroom. The supporting characters are flatly ridiculous all around. There's a flamboyant, swishy Chinese middle man working for the baddies. Most of the other guys in the restaurant provide further comic relief. No attempt is made to flesh out the characters beyond their roles in the simple story. Chen not even getting enough distinction to classify as a damsel in distress. An attempt to add a little variety to the plot via a last minute betrayal doesn't quite land because the cast is so thinly sketched. 

As a visual storyteller, Lee does not exactly distinguish himself with “Way of the Dragon” either. The camera movement is sometimes shaky. The editing is occasionally choppy. Even when watching the meticulously restored Blu-Ray release, a few moments are a bit dimly lit. The non-fisticuffs scenes tend to drag a bit, the movie feeling rather slow at times. If not for the presence of, oh, the greatest martial arts star of all time, “Way of the Dragon” would probably be a pretty forgettable motion picture. Of course, Lee designs the film around his abilities as a fighter and star. That makes all the difference. His physicality, a wag of his finger, a sideways glance, is enough to intimidate his opponents. A sequence of Lee disrobing and stretching is enough to convey his superhuman fighting skill, to make him seem like a massive man on-screen. And once the punches start flying, “Way of the Dragon” becomes pretty damn impressive. To quote a man far wiser than myself, those cats really were fast as lightning. 

The sequences devoted to Lee kicking a sparring partner into a wall of boxes, fighting off a crowd with swirling nunchakus, or turning a simple mop handle into a powerful weapon hit with a quickness and power that would become the blue print for a thousand fight movies after this. That's where “Way of the Dragon” shines. I'm no Lee scholar but I know that fighting was more than just roughhousing for the star. You can see his philosophy expressing itself through these fight scenes. Strictly through body language, Lee expresses his Style of No Style, mixing different techniques and fast foot work to catch his enemy off-guard. The final bout with Chuck Norris is inter-cut with an innocent kitten watching, a placid contrast to the violent acts. Upon brutally dispatching his opponent, Bruce covers the corpse and prayers over it. There's a sense throughout that the film's heroes use violence largely as a defensive reaction to the more predatory forces against them.  

Why Uncle Wang's restaurant is so valuable isn't important. That the Chinese family are outsiders in this European land, however, is much more pointed. Lee faced discrimination both in Hong Kong and aboard for his mixed heritage. This theme informed “Fists of Fury” and reoccurs here as well, the foreigners persecuted by the locals simply for the crime of being outsiders. The contrast between the different schools of martial arts – especially Japanese karate against so-called “Chinese boxing” – is repeatedly referenced. When presented with the ruins of the ancient city, Wang Tung points out that it reminds him of the slums back home. Later, he's visibly unimpressed with Roman architecture. Lee's ego is almost as legendary as his fighting skills and it's difficult not to sniff that out here, in a story of Bruce single-handedly proving his mastery over everyone else around him. The final scene presents Tang as a mythic wanderer, going where ever he is needed to right wrongs. However, “The Way of the Dragon” also represents a cultural outsider standing up to the homogeneity of the land. No wonder these movies were so popular with urban black cultures in the seventies, despite the sole black character being a cartoonish bad guy.

I don't think I'm making any observations here that haven't been previously made a hundred times. One assumes that the relative small size of Lee's output, when compared to its massive influence, makes these the most studied and overturned of any kung-fu movies. “Way of the Dragon” is a sluggish, fairly goofy movie except for when the fists start to fly, at which point it becomes electrifying. Lee's titanic presence is unmistakable and his charisma could not be chained by shadowy direction or mediocre dubbing. As the world's introduction to Chuck Norris, “Way of the Dragon” is also pretty interesting. That final fight is legendary for good reason, the bodies in movement being almost poetic before the killing blows become brutal. While Chuck doesn't have much to do besides glower and kick – he doesn't show up until the movie is nearly over – the fact that he makes an impression in Lee's own movie is a feat on its own. [7/10]
 

[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 2 outta 5]
[] Facial Hair
[] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall
[X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy’s Face
[X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest
[] Sports Some Cowboy Getup