Description
HEAD KICKING BRICK BREAKING MAYHEM!
This is the first in-depth look at movies that riff on tropes associated with Bruce Lee and that sometimes transformed this actor into a mythical superman.
The period with the greatest cluster of Brucesploitaton productions lasted less than a decade from the mid-seventies to the early-eighties, but the genre spluttered on into the twenty-first century; and although it didn’t exist as a category before Bruce Lee’s death, there are several films that pre-date the Little Dragon’s demise that clearly belong to it. While death added another dimension to Bruce Lee’s celebrity status, he was already a huge star in South East Asia before he passed away; so cynical movie producers did not need to wait for his death to exploit popular interest in Lee – even if the term Brucesploitation had yet to be coined.
Within Brucesploitation actors who copy and clone Bruce Lee make up one strand of the subgenre, but their importance can and has been over-stated. Much of the writing about Brucesploitation is fan and internet based, and many of those producing this discourse make little attempt to explain why they insist certain films belong to the genre. Too many fans write as if genre is somehow natural, rather than created and shaped both through bald assertion and by more critical discussion and thinking. It is all too common to find any martial arts film featuring certain actors and themes, or with Bruce in the title, being accepted as Brucesploitation without any debate around the issue.
This book systematically explores the genre and controversially takes a close look at which flicks really should be seen as belonging to it.
Tadhg Taylor, author of “Top Fellas” –
The definitive book on Brucesploitation!
For someone like me whose focus in regards to Martial Arts movies has always been on Shaw Brothers productions, it’s great to have such a thorough investigation of a genre I previously knew little about.
Director Joseph Velasco, previously unknown to me, gets much praise and it was worth reading the book just to learn about him.
146 movies are divided up into four self-explanatory categories: Core, Semi-Periphery, Periphery and Outer Limits.
The plots are summarized, and the movies are put into a critical/historical/personal context. Low-budget surrealism is favored over Hollywood structures and polish. Nationalism is condemned in favour of ‘proletarian internationalism’. That said it’s miles away from the kind of dull ‘high brow’ writing on ‘film’ that clog up the shelves in university libraries.
Unlike a lot of people who apply ‘theory’ to genre movies, Home actually likes and knows a lot about these movies. He’s the author of Cranked Up Really High, the best and most original book on punk rock, and although the format of that book is very different to Re-Enter the Dragon, the spirit is similar.
Home obviously likes stirring the pot and taking the piss, and you don’t have to agree with everything he says (I don’t!) to get a kick out of his chutzpah.
That said, if I was Bruce Li I’d be heading down to the next Flintlock reunion show with some serious Dim Mak ambush in mind!
Betty Ting Pei’s honour, on the other hand, is staunchly defended. Nice one Stew.
Like all this publisher’s books it’s a great price and super stylish in its cover design. Hell of an author photo n’all.
Buy it.