Copyright © 2025 by Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali

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Print book cover design by Amanda Richmond

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2024944048

ISBNs: 978-0-7624-8948-0 (hardcover), 978-0-7624-8950-3 (ebook)

E3-20250516-JV-NF-ORI

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword by RZA

Introduction

IN THE BEGINNING

Karate: The Hand of Death

Billy Jack

THE SEVENTIES

Hey, Kids! It’s Kung Fu

Enter the Merch

The Paperback Connection

Comic Books That Kill!

BRUCEPLOITATION

The Bruce Directory

Directory of Distributors

Martial Music

Nunchuks

THE EIGHTIES

Flyover Fighters

Creepy Fu

Master of Masters

Heroes of the 3rd Dimension

Raw Farce

Dog of the Week

Fast and Furious

Video Companies

Digital Dojo

Enter the Video Kid

Acknowledgments

Discover More

About the Authors

Image Credits

Cover

Table of Contents

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FOREWORD

ONLY IN THE CITY THAT never sleeps can a place with a name like Times Square be the location where past, present, and future all shared the same ambiguous reality. The place where the sirens of police, ambulances, and fire trucks screeched in sync with the breakbeat blasting out of a 90-watt boom box as street dancers and verbal assaulters displayed their skills for the hopes of fame… or to earn a few dollars to buy some weed. Hats or cardboard boxes on the ground awaiting tips as businessmen, local pedestrians, tourists, and junkies all passed by in a sea of lights and grime.

While some kids hustled to buy liquor, dope, or coke, I was on a different high. I was just out to make a couple of bucks to gain entry into a grindhouse theater to stimulate my brain with a triple feature of kung fu madness. Inside that theater, away from the noise, cold, and business of outside, I found myself in an audience of like-minded fans allowing ourselves to be transported from the slums of NYC to the hillsides of China and Japan; from the modern-day cityscape to the feudal towns and temples of the martial world.

Even though the reality was that we were packed in a smoke-filled fire hazard room with sticky floors, ripped seats, and an occasional rodent skittering around our feet, we were hypnotized by the flickering light of the films along with their scratches and disordered reels—probably because the projectionist was as high as the patrons. The cinematic battles kept us spellbound for hours before leaving, acting out the scenes on the subway train home, then returning again the next weekend to do it all again.

The violence of the NYC streets in its own unique way reflected in the violence on screen. The treacherous nature of the antagonist vs. the heroic nature of the protagonist, with the uncertainty of who would be the victor, kept audiences coming back for more. Looking for stories that reflected their own struggles, audiences could role-change at any moment, inspired by the characters they watched.

Who can forget Fist of Fury, retitled The Chinese Connection in the US, probably following the success of The French Connection and in line with grindhouses and distributors renaming Asian films to resonate with their market. When Bruce Lee defied oppression and Japanese lawlessness to his fellow countrymen, he ignited the audience to cheer him on and travel the road of vengeance with him. Yet, after his victory over his enemy using his hands, feet, and nunchucks, he’s met with an array of bullets from the rifles of law enforcement, leaving the audience with an insatiable desire for more of Bruce and the types of characters played by him and other martial greats.

Or on the opposite side of the spectrum, we had films like Fists of the White Lotus, starring Lo Lieh as the titular villain using “100 Pace Palm,” leaving every kung fu buff hungry for movies with a grey-haired old master causing mayhem in the countryside.

I’ll never forget the first time I watched The Mystery of Chess Boxing and hearing the entire cinema roar each time Ghost Face Killer (played by Mark Long) appeared on the screen. He was a villain killing off his enemies—in some cases in front of their wives and children—yet we walked out the theater wanting to be him, the baddest motherfucker on the screen. Wong Fei, Phillip Ko, and Tommy Lee all demanded similar respect as they played recurring villain roles. When you saw them on the screen, you knew you were in for an incredible final showdown.

Another great aspect of these films and their audience was the multicultural and gender-inclusive perspective. I would see guys in the theater with their girlfriends cheering, booing, and even making out to these films. Such titles as The Tattoo Connection, Hong Kong Godfather, Bruce Lee in New Guinea, or even the Shaw Brothers’ Shaolin Handlock weren’t afraid to show cleavage… which for a kid under 12 years old (who had to sneak his way in) was an extra treat. But even more important was watching various female heroines dominating the screen, destroying their bullying male counterparts. Films like Come Drink with Me, Golden Swallow, and 14 Amazons laid the foundation for later films following the Bruce Lee explosion. Angela Mao in Sting of the Dragon Master or Kara Hui in My Young Auntie, or one of my independent favorites 8 Strikes of the Wildcat—all had female leads and each had the audience raving for more.

In the following pages of These Fists Break Bricks, we will travel down that path of yesterday, where grindhouse theaters and the films they displayed inspired the filmmakers of today and the sound of the world’s most popular music. May this book’s history and the culture it revisits inspire future generations to come.

RZA

Wu-Tang Clan

INTRODUCTION

IN MARCH 1973, THE WORLD changed. Kung fu movies came roaring out of Hong Kong, landed in American movie theaters, and blew everyone’s minds, leaving dropped jaws on sticky floors and launching a tidal wave of martial arts movies that swamped grindhouse theaters across the country for 15 years, started fashion trends, influenced music, and put a shirtless Bruce Lee on the wall of every kid’s bedroom.

Before 1973, no one knew a nunchuk from a ninja, but over the next decade and a half, kung fu movies would influence the birth of hip hop and breakdancing, sell millions of albums, win Emmy awards, earn millions at the box office, sell hundreds of thousands of videocassettes, and introduce America to the biggest non-white stars to hit the silver screen. The Thelma to this revolution’s Louise, the Jim Kelly to its Bruce Lee, the Power Man to its Iron Fist arrived simultaneously in August 1973 when DJ Kool Herc started spinning at a party in a Bronx rec room, kickstarting hip hop, whose beats, graffiti, fashion, and b-boying became America’s dominant cultural force of the ’80s and ’90s.

March and August 1973 sparked genuine revolutions. Kung fu movies came from the Hong Kong streets, surging with anti-colonial protests. Hip hop came from Herc’s beats, born in a busted borough written off as a no-hope neighborhood that would never produce anything but poverty and crime. Hip hop and kung fu turned that story around.

This is the story of the remix. It’s about people who took what they were given and turned it into something new. It’s about Koreans teaching karate to Black students in Washington, DC. About movies from Hong Kong featuring Taiwanese stars playing in Los Angeles movie theaters and inspiring Latino kids. About forms that aren’t karate or kung fu but combine the best of both. It’s a never-ending mixing, remixing, spinning, spitting, spraying, styling, strutting, smashing, that blurs racial identities, blends nationalities, takes it to the streets, and mixes it into sick beats.

It’s not just a story about movies and music, it’s about politics and poverty, martial arts mysteries and black histories. A lot of the facts we found are hotly contested by people immersed far deeper in these scenes than we’ll ever be. Someone can contradict everything in this book by citing an earlier example or a more obscure Hung Gar teacher, but to tell this story we’ve had to focus our narrative on certain people and places, and that comes at the expense of others. We made choices. They may not be the right ones, but they’re ours. No fact appears in this book that we couldn’t verify from at least two sources, although there are a small handful of stories that were just too good to leave out.

But relax. This book isn’t the final word, it’s a starting position. It should inspire readers to put their feet on the streets and discover their own version of events. Did Vic Moore block Bruce Lee’s unblockable punches? He says he did and that’s how it looks on film but you might interpret it differently. Did Chuck McNeil actually make Disco-Dynomite or was it all a scam? We can’t find any evidence that his movie ever existed, but someone else might. We don’t own this history, we’re just passing it along. This history belongs to the people who made it.

Angela Mao, DJ Kool Herc, Bruce Lee, Grandmaster Flash, Ron Van Clief, TAKI 183, Sha-Rock—they broke boundaries, broke limits, broke conventions, broke chains. They raised their fists against a world that wanted to define them by what they weren’t: not white, not rich, not famous, not acceptable. They used their bodies and their voices to forge something out of nothing. They used their fists and their feet to transform themselves into legends. And they used those legends to change the world.