Jan 28, 2023
Bruce and the Bullet: The Warrior and the Way
“Why doesn’t somebody pull out a .45 and, bang, settle it?” — Lee asks in Enter the Dragon
Bruce Lee had a hard time selling the idea of kung fu fighting in action films in Hollywood. What can beat a bullet? With Kato, his first Hollywood role as a superhero, the idea seemed plausible. Having a superhero fight without weapons works out fine.
Even today Batman still seems to fight using martial arts. Bruce Lee helped to develop the show called the Warrior (Kung Fu) about a Shaolin monk traveling in the old West using his martial arts to fight gunslingers. Kung Fu in the old west made sense.
When he started to make films in Hong Kong, the first film, The Big Boss, was in Thailand where guns were not used. This second film was at the turn of the century in Shanghai, where Chinese citizens were not allowed to have guns. At the end of the film, he dies in a rain of bullets. In his third film, Way of the Dragon, located in Rome, Italy, he is attacked by a Mafia guy with a gun.
He uses a dart to fight against the gun. Other times in the film he is attacked by guns, and he uses his wooden darts. In Enter the Dragon, because Han’s Island is within Hong Kong territory where guns are illegal, no guns are present. Because of Bruce Lee, kung fu films became popular, and guns do not present a problem to kung fu fighters.
The irony, of course, is that his son, Brandon Lee (1965- 1993), died by a gun while filming The Crow (1994). Cinematically, Bruce Lee would die in a hail of bullets at the end of Fist of Fury (1972). In the Game of Death, (1978) completed version, the Lee character (Billy Lo) is shot by a gun during that recreated scene.
Later action films combine guns and fighting. John Woo went one step further, for he introduced Gun Fu where his gun fights are actually modeled on Kung Fu battles like in the film A Better Tomorrow II.
How do you combine guns and martial arts?
Matrix, Neo function as a Chinese boxer: entering bullet time.
The Wachowski Brothers loved Bruce Lee, John Woo and Yuen Woo Ping. They would create the best blend of Eastern and Western action ever.
One way to examine Neo is as a Chinese Boxer. The Chinese boxer movement in 1900 was a short uprising against foreign powers in China. The idea was that followers could avoid being shot while bullets could not kill them. Neo becomes a Chinese Boxer and in the end can pluck a bullet from the air. He demonstrates his powerful Chi Kung and becomes the ultimate boxer/revolutionary.
Chow Yun Fat was originally slated to play Morpheus. Jet Li was originally supposed to be in Matrix 2 and 3. Yuen Woo Ping choreographs the fights in the Matrix trilogy. The Kung Fu Construct acts as a tool to initiate Neo into the mysteries of invincibility. The spoon is not there.
Neo is able to defeat the machines because he knows that the Matrix is not real. Buddhist Warriors also know that this reality we exist in is not real. They use meditation to break down the fabric of reality. In the end, Neo flies across the screen like a Wu Tang warrior in the world of Giang Hu.
Gun Kata: The Way of the Gun
Equilibrium (2002) — directed and written by Kurt Wimmer and starring Christain Bale — does one of the best jobs of combing Bruce and the bullet. In the distant future, people take drugs to suppress feelings. Everything is controlled.
There is even a gun kata or form that teaches one the best positions to shoot.
