Recuperative Transgression
The Hong Kong Kung Fu film has long been considered as a site of resistance, gaining attention in the wake of western-centric blockbusters that lack asian representation or present reductive notions of an eastern Other. Not only did Kung Fu films encourage the recognition and celebration of a non-white hero, they allowed an underdog of color to actively challenge colonialist enemies and emerge victoriously. This very refusal to conform to mass taste elevated the Kung Fu film into what Greg Taylor would classify as a “cult film”, which he defines in Artists in the Audience (1999) as a film that “focuses on the identification and isolation of marginal artworks.” Upon initial viewing, these films seem to perfectly operate within this category, positioning Kung Fu, a traditionally peripheral “cultural object,” at the crux of the film's plot and narrative. As such, much scholarly attention has been placed on how the Kung Fu film’s classification as “cult” hinges on the genre representing rebellion and protest against western oppression, whilst Kung Fu itself has gained popularity as a transgressive symbol of “Chinese pride” and liberation(Lu).
However, although trailblazing an alternative taste that seems to upend the traditional stereotypes of yellow-facing and white-washing in western media, the Kung Fu film’s cult definition may not be fully owed to its transgressive nature. Mikel Koven presents the concept of a “vernacular film” as a key aspect of the cultist approach to transnational cinema. Koven's definition revolves around two frameworks. Firstly, a vernacular film is one that aligns itself with localized practices and traditions, grounding itself in the cultural context of its audience. Secondly, it exhibits qualities akin to Bourdieu's concept of "taste for necessity," emphasizing immediate sensory impact and gratification over strict adherence to narrative coherence. This shares similarities with Grant's definition of a cult film, which posits that “at the level of film plot, cult cinema is characterized by narrative patterns that manage to be both transgressive and Recuperative.” Coupling Koven and Grant’s definitions may explain why Hong Kong Kung Fu films have solicited a successful cult following. However, more importantly, it also reveals the deeply problematic implications of Kung Fu film’s marketing and recognition as a transgressive medium. Through re-tracing the Kung Fu film tradition including the landmark films Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon, Enter the dragon, Once Upon a time China, Game of Death and Fist of Fury II, this essay explores the Kung Fu film not as a genre of transgression, rather, as a mode of backwardness, burdened by its own outdated portrayal of the East that ultimately breaks down it’s subversive veneer to reveal it’s futility in challenging dominant ideology. To that end, it will be argued that Kung Fu’s cult status arises not from Taylor’s classification of “marginality” that combats the mainstream, but from Grant’s definition: “the [cult film] viewer ultimately gains the double satisfaction of both rejecting dominant cultural values and remaining safely inscribed within them.” (Grant 2015)
At the core of all Kung Fu films is the practice of Kung Fu, a confluence of artistic and physical prowess relentless in its attack whilst captivating in its performance. Kung Fu has long been “aligned with localized practice and traditions”(Koven) of Hong Kong, having been cherished as a vital component of the region's cultural heritage and identity. Its deep-rooted connection to the local community is evident in the countless martial arts schools, practitioners, and events that have flourished throughout Hong Kong's history, fostering a sense of pride and continuity in the art form(Lu). The protagonist of Way of the Dragon, Enter the dragon, Once Upon a time China, and Fist of fury II, all employ Kung Fu as their main mode to fight, battle, infiltrate, and subjugate foreign oppressors. This is especially significant in Hong Kong’s context as it has been victim to systematic displacement from the Japanese occupation to the British Colonial rule that established one country two systems. Kung Fu has thus risen as a symbol of power and national pride, subverting the narrative to grant the Chinese underdog moments of undisputable power. Robert Clouse’s Enter the Dragon perfectly captures the cliched binary pairing of a Chinese underdog, in this case Lee, and white villain, O’Hara. It is within the subversion of this dichotomy, this unbalanced east-west power dynamic, that the Kung Fu film curates its promised moment of satisfaction for the audience who are positioned to identify with the “marginalized” eastern underdog. Clouse leverages the connotations of power associated with the white adversary to portray O'Hara in all his physical power and unwavering self-assurance. In a wide shot where O’Hara is positioned face to face with Lee, O’Hara clearly towers over him, occupying more space in the shot. The framing and composition here literally shows O’Hara’s indomitable physique as compared to Lee’s whilst figuratively representing the uneven playing field that seemingly lends O’Hara the upper-hand. On the other hand, Lee’s characterization is starkly opposite, and intentionally so. His unassuming nature is shown through costume. Whilst O’Hara is dressed in a traditional Kung Fu suit that incorporates a black belt, a symbol of his mastery of combat, Lee’s physique is concealed behind a loose white chinese gown that seems ill-fitted for battle. The binary roles lay ground for the expectation that O’Hara will triumph over Lee. However, through incremental and clean punches, Lee strikes O’Hara again and again until he is bloodied and can no longer stand on his own two feet. This initial subversion seems to place the film in Taylor’s classification of a “marginal” work that transgresses main-stream expectations of a white hero. However, a secondary reading posits how the scene’s transgression isn’t to be taken seriously. Although Lee successfully defeats O’Hara, perfectly reenacting the trope of subversion through the celebration of the win of a marginal Other, the editing and sound design of the scene reduces the entire interaction into a mere performance, stripping the act of Kung Fu from its real-world efficacy and potential to pose a legitimate threat. Lee’s final kick is augmented by a slow motion effect, likening his Kung Fu prowess into a seductive choreography that should be watched as a dance. This is reinforced by how the sequence itself is encased within a ring of Chinese Kung Fu apprentices who underscore each of Lee’s strikes with rapturous applause. By furnishing the scene with an additional layer of viewership and ovation, the performative nature of the battle is reinforced. As a result, Kung Fu, known as Wu Shu in Mandarin, shifts from martial(wu) to art(shu). Siu Leung Li raises this very concern in his paper Kung Fu: negotiating nationalism and modernity, questioning “what modernspace can kung fu effectively and legitimately claim for itself except in sport games, in the military as a supplementary and yet perhaps a shrinking part of training of soldiers, and to the few top martial artists as a lofty ideal of personal spiritual fulfillment and expression?”(Li) What is problematic here is that Inscribed within a circle of viewers, the symbolisation of Kung Fu as practical weaponry and national strength is drained - its functionality is located in its artistic identity. Thus, moments of Kung Fu that are supposed to show off eastern power and strength are ultimately deemed unthreatening to both western ideology and power.
However, even in the cases where Kung Fu isn’t set up as a performance, it is unable to be taken seriously, reinforcing the western perception of the East as a timeless land that poses, at most, a comical and facetious threat to western power. The Kung Fu film is caught in a liminal space between the use of swords, hand-to-hand combat, and the advent of guns which contributes to its self-determination as an inept and nonsensical power. To that end, the portrayal of Kung Fu in Kung Fu cult films is no better than the overt racism exhibited in its mainstream counterparts where an Eastern Other is destroyed by the firearm. This is seen in Steven Spielberg’s 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark where an Arabic Swordsman Is shot dead by Indiana Jones’ gun. Both Kung Fu and sword fighting are both undoubtedly outdated modes of combat, however the real problem lies in Kung Fu’s consideration as a “realist mode” in comparison to a “swordplay film” that “verges on the realm of fantasy” as exhibited in Indiana Jones(Li). By considering Kung Fu films and the fighting within as serious, its very realism becomes farcical and ridiculed. Tsui Hark illuminates this in his 1991 Kung Fu film Once upon a time in China through Yan’s last words when held at gunpoint: “No matter how great our Kung Fu is, it is no match for westernguns.” Kung Fu’s impracticality is also emphasized in an anecdote by legendary Kung Fu master Huo Yuanjia(1857–1909) who states “if I were born several hundreds years ago, wiping off bandits with spears and sabers, it would be a piece of cake for me to gain high offices. With Today's advanced technology and firearms, what’s the use of martial arts and heroic courage?”(Li) More ironic than its self-assumed effectiveness is how gunpowder was founded in China and by the Chinese almost 700 years before the emergence of Kung Fu films(Li). Films situated within the same timescape as Kung Fu films don’t shy away from employing the eastern created technology. For example, characters in Oliver Cromwell’s mid-seventeenth century film Cromwell make good use of the gunpowder, rifles, and cannons to fight against King Charles’ corrupt dictatorship. Whilst gunpowder and technological advancements were highlighted in western films, Kung Fu is still depicted and enacted as the main mode of attack and defense in Hong Kong Kung Fu films. In Orientalism, Edward Said illuminates how this aligns the east with outdated backwardness and technological development: “there is a kind of image of the timeless Orient as the Orient, unlike the West, doesn't develop. It stays the same”, crafting “an image outside of history - of something placid and still; eternal... It’s a creation...of an ideal Other.”(Said) Thus the outdated mode of Kung Fu as a mode of fighting solicits Hong Kong, and the east at large, as a timeless land that is frozen in its realization of technology, advancement, and modernisation. The problem lies in how Kung Fu presents a veneer of Chinese pride and strength whilst denying and eroding its very practicality to real life. By championing an out-moded reality of the east, The Kung Fu film loses its ability to be transgressive in combating mainstream notions of the East as an Other. Rather, it plots the culturally peripheral object of Kung Fu at the center of the narrative just to champion an illusion of resistance.
This veneer of transgression is further exposed when examining Kung Fu’s characterisation as untamed and barbaric in Kung Fu films. Upon initial viewing, the excessive fighting and unwavering perseverance of the characters in combat seem to champion the notion of Kung Fu as a powerful mode that effectively lends power to whoever can gain full mastery of it. This is accentuated by the cinematography of many Kung Fu scenes. For example, in Game of Death, a dolly zoom is consistently employed to represent Bruce Lee’s character Billy Lo’s formidable ironclad strength, creating an effect that his mastery of Kung Fu can warp gravity and time. Similar symbolic moments of strength can be mapped throughout Kung Fu films, however these are often juxtaposed by scenes that portray Kung Fu as a primitive mode. In these lapses, Kung Fu films once again retreat back into dominant ideology that reinforces the notion of the Oriental Other that needs to be tamed, upholding Grant’s definition of cult films as being both “transgressive and recuperative’. In Fist of Fury II, little time is dedicated to the development of dialogue, debate, and reason. Rather, conflict resolution defaults to rapturous moments of battle. In one of the first scenes, Yasuyoshi Shikamura’s character Yanagi Saburo exclaims “I think you should all pack your things and get out of here.” This leads one of the dojo’s men to attack a member of Saburo’s crew. The opposing sides fight but it is only someone disrupting the dialogue, exclaiming, “get out” and the scene comes to a close. In effect, this not only emphasizes the sensationalist approach of these Kung Fu films, but also presents fighting as a deeply futile vehicle of conflict resolution, positioning those who employ it as driven by the barbaric and hedonistic desire to draw blood. Said explains that “Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, teaching it, settling it, ruling over it.” This is shown in Fist of Fury II through cinematography, acting, and sound design, where the animalistic depiction of fighting reinforces the image of the Orient as untamed. The uniformity of the costume design where all men are dressed in dark tones of red, gray, and black blurs the lines between the two opposing forces, resulting in a disorienting spectacle where the individuals clash haphazardly and without clear objectives. Instead of a purposeful confrontation, the scene becomes a jumbled display of random violence, devoid of any strategic intent or coherent narrative. This is reinforced by the birds-eye-view angle that heightens the sense of pandemonium, as the camera captures the chaotic flurry of bodies intertwining, akin to a whirlwind of frenzied movement. This visual representation serves as a metaphor for the breakdown of order, reflecting the eastern world as an uncivilized one where it is the norm to address conflict with aggression and violence. This portrayal can reinforce stereotypes that associate Eastern cultures with a lack of civility and a need for external influence, particularly from the West, to impose order and discipline.
In order to generate opportunities for Kung Fu to exist, screenwriters and directors must create arbitrary eruptions of violence and resort to simplistic and reductive plots. As such, Kung Fu becomes an uncivilized mode of conflict resolution that replaces more systematic methods. Thus, the Kung Fu film, whilst able to spur enthralling and positive imagery of Eastern strength, does so from a safe distance, where eastern power is acknowledged, but ultimately deemed untamed. In Pierre Bourdieu’s landmark study Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Bordieu aligns lower-class taste with “vulgarity.” Bourdieu argues that taste is not inherent but a strategy of social differentiation that serves to perpetuate, accentuate, and reproduce class hierarchies. The aesthetic choice of the working classes, Bourdieu contends, often reflect a desire for “maximum ‘effect’ at minimum cost, emphasizing “use value and what the bourgeois taste defines as “vulgarity.” The prioritization of elaborate Kung Fu sequences leads to a problematic privileging of sensationalism over plot coherence that paints the Oriental Other as nonsensical and vulgar. On the other hand, Bourdieu designs the “Pure Gaze” as “a mode of aesthetic appreciation characteristic of the privileged and defined by aesthetic distance, connoisseurship, and detachment.”(Bourdieu) Under such a framework, the Kung Fu film’s tendency to rely on excess and gore, coupled with how fight scenes occupy moments where productive discourse can be spurred to resolve conflict, emphasizes its use value, cementing Kung Fu films’ status in lower-class taste. This is most prominent in the sound design of Kung Fu films where diegetic sound is rarely employed during fight scenes, creating little fantasy or means of distance when an audience is observing the scene. For example, in Enter the Dragon II, the fight scenes are characterized by the non-diegetic sounds of grunts and shattering glass. This deliberate emphasis on excessive gore and abrasive sound effects serves to heighten the intensity and brutality of the action. By focusing on these elements, the film deliberately defines itself as for the lower-class, providing a cathartic spectacle of unbridled physicality and sensationalized violence that is aligned with the “lower-class” desire for maximum impact and immediate sensory stimulation. The absence of opportunities for audience detachment from the action in Kung Fu films undermines the contrasting notion of the "pure gaze". Unlike genres that allow for a contemplative or analytical viewing experience, Kung Fu films immerse the audience in the immediate intensity of the scenes, leaving little room for emotional or intellectual detachment. Even when non-diegetic soundtracks are used, they often feature Oriental music that serves to draw the audience further into the scene at hand, intensifying the cultural immersion rather than creating a distancing effect. The absence of opportunities for detachment, coupled with the extremity of Kung Fu fight sequences thus has the effect of legitimizing social differences and perpetuating a clear hierarchical divide of east and west. Not only does this portrayal serve to protect and maintain the preferences of non-eastern and upper-class audiences, it leads to the systematic generalization, belittling, and stereotyping of the entire Eastern identity into a taste category, soliciting it as a (lower) Other.
Kung Fu films seem to give voice and empowerment to the Other, the deviant, the outgroup, the untamed. They encourage the audience to explore and embrace alternative perspectives, only to revoke this invitation, reestablishing the dominant social order and reinforce existing uneven power dynamics. Through the depiction of Kung Fu, eastern power, initially portrayed as formidable, is diminished into a farcical threat, necessitating western imposition and domination. The vulgarity of Kung fu in Kung Fu films effectively aligns the eastern identity with a low taste category that drains it of any potential power to infiltrate the west. To that end, the subversive potential of Kung Fu films becomes largely reduced, ensuring the sanctity of traditional cultural narratives and codes. Kung Fu films have undoubtedly paved the way for a subset of non-western films and “marginal” voices to permeate the mainstream. Thus, although Koven’s definition of a cult film still stands, despite the increased representation, deeper analyses suggest how the portrayal of the east in these films is deeply prejudiced and actually serves to reinforce existing stereotypes. Ultimately, Kung Fu films end up perpetuating the very systems of oppression they seemingly challenge and subvert. The ironic bargain at play here is that it is Kung Fu films' ability to enact recuperative transgression that solicits its coveted cult status.
