KUNG FU SHOWDOWN!
You’re all doomed!
Michael Sheridan:
As we gush over Jackie Chan and Jet Li and all the rest, let us remember one simple fact:
None of these other chumps would have had a genre to achieve fame within if it hadn’t been for the original king of Kung Fu movies – Bruce Lee.
Lee broke down the barriers between the East and West. His films during the early 1970s allowed martial arts movie to cross the Pacific into the American subconscious. He influenced countless people to not only love the genre, but to step into a dojo and kick it up a notch.
His influential work in The Green Hornet TV series signaled the beginning of a new era of action. Lee’s fighting style – fast and deadly – was unlike anything seen before. Films such as Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon earned him legions of fans worldwide, opening up the genre like never before.
Bruce Lee made it all possible for imitators and copycats for decades to follow.
Whatever one may think of his acting chops, Lee was not unlike Marlon Brando or Gary Cooper, Orson Welles or even Steven Spielberg. He added something to the overall history of films. He influenced it by his mere style and art form. Lee had an impact on pop culture and guided it in a direction that wouldn’t have been possible without him.
He mattered, where the likes of the Chans or Chibas do not.
Lee did have one flaw, however: he died young. As a result, it becomes easy for people to try and dismiss his work or minimize his importance. But the handful of films he made – ending with the top-notch Enter the Dragon – exerted far more relevance and impacted filmmaking far more greatly than anything produced by the others discussed here.
