These Fists Break Bricks (Revised and Expanded Edition)
'These Fists Break Bricks (Revised and Expanded Edition)' by Grady Hendrix
In the ‘70s, everybody was kung-fu fighting, as the old song went, and in one form or another, martial arts has become even more pervasive in American life. Along with Chinese takeouts, it was one of East Asia’s biggest exports before TikTok and Temu.
The popularity of martial arts spiked with the rise of martial arts movies, the primary subject of These Fists Break Bricks. According to the book by Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali, martial arts debuted in Hollywood with James Cagney’s G-Men (1935). In 1937 Miki Morita, one of barely a handful of Japanese in Hollywood, displayed jiu-jitsu in Cary Grant’s The Awful Truth. He was one of the last Asian actors to perform martial arts in an American production until 1964.
Racism is part of These Fists’ story, complete with demeaning stereotypes and yellowface. Hendrix and Poggiali also chronicle the reception of martial arts in the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt eagerly embraced jiu-jitsu when introduced in America in 1902 and earned a brown belt. In 1905 the first English-language judo instruction book was published, police departments embraced judo as did pulp fiction writers. By 1910 Los Angeles had at least one dojo … and the slow rise of martial arts halted with Pearl Harbor, only to revive again, embraced, among others, by the Nation of Islam.
By the late ‘60s Hong Kong’s film industry began to cultivate the martial arts genre, complete with slo-mo, freeze frames sudden zooms and blood squibs. Producer Chang Cheh is credited with imbuing those movies with hing dai, a code of blood brotherhood that propelled the plotlines. Chinatown cinemas were among the early stateside venues but the audience for those movies soon grew wider than Americans of East Asian descent. After seeing a Japanese martial arts movie in LA, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar learned aikibo for greater body control on the basketball court.
Bruce Lee was introduced to America through his stint as Kato in ABC’s “Green Hornet” (1966-67) but his leading role in the genre was not immediately apparent. He waited for his opportunity behind Tom Laughlin in Billy Jack (1971) and David Carradine in ABC’s “Kung Fu” (1972). Lo Leigh kicked the cinema doors open with Five Fingers of Death (1972). Meanwhile, Lee kept busy with The Big Boss (1971), a threadbare outing that broke Hong Kong box-office records. His Fist of Fury (1972) and Way of the Dragon (1972) finally cemented his international reputation.
The revised, expanded edition of These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World, is lavishly illustrated with posters and stills. It’s published by Running Press.
