3-2-09: ‘FIVE FINGERS’ FOREVER

‘KING BOXER’ REMEMBERED

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Given the success we enjoyed in the prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /UK with the earlier Hong Kong Legends label, it was only a matter of time before TWC's Dragon Dynasty DVD company came to England. Through our partners at Momentum, we’re launching the brand in Blighty with the film that started the whole kung fu phenomenon: the classic ‘King Boxer’.

I actually came into the whole martial arts movie phenomenon too late to see King Boxer when it was first released in the west. Having missed it in the theatres, I finally caught up with the film on a Warner Bros UK video release. It was easy to see why the movie had made such an impact. The shooting and editing of the fight sequences were way ahead of their time, and they still stand up today. I remember being very impressed by the Grand Guignol finale and especially the scene where the blinded fighter takes revenge, and thinking how much it reminded me of the Hammer horror films of that era.

Though most cultural historians give Bruce Lee the credit (or blame!) for the 1970s kung fu boom, the success of this film, released in the US as ‘Five Fingers of Death’, was equally responsible. Five Fingers of Death and Lee’s Big Boss (retitled Fists of Fury) were both release Stateside in March 1973, and redefined the market for Asian action cinema and the nature of stylized on-screen action.

When you watch them back-to-back today, it’s evident that King Boxer is, as a film, by far the better made of the two. The Big Boss works just fine as a vehicle to introduce Bruce Lee as a superstar, but its director, Lo Wei, is far inferior to the Korean helmer Cheng Chang-ho.

Bruce Lee himself was impressed by Cheng’s work on King Boxer, and appropriated a few players from its cast for his own films. Tien Feng, the Machiavellian villain, plays Lee’s senior in Fist Of Fury, and Yeung Sze, a Mongolian wrestler in the Shaw Bros film, made his name (literally) as 'Bolo' in Enter The Dragon.

Though they made dozens of amazing action films, Shaw Bros didn’t always know how to handle truly exceptional talent. They lost out on both Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan because neither man was prepared to accept the basic actor’s contract and salary offered by the studio. Director King Hu made his breakthrough film, Come Drink With Me and then immediately left the company. Cheng gave Shaws their first international hit with Five Fingers of Death, and then did the same.

After King Boxer, Cheng joined producer Raymond Chow at the latter’s Golden Harvest company, and its said that Bruce Lee had approached the Korean director about making a film for him. Lee’s untimely death deprived the world of what would have been a stunning collaboration.

The films Cheng did make for Harvest included The Skyhawk (Wong Fei-hung goes to Thailand!) and Broken Oath (a remake of the chanbara hit Lady Snowblood, starring Angela Mao.) All his films for the company, including the weird and wonderful The Association, have something to commend them. For some reason, though, Cheng never achieved the level of commercial success one would have expected from the director of King Boxer. He eventually relocated back to his native Korea.

King Boxer star Lo Lieh was a Chinese karate expert raised in Indonesia. It’s interesting to note that, though the film helped put the words ‘kung fu’ on the map, the techniques employed on screen, whether by Chinese or Japanese characters, owe much more to karate than wu shu.

Though Lo was aware of the overseas success of Five Fingers of Death, he was in no position to benefit from it directly. He was signed to a long-term contract with Shaw Bros, who increasingly regarded him as a character actor and villain (most memorably as Pai Mei in Executioners from Shaolin). His only other international role saw him cast opposite Lee Van Cleef in the kung fu spaghetti western The Stranger and The Gunfighter (a prototype for Shanghai Noon).

Quentin Tarantino, who provides a unique commentary for the Dragon Dynasty King Boxer DVD, regards Lo Lieh as the greatest actor in the history of Hong Kong cinema.I was happy to get the chance to communicate this to Lo when I ran into him at the Cannes film festival, just before his untimely passing.

Speaking of QT, King Boxer makes its presence known on the Kill Bill soundtrack with its use of a riff from the Ironside TV series theme. (Throughout the 70s, Hong Kong film-makers borrowed wholesale from Hollywood scores.).  

Whether you come to it for the first time or out of nostalgia for some long lost glory years, King Boxer stands up well, and delivers way more than Five Fingers of fun!