Before Japanese manga and anime captured the attention of young fans in Europe and North America, the Asian martial arts film was arguably the preeminent example of a popular Asian cultural form that attained widespread popularity outside Asia. Furthermore, this genre came to exert enormous influence on action films produced in studios from Hollywood to Paris, and played a central role in spreading the practice of Asian martial arts throughout non-Asian cultures.
Although the martial arts film as a cultural export can be traced back to Japanese samurai movies such as “The Seven Samurai” and the “Zatoichi” series, it was a handful of Bruce Lee movies from the early 1970s that exploded into the consciousness of (predominantly young male) viewers throughout the world, and at the same time revolutionized the genre of the “kung-fu flick” that had become a formulaic B-class film staple in Hong Kong. This course will focus on the development of the martial arts film from Lee’s appearance up to the present day. In addition to providing an understanding of the genre’s development, we will devote attention to how race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, historical narratives and national identity are negotiated through the simplistic, nearly identical story lines that characterize the vast majority of these films. Rest assured, however: we will also watch some very cool fight scenes!