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Chasing Dragons: An Introduction to the Martial Arts Film
"The art of fighting without fighting."- Bruce Lee on his martial arts style in "Enter the Dragon". Written for both interested filmgoers and established aficionados, "Chasing Dragons" is the essential introduction and guide to the martial arts cinemas of Japan, Hong Kong and Hollywood. "Chasing Dragons" explores over fifty key films, their texts, fighting techniques, stars and directors - set in the distinct cultures producing and forming them. "Chasing Dragons" examines the Japanese masters of the samurai film like Kurosawa Akira and Kobayashi Masaki; encounters Zatoichi and the lethal swordsmen of the screen, and the superstars of Hong Kong, from Kwan Tak Hing through 'Little Dragon' Bruce Lee and Sammo Hung, to Jackie Chan and Jet Li. It traces Hollywood's martial arts cinema, including exploitation ninja movies and box-office blockbusters like "The Matrix" and "Kill Bill". All this and much more in this fresh and informative companion to a remarkable cinema.
- GenresFilm
288 pages, Paperback
First published December 26, 2006
3 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
David West
272 books7 followersLibrarian note: there is more than one author with this name.
Others:
David 2^ West: GR author, Humor & Comedy, Science Fiction, Fantasy
David 3^ West: Latin professor
David 4^ West: Children's books
David 5^ West: b. 1923
David 6^ West: b. 1948
David 7^ West: Philosophy
David 8^ West: b. 1959
David 9^ West: b. 1964, Adults Travel
Others:
David 2^ West: GR author, Humor & Comedy, Science Fiction, Fantasy
David 3^ West: Latin professor
David 4^ West: Children's books
David 5^ West: b. 1923
David 6^ West: b. 1948
David 7^ West: Philosophy
David 8^ West: b. 1959
David 9^ West: b. 1964, Adults Travel
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 21, 2015
There is just too many issues with book to recommend. Those who are seasoned with martial arts movie knowledge will find the omissions as a major detriment more than the few errata that are more annoying than harmful to the overall read of this book. Though some of those mistakes can be quite annoying. For example he states that Run Run Shaw is born in 1918 when in fact in was 1907 and he stated he died in 1991 when in fact he would live several years after the printing of the book; he thinks the Hong Kong New Wave is in the 1990s; while he makes the very usual canard of Lau Kar-fei (aka Gordon Lau) being the adopted brother of Lau Kar-leung, he states that the adoption happened as an infant. But those very omissions which I discuss below and the films chosen to review is what makes the very thesis of the book “An Introduction” as somewhat erroneous.
The book is set-up into three main sections: Japan, Hong Kong and Hollywood and the USA. Each of those sections then gets split into a specific topic like a director and then after some detail on it there are several movie reviews. For example for Gosha Hideo he reviews Three Outlaw Samurai, Sword of the Beast, Tenchu (aka Hitokiri) and Goyokin. His strongest section is the Japanese one which he refers back to throughout the book. His love of classic Japanese cinema shows through and it is my favorite section of the book. His background in martial arts, as he has written for several martial art magazines, does make his analysis worth reading on several of the films and he does use particular Japanese phrases I will appropriate in later writings. Though he does not make as much effort with the Chinese films because I do not think there is even one mention of wuxia or jianghu.
Be warned that his reviews of the films do contain spoilers that you might want to skip if you want to be surprised for a particular film. He takes a humanistic approach to his reviews so you will find him particularly harsh on exploitation films like the Lone Wolf and Cub series and Kill Bill. I have no issue with these and in fact agree with much of what he says in that regard. However, later on his contrarian review on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon seems misplaced. He cites the facts that since it was not popular in Hong Kong and that many western reviewers wrongly stated it was unique as a huge knock against it: “Much of the praise given to the film reflects the critics’ unfamiliarity with Hong Kong cinema, for Lee’s film is formulaic to the point of redundancy.” Now given the fact that Lee is a Taiwanese director and personally I do not consider it a Hong Kong film (though HK money was involved), he misses the salient fact that many Asian critics value the film quite highly (it made a very high listing on Golden Horse’s 100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films as well Hong Kong Film Awards The Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures.) So his statement seems it direct contrast to those critics who are very familiar with Hong Kong cinema.
But the omissions seems to me the most conspicuous issue with the book. For Japan he sagaciously mentions the book Hagakure. But the book was an idealized account of bushido written in a peaceful time. It is not the only book on the topic (see Bushido Shoshinshu by Taira Shigesuke) and he seems to use it like a guiding force (like a person with a hammer who sees everything as nails) much like the protagonist in one of his favorite films Ghost Dog (a film I like very much.) For Hong Kong he only has two reviews for Chang Cheh: Men From the Monastery and The Chinatown Kid. While he only gives a perfunctory description for One-Armed Swordsman, he does not even mention Five Deadly Venoms or Crippled Avengers. For Lau Kar-leung he does not even mention The 36[sup]th[/sup] Chamber of Shaolin (while he does mention the third film in the series.) But what is very telling that he only has seem a small amount of Hong Kong films is where he states “Shaw Brothers films were prudish…” in comparison to Golden Harvest. Huh? Has he not seen the horror films like Black Magic, the exploitation films like Killer Snakes etc…? Also, why have a section on John Woo’s gun films and ignore so many martial art films from Hong Kong and Taiwan. For American film he starts off with Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). Not a bad choice, but one might wonder why no mention of the Jiu-jitsu in the Moto films (late 1930s) or the Judo in Blood on the Sun (1945).
Overall an OK book, but too many issues keep me from recommending this. Too many small errors and too many omissions. While I do not know of a great book on the more abstract area of “martial arts film” there are several more concise books I can recommend like Bey Logan’s Hong Kong Action Cinema (1996), David Bordwell’s Planet Hong Kong 2nd Edition (2011) and Donald Richie’s A Hundred Years of Japanese Films (2001). It looks like there is still a good opportunity for someone to write a book that introduces a neophyte audience to the wonderful world of martial arts cinema.
The book is set-up into three main sections: Japan, Hong Kong and Hollywood and the USA. Each of those sections then gets split into a specific topic like a director and then after some detail on it there are several movie reviews. For example for Gosha Hideo he reviews Three Outlaw Samurai, Sword of the Beast, Tenchu (aka Hitokiri) and Goyokin. His strongest section is the Japanese one which he refers back to throughout the book. His love of classic Japanese cinema shows through and it is my favorite section of the book. His background in martial arts, as he has written for several martial art magazines, does make his analysis worth reading on several of the films and he does use particular Japanese phrases I will appropriate in later writings. Though he does not make as much effort with the Chinese films because I do not think there is even one mention of wuxia or jianghu.
Be warned that his reviews of the films do contain spoilers that you might want to skip if you want to be surprised for a particular film. He takes a humanistic approach to his reviews so you will find him particularly harsh on exploitation films like the Lone Wolf and Cub series and Kill Bill. I have no issue with these and in fact agree with much of what he says in that regard. However, later on his contrarian review on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon seems misplaced. He cites the facts that since it was not popular in Hong Kong and that many western reviewers wrongly stated it was unique as a huge knock against it: “Much of the praise given to the film reflects the critics’ unfamiliarity with Hong Kong cinema, for Lee’s film is formulaic to the point of redundancy.” Now given the fact that Lee is a Taiwanese director and personally I do not consider it a Hong Kong film (though HK money was involved), he misses the salient fact that many Asian critics value the film quite highly (it made a very high listing on Golden Horse’s 100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films as well Hong Kong Film Awards The Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures.) So his statement seems it direct contrast to those critics who are very familiar with Hong Kong cinema.
But the omissions seems to me the most conspicuous issue with the book. For Japan he sagaciously mentions the book Hagakure. But the book was an idealized account of bushido written in a peaceful time. It is not the only book on the topic (see Bushido Shoshinshu by Taira Shigesuke) and he seems to use it like a guiding force (like a person with a hammer who sees everything as nails) much like the protagonist in one of his favorite films Ghost Dog (a film I like very much.) For Hong Kong he only has two reviews for Chang Cheh: Men From the Monastery and The Chinatown Kid. While he only gives a perfunctory description for One-Armed Swordsman, he does not even mention Five Deadly Venoms or Crippled Avengers. For Lau Kar-leung he does not even mention The 36[sup]th[/sup] Chamber of Shaolin (while he does mention the third film in the series.) But what is very telling that he only has seem a small amount of Hong Kong films is where he states “Shaw Brothers films were prudish…” in comparison to Golden Harvest. Huh? Has he not seen the horror films like Black Magic, the exploitation films like Killer Snakes etc…? Also, why have a section on John Woo’s gun films and ignore so many martial art films from Hong Kong and Taiwan. For American film he starts off with Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). Not a bad choice, but one might wonder why no mention of the Jiu-jitsu in the Moto films (late 1930s) or the Judo in Blood on the Sun (1945).
Overall an OK book, but too many issues keep me from recommending this. Too many small errors and too many omissions. While I do not know of a great book on the more abstract area of “martial arts film” there are several more concise books I can recommend like Bey Logan’s Hong Kong Action Cinema (1996), David Bordwell’s Planet Hong Kong 2nd Edition (2011) and Donald Richie’s A Hundred Years of Japanese Films (2001). It looks like there is still a good opportunity for someone to write a book that introduces a neophyte audience to the wonderful world of martial arts cinema.
August 4, 2015
Unterteilt in drei große Kapitel zum japanischen, Hongkong-chinesischen und amerikanischen Martial-Arts-Film. West ist offensichtlich biased zugunsten der japanischen Kampf- und Filmkunst; bei der Hongkong-Sektion unterlaufen ihm einige faktische Fehler und das Kapitel über den US-Film ist von utter contempt geprägt (lobende Worte findet er da eigentlich nur für "The Yakuza" und "The Matrix" - der "Kill Bill"-Verriss ist schon wieder lesenswert ob der schieren Verachtung).
West kommt eindeutig eher aus der Kampfsport- und Kampfsportphilosophie-Ecke, weswegen er z.B. eben mit Tarantinos postmodernem Dekonstruktivismus in seiner extremen Form nichts anfangen kann und auch der klassische HK-Schwertkampffilm ist nicht sein Ding. Chang Cheh wird mit zwei kurzen Reviews abgehandelt, Wang Yu negativ besprochen, die 36th-Chamber-Trilogie gar nicht. Zumindest aber traut West sich am Denkmal Bruce Lee zu kratzen (nicht stilistisch, aber dahingehend, dass mindestens drei seiner vier "regulären" Filme als *Filme* nicht sonderlich gut sind).
Am informativsten ist die Japan-Sektion, wo neben Kurosawa hauptsächlich auch sonst klassische Samurai-Filme besprochen werden (mit dem neumodischen japanischen Splatter-Martial-Arts-Film a la "Lone Wolf and Cub" braucht man West auch nicht zu kommen) und hier auch einige im Westen unbekanntere Filme vorgestellt werden.
Fazit: Für Einsteiger in die Materie als historischer Abriss ganz brauchbar und speziell im Japan-Part mit einigen guten Tipps, aber für den etwas versierteren Fan zu einseitig.
West kommt eindeutig eher aus der Kampfsport- und Kampfsportphilosophie-Ecke, weswegen er z.B. eben mit Tarantinos postmodernem Dekonstruktivismus in seiner extremen Form nichts anfangen kann und auch der klassische HK-Schwertkampffilm ist nicht sein Ding. Chang Cheh wird mit zwei kurzen Reviews abgehandelt, Wang Yu negativ besprochen, die 36th-Chamber-Trilogie gar nicht. Zumindest aber traut West sich am Denkmal Bruce Lee zu kratzen (nicht stilistisch, aber dahingehend, dass mindestens drei seiner vier "regulären" Filme als *Filme* nicht sonderlich gut sind).
Am informativsten ist die Japan-Sektion, wo neben Kurosawa hauptsächlich auch sonst klassische Samurai-Filme besprochen werden (mit dem neumodischen japanischen Splatter-Martial-Arts-Film a la "Lone Wolf and Cub" braucht man West auch nicht zu kommen) und hier auch einige im Westen unbekanntere Filme vorgestellt werden.
Fazit: Für Einsteiger in die Materie als historischer Abriss ganz brauchbar und speziell im Japan-Part mit einigen guten Tipps, aber für den etwas versierteren Fan zu einseitig.
July 5, 2010
Wasted time I'll never get back. Boring, tedious and pointless.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews