I have written about how Creature Feature influenced me from around 1976
through 1984. In 1985, a new love emerged replacing Creature Feature
with Asian filmmaking thanks to USA Network’s Black Belt Theater. On
the weekends Black Belt Theater would show an old, cheap kung fu movie
and I remembered the cheesy
We’ll-Be-Right-Back-After-This-Commercial-Break featuring a fortune
cookie suddenly breaking apart and a message on white paper with
something written on it such as: “Confucius says wise man must maintain
his patience because we will be right back.” Each week the message got a
little cornier. Unlike Creature Feature, there was no martial artist
host or fan to tell jokes between segments and I often wondered how that
would have worked out.
Black Belt Theater would show a mixed bag of films from the cheap Kung
Fu Inferno which was a terrible film that was likely made in the 70’s to
cash in on the disco craze to a young Jackie Chan in Snake Fist Fighter.
In Snake Fist Fighter you won’t see any jaw-breaking stunts, beautiful
martial arts choreography, or kung fu blows with any power behind them.
It basically had Chan and the usual villain slapping each other around.
This was before Chan was making kung fu comedy so even the humor was
missing making Snake Fist Fighter a dry film and a far cry from Jackie
Chan’s better work. Still, Snake Fist Fighter did show a young Chan
full of energy and a hint of the potential that was to come.
The best part of the old 70’s and early 80’s kung fu movies was the lack
of stars, which made sense at that time. If you wanted to see Bruce Lee
or Jackie Chan, you could go to Blockbusters and rent something. However
what those old starless kung fu movies had was a lot of cool action
sequences and bizarre scenes that would be improbable in reality.
I recall one strange scene with a monk taking a teacup and throwing it through the
air and knocking down some misbehaving student from 20 feet away.
Another cool thing was how those old movies would mix genres like the
horror kung fu crossover Kung Fu Zombies. That film had its wonderful
silly moments, such as the scene with a zombie dressed up in traditional
Chinese clothing suddenly jumping up from a grave and immediately began
kicking and punching.
There are so many good examples of the strange and unusual in the movie
Shaolin Drunkard. In Shaolin Drunkard you have a Chinese vampire who
lives in an elaborate temple complete with Indiana Jones-style obstacle
course that the hero must survive just to get to him. There is even
an interesting fight scene between one really ugly toad, who just
happens to know kung fu, and a random kung fu fighter. Shaolin Drunkard
even has its humorous moments including a weird scene of play acting
involving a man who has a painted a face on his thumb who is talking to
another man who has a painted thumb face. Why they couldn’t just speak
to each other is something I will never understand, however that’s what
made the scene special and how I can remember it all these years later.
The Chinese vampire gets in many cool, bloody kills scenes when he takes
on the local villagers. There is even a sequel to Shaolin Drunkard that
is even more bizarre than the first with some type of creature that
looks a lot like Pac Man kung fu fighting. The highlight from both
movies is the way the hero deals with flying spears and trap doors from
the villain’s obstacle course. If I ever get the chance to become a
martial arts fighting villain, I have my own obstacle course planned and
a big back up plan should the hero figure out how to evade everything.
Besides all the fun that kung fu movies can generate in young
imaginations, those movies also showed political concerns that I wasn’t
aware of at 14. In The Brave Lion you see Japanese World War II
soldiers beating up and abusing Chinese workers until kung fu fighters
show up. I would have never thought of war atrocities watching The
Brave Lion. There was also a rape scene that was not shown but hinted
at suggesting how bad things probably were back then.
Mostly what USA Network’s Black Belt Theater had in abundance was fun
action scenes. Whether it was two random guys slapping each other
around, weak punches thrown so wide that no one could get hit, to high
flashy kicks, and amazing feats of acrobatic skills that would be any
Olympic gymnast proud. I always loved the scenes with one guy suddenly
leaping 20-feet in the air to randomly perform 30-plus mid-air back
flips, then returning back to solid ground to resume fighting.
Sometime in the 80’s or in the early 90’s Black Belt Theater changed to
USA Network’s Kung Fu Theater. Regardless of which title the program
was called, those movies greatly influenced a number of directors from
Tarantino to the Wachowski brothers. I find it interesting just how far
those old movies have come along in the US when Crouching Tiger Hidden
Dragon actually won an Academy Award. Kung fu movies have a come a lot
way from cheap quickly-produced entertainment films to critically-acclaimed
art films. I will keep watching kung fu movies as long as
they are available because they offer something you just can’t find
anywhere else.
"The Asian Aperture" is ©2009 by Jason Fetters. Webpage design and all graphics herein (except where otherwise noted) are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2009 by Nolan B. Canova.
