After the success of Bruce Lee's movie, "The Big Boss", Bruce had already started working on his next major film, "Fist Of Fury", and not to be confused with "The Big Boss" which also had the alternate title "Fists Of Fury". The director of the movie was Lo Wei and was the second movie produced by the legendary Raymond Chow and distributed by Golden Harvest. The total run time of the film is 108 minutes/1 hour 48 minutes, and was followed by the movie "New Fist Of Fury" (1976) starring Jackie Chan. "Fist Of Fury" was also the first movie to have the nunchaku in it, as seen below with Bruce Lee holding a nunchaku in his hand. The U.S name of this movie is also "The Chinese Connection".
Story: (From Wikipedia)
The film is set in the early 20th century in Shanghai International Settlement. The martial arts student Chen Zhen returns to Jing Wu School to marry his fiancee Yuan Le-erh. However tragic news awaits him; his master Huo Yuanjia had died, apparently from illness. Chen is deeply saddened and traumatised by the sudden demise of his beloved master. During the funeral, some Japanese students from a Dojo in Hongkou show up. They present a sign to Jing Wu, bearing the words "sick men of the East" (東亞病夫), seemingly as to insult Huo Yuanjia. They taunt the Jing Wu students to fight them and promise that they will "eat their words" if the Jing Wu students dare to fight them and defeat them.
Shortly after, Chen Zhen goes to the Hongkou Dojo alone to return the "gift" (the sign). He meets with hostility from the Japanese students and they engage in a fight. Chen Zhen defeats all of them, including their Sensei, single-handedly. He uses his master's style of fighting Mizongyi and a Nunchaku as a weapon during the fight. He smashes the glass on the sign and makes the students who taunted him earlier chew up the paper bearing the derogatory words, so as to make them literally "eat their words".
Chen takes a stroll to a park after that. He is refused entry into the park by a Sikh guard who points towards a sign reading "No dogs and Chinese allowed" (狗與華人不得入內). After the guard allows a foreigner to bring his pet dog into the park, a Japanese man approaches Chen and tells him that if he behaves like a pet dog, he will be allowed to go in. Chen beats up the man in anger and proceeds to smash the sign with a flying kick.
Meanwhile, the Japanese students retaliate by attacking Jing Wu School on the orders of their master Hiroshi Suzuki. The Jing Wu students are caught by surprise and are totally unprepared for the onslaught. After causing severe damage, the Japanese students leave. They warn Jing Wu School to hand over Chen Zhen or else Jing Wu will be closed and all the students put under arrest. Chen returns and realises that he has caused big trouble. His fellow students are reluctant to hand him over to the Japanese so they make plans to help him escape from Shanghai.
That night, Chen secretly overhears a conversation between the cook and the caretaker and discovers that his master was killed after consuming biscuits laced with poison. He bursts in and confronts them. Chen kills them in blind rage after they claimed responsibility for Huo Yuanjia's death. Chen hangs their bodies from a lamp post after that. The next day, the Jing Wu students discover the bodies and suspect that Chen is responsible. However, Chen is nowhere to be found. Eventually, Chen's fiancee finds him hiding near Huo Yuanjia's grave. They share a passionate moment together briefly. At the same time, Suzuki forces the local police inspector to arrest Chen Zhen and bring Chen back to him. The beleaguered inspector has no choice but to repeat the Japanese's earlier warnings to Jing Wu School. That night, Chen confronts Suzuki's translator and forces a confession out of him, learning the entire truth behind his master's death. He kills the translator after the latter attempted to sneak up on him and he hangs the body from the lamp post.
The angry Suzuki decides to take matters into his own hands. He sends his men to attack Jing Wu School and kill everyone inside. On the same night, Chen barges into the Dojo to take his revenge. He takes down every single Japanese combatant he meets. Afterwards Chen battles Petrov (Robert Baker), a Russian gang boss in league with Suzuki and his plans, who was visiting the Dojo at the time of Chen's attack. The two fighters at first starts out evenly matched, but when Petrov is eventually unable to keep up with the speed of Chen's attacks he too goes down in defeat. Finally, Chen corners Suzuki inside his office. Suzuki uses a Katana to fight back but he is no match for Chen, who is armed with a Nunchaku. In the dramatic ending of the fight scene, Chen sends Suzuki flying out of the room and kills him, thus avenging his master's death. Chen returns to Jing Wu School and finds that many of his fellow students have been killed during the Japanese's raid, although all of the raiders have been killed in the fight as well. Shortly after, the police arrive and place him under arrest for murder. Chen speaks to the inspector in private and is assured that Jing Wu School will stay on after he leaves. In the final scene, Chen charges and makes a flying kick at a line of armed soldiers just before they open fire at him.
My Thoughts On The Movie:
I gotta say I loved this moive. There was a lot of action and I liked this one better than "The Big Boss". My favorite scene must be when Bruce Lee fights a hord of Japanese fighters at once and then uses his nunchaku's. I own this movie as well and I think I watched it about 3 or 4 times and the fights never get boring. They seem so realistic and have all been staged extremely well, especially in the early 1970's. Most chinese martial arts films back then were so terrible because there were always some sort of wire work,the whole thing looked so terrible, and it really seemed unrealistic. This movie is fantastic because there's a lot of emotion in this film because Bruce's character in the movie loses his master but try's to find out who the killer is, so he goes hunting down the Japanese men one by one. Robert Baker, the second last enemy in the movie was also one of Bruce Lee's pupil. The legendary Jackie Chan also makes a brief cameo in the movie as a student and a stuntmen of the film in the final scenes. This movie is a must get for anybody because it's a true Bruce Lee classic!
Overall Rating:93/100
Cast:
Bruce Lee as Chen Zhen - the protagonist of the film
Nora Miao as Yuan Le-erh - the love interest and fiancee of Chen Zhen
Riki Hashimoto as Hiroshi Suzuki - the master of Hongkou Dojo. He is the primary villain in the film.
Robert Baker as Petrov - a Russian gang boss who joins Suzuki
Tien Feng as Fan Chia-Chi - the eldest student of Huo Yuanjia
Paul Wei as Hu En - Suzuki's translator.
Feng Yi as Yoshida - the Hongkou Dojo's Sensei (head instructor)
Lo Wei as Fatty - the police inspector
Hwong Chung Hsin as Tien - the cook from Jing Wu School. He is actually a spy and Yoshida's younger brother.
Han Yin-chieh as Feng Kwai-Sher - the caretaker from Jing Wu School.
James Tien Chun as Fan Chun-hsia - a student from Jing Wu School
Maria Yi as Yen - a student from Jing Wu School
Lee Kwan as Hsu - a student from Jing Wu School
Tony Liu as Chin - a student from Jing Wu School
Chin San as Tung - a student from Jing Wu School
One of my favorite scenes in the movie:
The theme song for the movie:
Final scenes in the movie:
No comments:
Post a Comment