KUNG FU KILLERS

d. Brian Trenchard-Smith (1974)

It’s difficult for today people to comprehend just how big Kung Fu was back in the 1970s. Previously seen as an ancient, esoteric, slightly shifty thing that foreigners did, the phenomenal success of Enter the Dragon turned the rabid consumers and novelty seekers of the West onto all arts martial, including karate style pyjamas which my brother and I plagued our parents for and then wore to chop and high kick the shit out of each other. 

I can remember being ill in 1974 with whooping cough, sat out on a blanket in the back garden (it was the Summer, not some extreme form of quarantine) and reading a big pile of Marvel comics, every single one of which featured either a black or Asian protagonist absolutely expert in martial arts. Later on, my Mum called me in to watch Hong Kong Phooey. Man, those were literally the days, being approximately twenty four hour periods of solar rotation that have now passed.

Australia, being a mere 3,500 miles from Hong Kong, was naturally very excited by the Kung Fu boom, and this documentary fronted by a hairy stuntman and climber called Grant Page profiles some of the stars of the genre, including inexplicably pleased with himself countryman George Lazenby and the indefatigable American star Stuart Whitman, already nearly 25 years into his career and looking smooth and in control, qualities he would use to sinister effect in his role as the Reverend Jim Jones in the 1979 film Guyana: Crime of the Century.   

Both men are obviously excited by the trend, not least, I suspect, because it pays them the sort of money that they can no longer command in Hollywood. When Lazenby, a self-proclaimed free soul and searcher of truth, is asked what he has learned so far he smirks and says 'beware of the Chinese'. And why not? As the arrogant occidental narrator states: 'they are not just a nation of waiters'.

Stuntman Page is not a particularly engaging or knowledgeable interviewer, but he does get into a fight – twice – with martial arts star Carter Wong, something that Michael Parkinson never did, unless you count his tussle with Emu (I don’t). Page spends some time showing off to semi-naked women in Bottoms Up, 'an upper class topless bar' if that isn't a moronic oxymoron. He also spends a lot of screen time equating martial arts to his own sport, climbing, pointing out that he uses a lot of the same muscles and has iron will power, etc. What do you expect from someone who wears a vest instead of a shirt?  

Ultimately, we don’t learn a massive amount about how to attain 'strength, peace of mind, and a love of life through the apparent study of violence' but it's an interesting period piece, full of frenetically action packed film clips of people being kicked in the face. We also see the bit from Game of Death where Bruce Lee tears out a fistful of Chuck Norris' chest hair, a spectacle I never, ever, ever tire of watching.