Fist of Fury (1972)

 

It's hard to deny the lasting legacy Bruce Lee has had on the world of action cinema. Maybe he didn't make that many films as one would have liked, but every one is pretty legendary. Or cult. Or both. This one is no exception.

Set in the past when Japan still dominated Shanghai, student Chen (Lee) returns home to find his beloved master has died. He is really shaken up by this, as shown in a few scenes where Lee chews the scenery to bits.

There will be quite a lot of this along the way. You have been warned.

During the remembrance event, some students from a Japanese school disrupt the proceedings by giving an open challenge and an insult to the Jing Mo school (our kung fu cast's home). The teacher keeps his students in line, but Chen is seething at the disrespect and eventually pays the bushido school a visit, kicking the everloving crap out of all the students. And then we're off to a game of retaliation, where things escalate.

In the meantime, Chen also discovers that his beloved master did not die of natural causes, but was poisoned by agents of the same bushido school and he starts taking them out one by one by using his 'Fist of Fury', which is a lethal punch. 

So he's a bit like a One Punch Man, then?

Now the police and the Japanese officials are after Chen's blood, and while the Japanese set out to kill the entire Jin Mo School, Chen is paying the bushido school a visit of his own to have payback for what they did to his master...

So you get a story of escalation, set in a time where it is very obvious that the Japanese rulers were oppressive and racist towards the local Chinese people. Even though this is historically somewhat accurate, they really play the 'racist bastard' card here, depicting most Chinese that work with the Japanese as grovelling, snivelling, conniving cowards. 

This one is also clearly a product of its time and place, as the dubbing (yes, even the Cantonese dubbing) can be a bit distracting as it doesn't always match up. In fact, it mostly doesn't. The attempt at a sweet sidestory between Chen and his fiancée is a bit of an afterthought as well. But no one here came for a love story or anything else, they came for the amounts of ass-whooping on display and of that, there is plenty. Of course, the opening fight between Chen and the Japanese students is extremely well-known and expertly done, but the raid on the kung fu school is also cool, especially seeing the ladies also kick ass. And when we get to the final, almost videogame-like passage of Chen through the Japanese school, it is glorious. The one-on-one duels might even be better than the brawls.

Of course, if Hong Kong action cinema is not your cup of tea, let alone Bruce Lee's over/underacting and shouts, then this will most definitely not be for you. But if you can enjoy martial arts ballet and over the top sound effects, then this will leave you giddy as a schoolgirl.