User:FrostFairBlade/sandbox/Fist of Fury

This page is about the 1972 film. For other uses, see FrostFairBlade/sandbox/Fist of Fury (disambiguation).

Fist of Fury (Chinese: 精武門), also known as The Chinese Connection, is a 1972 Hong Kong action martial arts film written and directed by Lo Wei, produced by Raymond Chow, and starring Bruce Lee in his second major role after The Big Boss (1971). Lee, who was also the film's action choreographer, plays Chen Zhen, a student of Huo Yuanjia, who fights to defend the honor of the Chinese in the face of foreign aggression, and to bring to justice those responsible for his master's death.

The film was produced by the Golden Harvest film production company, still in its infancy at the time, and it was Lee's second kung fu film. The film touched on sensitive issues surrounding Japanese colonialism, and featured fairly realistic fight choreography for its time. It differs from other films in the genre for its historical and social references, especially to Japanese imperialism.

The film grossed an estimated US$100 million worldwide (equivalent to over $700 million adjusted for inflation), against a budget of $100,000. It was the highest-grossing Hong Kong film up until Lee's The Way of the Dragon (1972).

Plot

In the early 20th century, kung fu student Chen Zhen returns to Jingwu School in Shanghai. He is devastated to learn that his shifu, Huo Yuanjia, has died from an alleged illness. During the funeral, the Jingwu students are taunted by two members of a Japanese dojo run by Hiroshi Suzuki. The dojo members, along with their Chinese-born translator Wu En, present the school a sign bearing the words "Sick Man of East Asia" on it. One of Suzuki's protégés dares the Jingwu students to fight him, declaring that he will "eat those words" if successfully beaten.

To avenge his school, Chen travels to the dojo in Hongkou District alone, single-handedly beating everyone there. He coerces the two instigators to literally eat their words by force-feeding them paper from the ripped-up sign. After leaving the dojo, Chen is then racially discriminated against when trying to enter a public park. He beats up a few Japanese men harassing him, then destroys a park sign forbidding Chinese people from entering with one kick. On Suzuki's orders, the Japanese dojo students attack Jingwu School, causing injuries and significant property damage. Wu warns the Jingwu students to hand over Chen in three days, or risk getting arrested and their school shut down. Chen returns and realizes he has caused big trouble for his school, but the Jingwu students refuse to hand him over, making plans to help Chen escape from Shanghai via train.

That night, Chen overhears a conversation between Jingwu's cook, Tian, and the caretaker, Feng Guishi. He learns that Huo had been poisoned by Tian, who secretly is Yoshida's brother. Chen confronts and kills both of them; he then hangs their bodies from a lamppost. Suzuki forces the local policeman, Inspector Lo, to arrest Chen, but he eludes them. While Suzuki is entertaining his visiting friend Petrov, Chen kills Wu and hangs his body from the lamppost as well.

An enraged Suzuki reports Chen to the Japanese consulate. Following the advice of Tian's brother, Suzuki sends his men to Jingwu School to kill everyone inside. That same night, Chen barges into the dojo to take his revenge, killing the students' master present, Yoshida, Petrov, and Suzuki. Chen returns to Jingwu School and finds most from Jingwu School and the Hongkou dojo dead. However, a few Jingwu students—among them Chen's fiancee, Yuan Li'er, Fan Junxia, and Xu—are still alive, as they had also been searching for Chen at the grave site, acting on a tip from Yuan. Inspector Lo arrives at Jingwu to arrest Chen, who agrees to surrender himself to Lo to protect his master's legacy. Lo tells Chen that he can always trust him since he is Chinese. As they exit the school, Chen faces a line of armed Japanese soldiers and officials at the outer gate, all pointing their guns at him. Furious, Chen charges the line and makes a flying kick. The film ends on a freeze-frame shot and the sound of gun shots, implying Chen's death and final sacrifice.

Cast

• Bruce Lee as Chen Zhen: A hot-headed student of famed martial artist Huo Yuanjia
• Nora Miao as Yuan Li'er: Chen Zhen's fiancée (the character's name is never mentioned in the film)
• Riki Hashimoto as Hiroshi Suzuki (鈴木博): The sensei of the Hongkou dojo
• Robert Baker as Petrov (Петров), a Russian gang boss and Suzuki's friend
• Wei Ping-ao as Wu En (胡恩): Suzuki's translator

Fist of Fury also features Fung Ngai (馮毅) as Yoshida (吉田), the head instructor of the dojo; Jun Katsumura (勝村淳) plays Suzuki’s bodyguard. Multiple actors play students at Jingwu School: Tien Feng plays the eldest student, Fan Junxia; James Tien appears the second-eldest, Fan Jiaqi, and Lee Kwan plays Xu, the third-eldest. Maria Yi appears as Yen, a female Jingwu student.

Huang Tsung-hsing and Han Ying-chieh portray employees of Jingwu School: Huang appears as chef Tian, and Han portrays Feng Guishi, the school's caretaker. Director Lo Wei makes a cameo appearance as Inspector Lo.

Production

Conception

• Lee signed a contract with Golden Harvest on 28 June 1971 to make two films
• Prior to the release of his first movie, The Big Boss (1971), Lee wanted to fulfill his contract with Golden Harvest and return to the United States to work on Hollywood projects
• However, on 25 November 1971, Lee received a phone call from Warner Bros. informing him that they were going to greenlight Kung Fu with David Carradine as the lead instead of him, completely rejecting Lee's project The Warrior
• During the production of The Big Boss, Golden Harvest producer Raymond Chow met Lee on-set to figure out the details of the second film in Lee's contract with the studio
• The film's original title was The School for Chivalry, but later renamed to Fist of Fury

Writing

• Writer Ni Kuang is attributed as the writer of the story and creator of the character of Chen Zhen; but like his work on The Big Boss (1971), the writing credit was given to director Lo Wei
• At this point in his career, Ni was a prolific screenwriter for multiple film companies
• According to multiple sources, including professor Dorothy Lau, Chen Zhen was based off of a disciple of Huo Yuanjia named Liu Zhensheng (劉振聲)
• According to biographer Matthew Polly, it was director Lo Wei who initially wrote a rough draft, and that Chow hastily rewrote it after Lee refused to begin production until more details in the script were fleshed out
• The basic story that Lee agreed to do was based on Huo Yuanjia, a martial artist who became a Chinese folk hero after challenging foreign fighters in public matches
• Huo's life was first fictionalised by Pingjiang Buxiaosheng (平江不肖生), the pen name of writer Xiang Kairan (向愷然)
  • Xiang's fictional story, Jianghu qixia zhuang (江湖奇俠傳; 'A Tale of Legendary Heroes in the Chivalric World', 1923), helped proliferate many concepts that would later appear in books and films about Huo, including the idea that he died from foul play by the Japanese
• To avoid retelling the same story, it was decided that the film would focus on the aftermath of Huo's death; as Lee remarked to reporters, "That is more interesting because Huo Yuanjia is sort of limited as a character for a film because you've got to follow how his history goes."

Development and pre-production

• Production work on The Big Boss started with only a basic plot outline; this was similar to what happened with The Big Boss
• A lot of the production budget was spent on designing the two Japanese buildings and the exterior gardens
• The crew spent one week on location at a local park, where gangsters would hound Lo for protection money
• Many of the cast and crew from The Big Boss were brought back for this production
• Han Ying-chieh, The Big Boss' action director who was cast as the main villain, was re-hired as the fight choreographer for Fist of Fury
• While he received many offers from rival production companies, Lee honoured his contract with Golden Harvest; the production company helped move his family into an apartment in the Waterloo area of Kowloon
• Peter Cheung (張耀宗), an editor originally with Cathay Organisation before Golden Harvest bought their film division, was tasked with editing the movie

Casting

• Fist of Fury marked the first time a Hong Kong production cast Japanese actors to play antagonistic roles in an anti-Japanese film
• While the production was delayed, Lee travelled to Tokyo to ask if his idol, Zatoichi star Shintaro Katsu, would be interested in joining the production
  • According to biographer Matthew Polly, Lee additionally wanted to cast Katsu because he wanted to one-up Jimmy Wang Yu, who had appeared with Katsu in Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman (1971) and whom Lee felt was an illegitimate martial artist unworthy of comparison
• Katsu declined due to his contractual obligations, but offered Lee a couple of actors from his acting troupe: former baseball player Chikara Hashimoto, who was cast as the sensei, and Jun Katsumura, a former wrestler who played the sensei's bodyguard
• Nora Miao, who had signed with Golden Harvest a year prior and had acted in The Big Boss, also was cast in Fist of Fury as Lee's love interest
• Miao had appeared in a few notable wuxia films for the company, such as Golden Harvest's inaugural film The Invincible Eight (1971), and had been dubbed the "Princess of Golden Harvest"
• For the role of Petrov, Lee cast non-actor Bob Baker; Baker was one of his students from Oakland, and could withstand being punched

Filming

• Tensions between Lee and Lo worsened throughout the course of production; Lee was frustrated by Lo's lack of attention, whereas Lo wanted to get the film shot quickly
• Filming was completed in six weeks
• The film was made for $100,000
• To avoid the Japanese actors taking offense, the production crew never gave them the script; instead, they were only given basic orders from Lo to "be odious"
• The Japanese actors were appalled by the production conditions; Katsumura recalled that the location was "run-down", and expressed doubt that the film could be shot there
• During a fight scene with Baker, who put Lee in a headlock with his legs, Lee bit Baker for real
• The public park scene was filmed at Luís de Camões Garden in Macau
• The rickshaw scene was also filmed in Macau at Rua de Dom Belchior Carneiro

Music

• Joseph Koo composed the film's music
• The ending song, with a chorus of background singers, describes Chen Zhen's sacrifice as chivalrous

Design

Stunts

• Stunts were added into the film at Lo's insistence
• Stuntman Zebra Pan recalled that while Han Ying-chieh was the main stunt choreographer, he ended up taking Lee's suggestions after seeing Lee's proposed choreography for the opening dojo fight scene; to allow Han to save face, Lee gave the choreographer free rein on action scenes not involving him
• According to Bruce Lee historian Carl Fox, Han initially began choreographing the fight scenes with minimal input from Lee, but was so impressed by Lee's suggestions for the opening dojo fight scene that he deferred to the film star for the rest of filming
• The stunts were performed by a number of stuntmen, including Jackie Chan, who was a stunt double for one of the Japanese fighters, and Yuen Wah, who doubled for Lee
  • Corey Yuen also worked on the film as a stunt double
• Fist of Fury marks the first time that Lee would use his trademark nunchaku on film
  • The nunchaku used on-set were lighter than usual, allowing Lee to spin them faster than usual

Sound

• Lee oversaw the dubbing himself; he was dubbed by voice actor Michael Kaye, who remarked that the film "was the toughest piece of dubbing [he'd] ever done in my entire dubbing career" due to Lee's demands for more passionate vocal takes
• Lee himself did the Cantonese dubbing for Baker's character, Petrov

Release

Box office

• Premiered at the Queen's Theatre in Hong Kong on 22 March 1972
• Fist of Fury struck a chord with the Hong Kong audience, who adored the film's appeal to nationalist sentiments
• Audiences went wild during the scene where Lee's character sternly tells his Japanese opponents that "we are not sick men"
  • They began to excitedly cheer for their onscreen hero, climbing on top of their seats in the theatre to applaud
• Fist of Fury grossed $4,431,423 at the Hong Kong box office
• The film was withdrawn from theatres in Singapore in order for the police to handle the massive crowds that formed to see the movie
• In the Philippines, Fist of Fury was shown in theatres for over six months; it was so popular that government officials had to remove the film in order to give locally-produced films a chance
• Despite the film's anti-Japanese sentiment, it was first shown in Japan on 20 July 1974, a full year after Lee had died, earning ¥600 million
• Contrary to original release order, in Japan the movie was released as the third film (ドラゴン怒りの鉄拳) in a "Dragon" series, after The Way of the Dragon and The Big Boss
• Worried that the film would alienate Japanese audiences, Raymond Chow ordered several changes to be made, such as:
  • Cutting out the scene where a geisha strips during a feast
  • When a Japanese man declares he'll let Chen Zhen into the park if he crawls in like a dog, the Japanese subtitles leave out the implication that the dog belongs to the Japanese empire (e.g. they changed "If you walk like a dog of our Japanese Empire, I'll tak you in [the park]" to just "If you walk like a dog, I'll take you in.")
• National General Pictures distributed Fist of Fury in the United States, releasing it in June 1973
• Seeing the popularity of both films in Asia, American distributors picked up both The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, under the condition that Fist became plural
• However, the labels got switched during shipping, such that in the United States, Fist of Fury is called The Big Boss's American title, The Chinese Connection; this was a reference to The French Connection (1971) in an attempt to associate it with the drug trafficking operations of both films

Reception

Critical response

• A. H. Weiler, The New York Times: "Fist of Fury landed with a bang and quite a few whimpers yesterday at Chinatown's Pagoda Theater to illustrate that some Orientals aren't particularly inscrutable."
  • Noted the simplistic plot
  • Remarked that Lee's performance would satisfy kung fu film fans, stating that he is "decidedly an eye-catching figure"
  • Weiler: "And, while Chinese films are plentiful in Chinatown, the action here is as black-and-white and as pleasantly, if naively, diverting as that in any western even though it was all shot in vivid colors."
• Variety: Lee's "balletic grace, curled mouth, quivering nostrils, arched eyebrows and clenched fists make his demonstrations of this athletic sport highly entertaining."
  • Called the romantic moments "tepid"
  • Remarked that the action sequences resembled an "Oriental paraphrase" of spaghetti Westerns.
  • Said that even Joseph Koo's musical score resembled Sergio Leone's
  • Criticised the "archaically simple-minded" plot and Lo Wei's direction

Awards and accolades

• At the 10th Golden Horse Awards, Fist of Fury won for Best Film Editing (Cheung), and received a Special Technical Award (Lee); it also was a runner-up for Best Feature Film.

Post-release

Home media

• On 18 October 2005, 20th Century Fox released it as part of a DVD box set entitled Bruce Lee: The Ultimate Collection
• Shout! Factory released the film in 2013 as part of an 11-disc DVD box set called Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection
• In 2020, The Criterion Collection also packaged Fist of Fury into their own Blu-ray collection, Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits
• Arrow Films released the film in 4K resolution as part of their 2023 box set, Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest

Legacy

• Due to the film's popularity, Lee catapulted into superstardom; he became unable to go places without being recognized and mobbed by fans
• With newfound fame, Lee became the constant subject of tabloid fodder
• With the success of Fist of Fury and The Big Boss, Lo began to call himself Hong Kong's first "millionaire director"
• Author Petrus Liu states that "the legend of Huo Yuanjia and Chen Zhen defines kung fu cinema", because there have been so much stories based on the pair that "the entire industry of kung fu cinema seems to be mere variations on the same theme."

Cultural impact

• Director Quentin Tarantino named Fist of Fury as one of the ten greatest kung fu films of all time
• The film's usage of the phrase "sick man of Asia" helped cement the term in popular culture
• Many people took inspiration from it:
  • Sing J. Lee used the film as inspiration when directing the music video for Migos' "Stir Fry"
• In June 2018, jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington released the album Heaven and Earth, whose title track was an arrangement of the film's English theme song
• Renamed to the plural "Fists of Fury", Washington chose to cover the song as a tribute to his favourite Bruce Lee movie, stating that the film's messages reflected his mindset of facing adversity in life directly
• In 2021, Fist of Fury was dubbed into the Australian Aboriginal language of Noongar Daa, becoming the first movie to be dubbed into that language

Critical reassessment

• The British Film Institute named it as one of ten great kung fu films
• Paste listed it #31 in their list of the 100 best martial arts movies of all time
• Time Out ranked it #13 on their list of the 100 best Hong Kong movies

Sequels and spin-offs

• Fist of Fury has been remade and spun off several times throughout history
• Following Lee's death in 1973, Lo Wei made a loose sequel, New Fist of Fury (1976)
  • In the lead role he cast a young Jackie Chan, who had signed a eight-film contract with him
  • Miao and himself reprised their roles
  • In this film, Miao's character is pursued by the Japanese from Shanghai to Taiwan, where she crosses paths with Chan's thief character, who is eventually compelled to learn martial arts to defeat the Japanese oppressors
• The following year, Iksan Lahardi and Lee Tso-nam (李作楠) directed Fist of Fury II (1977), a Bruceploitation film starring Bruce Li and Lo Lieh.
  • Li starred as Chen Shan, the brother of Chen Zhen determined to get revenge on the Japanese
• Li would go on to reprise his role in another Bruceploitation sequel, Fist of Fury III (1979)
• In the mid 1990s, Jet Li would agree to star as Chen Zhen in Gordon Chan's remake, Fist of Legend (1994)
  • Li envisioned the film as a push-back against the wave of wuxia films in the 1990s that tried to emulate the success of Swordsman II (1992), emphasizing realistic fighting without using wires
• In 1995. Asia Television produced a thirty-episode television series also named Fist of Fury, starring Donnie Yen as Chen Zhen
• Yen would reprise the role in the movie Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010)
  • It follows Chen after helping the Allied war effort in France during World War I, where he returns to Shanghai to lead a resistance against the Japanese occupation of China