Core Post #1

In Fists of Fury, Tasker describes some interesting parallels between martial arts movies and Hollywood musicals, two genres that are usually seen as being on opposite ends of the cinematic spectrum. In describing the narrative structure of martial arts movies, Tasker quotes Chiao Hsiung-Ping who argues that “the fight scenes become the real force carrying the narrative flow” (442). In a similar way, the narrative flow in a Hollywood musical “has dance as it’s physical center expressed in the set-piece musical number” (442).

The analogy between the martial arts fight scene and the musical number is very interesting. Musicals use songs to drive the narrative, to reveal the interior lives of the protagonists, and to underline climactic moments. The fight sequences in Enter the Dragon are used in exactly the same way. The flashback to the fight in which Bruce Lee’s sister is attacked provides backstory on one of the film’s primary villains. Similarly, fight sequences at the martial arts school are used to illustrate both the circumstances of the film and graphically reveal the ruthlessness of the primary antagonist. For most of the film, Lee’s character remains a mystery. It is through the fight sequences that we see his hidden power, his discipline, and his courage.

The physical similarities between dance and combat are also striking. Each is precisely choreographed. Each demonstrates the skills and agility of the performers. Each one is a spectacle for its own sake, designed to appeal to the audience on an aesthetic level and to impress us with strength, grace, and athletic prowess. Fans of the martial arts genre still marvel at Bruce Lee’s abilities just as dancers still watch and learn from Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.

Tasker argues that dance is associated with the feminine and fighting with the masculine. Despite this apparent difference, she nevertheless argues that there is an element of homoeroticism at the heart of each genre. Each, she says, provide an arena in which the sexualized male body is on display. Dance, she says, is often linked “explicitly to images of male homosexuality” (442) while martial arts films have “increasingly become used as a space within which to stage homoerotic fantasies, primarily working through issues and anxieties around while male sexuality” (443). The combat and imagery in films like Enter the Dragon certainly present very specific paradigms of masculinity. Freud would probably argue that these films rely, at least partially, on repressed homoerotic desires for their appeal.

1. 1) To what extent are images of masculinity in the martial arts films of Bruce Lee deliberately ho moerotic?

2. 2) What are the key elements of the masculine archetype constructed in martial arts movies?

3. 3) How can Hong Kong martial arts movies be read as fantasies of empowerment for victims of colonialism?