As mentioned earlier, some time ago I took aikido classes
at a school in Burke, up until fall of 1999.
To my knowledge the school has now closed. I took the classes for several years and
worked my way up to first degree black belt.
The tests involved fending off attacks from opponents. We cross-trained in tae kwon do, but did not
have to do all the forms which TKD students are required to do. I learned punches and a variety of
kicks. Aikido is mainly defensive,
turning an opponent’s attack against himself by redirecting the momentum or
twisting arms or legs in the wrong direction.
The most famous martial artist associated with aikido is
Steven Seagal, and while watching his films I recognized the various moves we
did in class. By now I’ve seen most of
his earlier movies, but I zoned out when he drifted into a personality who was
overly mystical and friendly with Putin.
From 1988 (Above the Law) until now (Attrition) he has done 53 movies,
with “Above the Law 2” and “Under Siege 3” in development.
Before Steven Seagal, there was – BRUCE LEE.
I’d seen “Enter the Dragon” a few times before and even
had it on DVD. But up until now I hadn’t
bothered to watch his other films. Cue
Robin Leach: “I don’t know WHY.” Anyhow,
after watching “The Last Dragon”, I decided to rectify that oversight and watched
these films.
Born November 27, 1940 in San Francisco, but grew up in
Hong Kong. His family brought him back
to the US to avoid problems and he went to college in Seattle. He spoke fluent English and seemed to
understand both Chinese culture back in Hong Kong as well as US culture, at
least on the West Coast. He died of a
stroke complicated by negative interactions with a drug given to him to cure
the condition – neither misadventure nor negligence on his part, nor anything
like his son Brandon’s death in the process of making the movie he was working
on at the time.
Jeet
Kune Do. His martial arts
style of “no style”. I’ve never been to a JKD school nor do I know
anyone else who has. I can’t claim
enough familiarity with the various styles to offer any coherent analysis of
this, so I’ll leave it at that.
The
Green Hornet. He
played the title character’s sidekick, Kato, for one season. No US studio, either for TV or movie, would
give Lee a starring role as the main character.
The
Big Boss. His first movie,
a wholly Chinese (Hong Kong) affair. The
bad guys are Chinese gangsters using an ice factory as a front for a drug
smuggling operation. [NOTE: some sources equate this with “Fist of
Fury”. They are two completely separate
movies.] Nora Miao, who has more substantial roles in
later films, starts off here as a cute ice cream girl.
Everything starts off ok, until various workers notice
that the ice has drugs in it, and “bring this to the boss’ attention”. Then they disappear. Their co-workers wonder where they went. Big boss makes excuses which initially
satisfy them but eventually fall short.
Eventually it’s up to Lee’s character to take on a series of bad guys,
each more important, until the final showdown with the head bad guy, and of
course Lee’s guy wins. Note: as with all
these films, I recognize tae kwon do and judo moves but little or nothing in the
way of aikido.
Fist
of Fury. This takes place
in Shanghai and the Japanese are bad guys, though outright war doesn’t seem to
be going on, so it must be before 1937.
The Head of a martial arts school, who had been old but in good health,
mysteriously dies. The top student, Chen
(Lee) suspects foul play, and he’s right:
the Japanese (twirling mustaches diabolically) poisoned Old Man. Chen sets out to avenge the Old Man’s
death. There’s a Cute Asian Chick (Nora
Miao), a burly Russian martial artist, Petrov (Robert Wall), a collaborating
Chinese interpreter consistently mistreated by the Japanese (“crawl for us like
the Chinese dog you are!”) and disliked by his fellow Chinese, a few geishas
(one goes full nude, which is interesting) and of course plenty of martial
arts. The top bad guys are Japanese, and
a samurai sword enters the equation.
Naturally, Lee wins.
Way
of the Dragon. This
is the next one, taking place in Rome.
The local Chinese are being bullied and oppressed by the Mob. BL, visiting from Hong Kong, of course does
something about it. Cute Chick Nora Miao
is back, as are many of the other actors, including Robert Wall, again playing
a goon, though not as prominent and not Russian. Ultimately the bad guys send for Colt (Chuck
Norris), who faces off against Lee, appropriately enough at the Coliseum
itself. [It turns out that Norris’
appearance in “Game of Death” is actually scenes from this film spliced in to
that one, not a new appearance.] In any
case, this Lee vs. Norris battle is what makes this film a must-see for Lee
& Norris fans alike, and in that regard make it competitive with “Enter the
Dragon”.
Enter
the Dragon. His most famous,
with John Saxon and Jim Kelly; Jackie Chan supposedly appears as a nameless
opponent he summarily dispatches, but I was unable to recognize him. He starts off in Hong Kong, of all places,
and winds up at a martial arts tournament at a secluded island, run by the bad
guy, a Shaolin monk who went the wrong way.
Actually both the Shaolins and an unnamed intelligence agency sent
him: the former to avenge themselves
from this man who is corrupting their “faith”, and the latter because they
believe he’s been running criminal operations from his island but no one has been
able to infiltrate the island to prove it – they lost contact with their prior
agent. Eventually he dispatches the bad
guy, whose hand is gone and replaced by various nasty weapons.
Game
of Death. He started making
this before “Enter The Dragon” and picked up again after, but was cut short
when his death made it difficult for him to do much more. So they got a stand-in to replace him, and
spliced in footage of him already shot to try to make a coherent whole of the
entire thing, with mixed results. I’d
say it works remarkably well given the circumstances but still doesn’t match
“Enter the Dragon”. The highlights are
donning the yellow, black striped one piece track suit while taking down
various enemy motorcyclists in a warehouse, followed by his successive defeat
of various martial arts masters in a tower, going up floor after floor and
finally dispatching the Boss Level Man, played by none other than the insanely
tall Kareem Abdul Jabbar, aka Roger Murdock.
No comments:
Post a Comment