Fist of Fury (1972)

Film: Fist of Fury (1972)

Stars: Bruce Lee, Nora Miao, Chikara Hasimotot

Director: Lo Wei

Oscar History: No nominations

Saturdays with the Stars: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Bruce Lee: click here to learn more about Mr. Lee (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I apologize I missed last week (June is one of the few months of the year that Minnesotans actually leave their houses as it's neither too hot nor too cold, so I've been busy), but know that in the coming two Saturday's I will find a way to make up for it and get us all four of our movies this month.  Bruce Lee's filmography is odd, because while it is filled with a number of notable action films, they were released in rapid succession given his death at such a young age (only 32) and many of them were released posthumously, at least in the United States.  Also, more so than even Errol Flynn earlier this year, Lee's celebrity history extends well past his death, and so there's a lot more to tell after it.  We'll focus today, with one of his earliest films, Fist of Fury, by talking about his brief foray into Hollywood prior to finding proper success in Hong Kong.  First, though, the movie.

(Spoilers Ahead) Fist of Fury is a story of two competing dojos, one Japanese and one Chinese, the latter now led by Chen (Lee) after the recent death of his teacher Huo Yuanjia.  The film follows the two as the fighting escalates, frequently along racial lines (there is a shocking amount of really racist language from the Japanese characters in the film toward the Chinese characters, though given that this film was made predominantly by Chinese filmmakers, it's hard not to feel like both directions are getting a pretty rough cut here).  The movie itself, I'm going to be honest, is pretty repetitive after this, with increasingly violent altercations between both sides as Chen seeks vengeance on behalf of his fallen master, as well as against the men responsible for his master's death.

The movie itself isn't good-the scripting, dubbing, and other performances in it are really rough and bordering on one-dimensional (I tried to find this film without it dubbed, but I couldn't...and given that's how most American audiences experienced this initially, I figured at least one of his films needed to be viewed this way).  But Bruce Lee...there's something there.  Strikingly handsome in a way I honestly wasn't expecting (it's worth remembering that Lee was quite young and in incredible physical shape when he made these movies, and so he looks good...you get why he became something of a sex symbol in the 1970's), he commands the screen with an almost magnetic sternness, which (while not great acting) definitely has a movie star quality that you can't look away from.  My worry headed into this month was that I was going to get a lot of movies with sensational action scenes but little decent plot...but I didn't count on Lee being this watchable.  I'm curious as we move closer to his death (and the ensuing health issues) if that will grow or change his style, but I could easily watch three more movies of this type of performance.

All-in-all, it's hard not to wonder why Lee didn't do better with this kind of pull in the United States.  Lee had largely given up his initial goals of becoming a movie star when he began teaching martial arts in Oakland in the mid-1960's, but a chance meeting with TV producer William Dozier (at the time riding a wave of success in the wake of the Adam West-Batman) led him to be cast as Kato in The Green Hornet, a show that only lasted one season but has taken on a cult status in the years that followed, and would remain the most important work that Lee would make while in Hollywood.  Lee would work behind the scenes on a handful of studio films, including The Wrecking Crew which we watched a few years back for our month on Nancy Kwan, and even have a bit part in the James Garner noir Marlowe (and depending on whom you believe, he had a hand in creating the TV series Kung Fu, and auditioned for the role that would make David Carradine a leading man), but by-and-large The Green Hornet was really the only Hollywood property where he had a chance at traditional fame in America.  It wasn't until his martial arts films, though, that Lee would do what he was born to do: star in movies, and even become a success at the US box office.