This summer, Cinema Runner is embarking on a rock ’em, sock ’em, and blow ’em away adventure with one of film’s greatest action heroes: CHUCK NORRIS! Join us as we revisit the Karate Kommando’s cinematic works, with the occasional television project thrown in for fun! From Memorial Day to Labor Day, it’s time for a badass SUMMER OF NORRIS!
Many an action star begins their journey in film not as a hero, but as a villain. Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, and even Arnold Schwarzenegger played a few heavies before fully breaking out as the gun-toting, fist-throwing action powerhouses that we know and love today. Chuck Norris was no different. After spending years as a real-life martial arts champion, he transitioned into the world of film with a pair of Hong Kong actioners*.
The first of these was 1972’s The Way of the Dragon (aka Return of the Dragon). A Bruce Lee vehicle, Norris actually doesn’t show up until the third act. The basic premise of the film involves Lee’s character, Tang Lung, arriving in Rome to help some family friends deal with some mob shenanigans. Said friends own a restaurant that happens to be sitting on land that the Italian mafia wants, so they’ve been bullying them and their customers in the hopes that the business will fail and they’ll be willing to sell.
Tang Lung makes quick work of their usual goons, necessitating some professionals being called in. Two such men are initially called, with a third as the final back-up option. When Lung also takes down the initial two, the mob’s ace in the hole is finally pulled: Colt. Who is Colt? He’s an American karate champion who clearly has no qualms about being paid to mess someone up and/or kill them. Colt is played by Chuck Norris. His lone battle with Tang Lung is brutal and obviously does not end well for Colt.
Lee brought Norris onto the film because he was apparently one of the few martial artists in the world that he felt could keep up with him on the big screen in terms of speed. Their fight is one for the ages and remains one of Lee’s best on screen battles. What really makes Colt memorable for me isn’t his speed or ferocity as a fighter, however. It’s in the way he is characterized.
Sure, Colt is a martial arts mercenary, but there’s a quiet determination and sense of honor to me, however skewed the latter might be. He takes his task seriously and will see it through to the end, no matter what the personal cost. Because of this, Lung affords Colt more respect than he does any other opponent in the film. Most of Lung’s foes end up unconscious on the ground and/or reeling from injuries sustained in battle, with Lung paying little mind to the damage he has wrought. Not so of Colt.
After unfortunately having to kill the karate champion, something he did not want to do, Lung takes the time to cover the body and respectfully lay the fallen champion’s blackbelt atop his corpse. There’s a sense of melancholy to the sequence and it only serves to deepen the audience’s understanding of both characters. It also serves as a counterpoint to Colt’s tongue-in-cheek entrance into the film, which is punctuated with some of Ennio Morricone’s cues from Once Upon a Time in the West.
Colt might demand a certain amount of respect from audiences in Dragon, but the same cannot be said of Norris’ antagonistic role in Yellow Faced Tiger. The film, also known by the titles Slaughter in San Francisco and Karate Cop, is a very goofy Hong Kong action film set in, you guessed it, San Francisco! The hero of the piece is Officer Don Wong (Wong Tao), the titular “Yellow Faced Tiger”, an incredibly cringe-worthy moniker. The film follows the standard plot of two cops just trying to do their job and unfortunately coming up against a formidable foe. When Wong is tossed off the force for a trumped up charge and his partner is killed, Wong sets out on a quest for justice, rules be damned.
Chuck Norris plays a drug kingpin named Chuck Slaughter who serves as the film’s primary villain. He’s the kind of big shot baddie who brags about his criminal accomplishments and takes what he wants, living in a snazzy mansion with an army of karate-trained goons as his disposal. Slaughter also has a penchant for cigars and blackmail, in addition to his crime and drug-related pursuits.
Going into the film, I had wondered why one of its alternate titles was fixated on Norris’ character over the hero. While the answer actually involves the film’s 1981 re-release in the face of Norris-mania, it’s honestly not hard to see why the film was sold as Chuck vehicle. I mentioned above that it is a goofy film and I wasn’t kidding. Intentional or not, the film plays like an action movie parody due to its tone being all over the place. One minute you are expected to view a scene with our hero in the utmost seriousness and in the very next, he’s pulling some Keystone Cops-style blunders.
Part of this has to do with a lot of humor being injected into the Hong Kong films of this era. After all, there’s a healthy amount of laugh-inducing scenes in The Way of the Dragon that are absolutely intended to get the audience chuckling. Here the handling of humor is far less deft, resulting in a motion picture where the viewer is likely laughing a whole lot more than they are supposed to be.
The film’s tone is only steady in the moments when Norris’ Chuck Slaughter is on screen, as we are clearly meant to despise his evilness. Because of this, Norris ends up becoming the most enticing thing within the film and definitely its most memorable aspect. It’s really no wonder that Hollywood eventually caught on to the man’s potential as an action hero. He has a certain charm to him, even when being dubbed (as everyone in both films are). He also looks great when fighting on screen, even when up against “the Dragon” and “the Tiger”. Of the two films, I would say only the first is essential viewing, both for fans of Norris and of Lee…
Chucks Given: 4 out of 5 for The Way of the Dragon.
Chucks Given: 1.5 out of 5 for Yellow Faced Tiger.
So ends the villainous cinematic reign of Chuck Norris. While neither of the above films featured Norris in a starring role, they combine to provide an important footnote to his career, beyond just being his debut. After all, the man would never play villains again! Chuck is a hero from here on out, which is why I decided to combine coverage of these The Way of the Dragon and Yellow Faced Tiger. Future pieces will take films one at a time, beginning later this week with…
Our Next Norris Opus: Breaker! Breaker! (1977)
* – After making his screen debut with a bit role in 1968’s Dean Martin spy comedy, The Wrecking Crew.
