Bruceploitation

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Bruceploitation [ bruːsplɔɪˌteɪʃ (ə) n ] ( portmanteau of Bruce Lee and Exploitation , Eng .: exploitation ) is a film sub-genre of martial arts film , which was created after the death of Bruce Lee in the 1973rd Between 1974 and 1984 in particular, over 100 productions tried to build on the success of his films with the help of Bruce Lee impersonators.

Emergence

The martial arts films of this genre were made after the sudden death of Bruce Lee in 1973. Only four films made him world famous. His death left a big void in Hong Kong cinema and plunged it into a crisis as the wuxia films (fantasy martial arts with flying and supernatural heroes), which existed before Bruce Lee's success, were no longer commercially successful . Therefore, production companies were looking for Bruce Lee successors to take his place.

actor

The most famous impersonators were Ho Chung Tao (his pseudonym is Bruce Li), who made over 30 films of this type, Wong Kin Lung (Bruce Le), whose works include Return of Bruce and Enter The Game of Death , and the Korean Mun Kyong-sok (Dragon Lee, Bruce Lei). All three were able to gather their own fan communities and later tried, with varying degrees of success, to establish themselves as their own “brand” on the martial arts market. A number of other impersonators appeared under similar pseudonyms. Examples are Bronson Lee, Bruce Chen, Bruce Lai, Bruce Lie, Bruce Liang, Bruce Ly, Bruce Thai, Bruce KA Lea, Brute Lee, Myron Bruce Lee or Lee Bruce.

Contents and topics

With these imitators, Bruce Lee's life was filmed in different variations, sequels to Lee films were filmed or newly made films were marketed as Bruce Lee's unknown early works. The framework for the fight scenes was not set. A popular topic was the fight of the Chinese against Japanese occupiers, but there were also fantastic plots. One of the hallmarks of the genre was the film music of Lalo Schifrin from the movie Enter the Dragon has been adopted by most bruceploitation movies.

development

The heyday of the Bruceploitation films was between 1974 and 1984. One of the earliest, possibly the first of these films was The Bruce Lee Story (with Bruce Li, 1974). In total, over a hundred films were made that can be assigned to this genre. Most were produced in China , Hong Kong, and Taiwan ; many small production companies like PT Insantra, but also big names in the business like the Shaw Brothers participated in the success of the Bruce Lee doubles. Due to the sometimes dubious marketing techniques, the genre fell into disrepute early on and had to fight against rumors, scandals and lies. Despite their popularity, the films were never able to completely overcome their bad image. Much, but not all, of the productions were cheap and flirted with a proximity to trash , but there is also solid action entertainment to be found among the Bruceploitation films. Over time, the double technique developed a momentum of its own, and the genre parodied itself. Bruce Ly, for example, was an impersonator of Bruce Li, a double des doubles; in the 1982 film The Ninja Strikes Back appeared alongside Bruce Le a Chick Norris (after Chuck Norris ), and in the film Bronson Lee Champion (1989) Bronson Lee tried a character who united Bruce Lee and Charles Bronson .

In the late 1970s, producer Serafim Karalexis began promoting the Bruceploitation films in the United States and Great Britain and helped stars of the genre such as Ron van Clief to break through. Even after Jackie Chan (who, by the way, was also involved in the Bruceploitation boom in The new Fist of Fury ) established himself as the new star in the Hong Kong cinema sky, the popularity of the genre overseas remained unbroken. In the mid-1980s, The last Dragon (a Motown co-production from 1985) and Karate Tiger (1986), two cult films from the orbit of the Bruceploitation genre, were released. Newer productions such as Tarantino's Kill Bill series are also brought into connection with Bruceploitation, but the Bruce Lee homage can only be perceived loosely as belonging to the genre.

About 15 Bruceploitation films were also shown in Germany.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paul Bowman: Theorizing Bruce Lee: Film-Fantasy-Fighting-Philosophy . Rodopi, 2010, p. 12