The Mainstream Rise Of Martial Arts Movies

No matter where you are in the world, whether it be a major city or a small village in a third world country, there’s a good chance that people will know the name, Bruce Lee. This star of martial arts movies is a legend like no other, and his name and films are so popular, that his name is almost as recognized as much as people like Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela or Michael Jackson.

The ever increasing popularity of martial arts movies across the world owes a great deal to the legacy left by Bruce Lee. This genre of film may have been popular in the East for many years, but it was the rise of Bruce Lee’s star that took it global, and he was the first real cross-over martial artist to grab the attention of the rest of the world. This has led to martial arts being by far the most popular type of action film today.

Enter The Dragon, one of the Bruce Lee classics, could arguably be called the first major martial arts international blockbuster and it was the first Chinese martial arts movie produced by a big Hollywood company. The movie, made in 1973, also featured a future superstar of the genre in a bit part, the one and only Jackie Chan. Sadly though it was also Bruce Lee’s final film appearance as he died before it was even released.

But his legacy lived on, and the five films Bruce Lee appeared in, including Game of Death which was released posthumously, remain some of the most popular martial arts movies watched today. They also influenced many others and were very influential in making the genre cross over into the mainstream film world.

By 2000, they were firmly entrenched in our culture, so much so that the Mandarin-language movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, was nominated for numerous Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It won Best Foreign Film, and many other awards. For many years these types of movies were dubbed into English for the English-speaking market, but as they became more popular, people preferred to see them in their original Chinese.

Martial arts movies came with a rich history prior to the rise of Bruce Lee and others in the seventies, but they were not widely seen outside of Asia. However thanks to directors like Quentin Tarantino, there has been a rise in interest in earlier works like those of Akira Kurosawa, the legendary Japanese director. His movie, The Seven Samurai, made in 1954, is considered one of the greatest all-time movies, though the adapted American version, The Magnificent Seven, may be better known. Many of his other movies were also adapted into Hollywood Movies.

Today it has become the norm to see martial arts in almost every action movie. Hollywood has created stars from the genre like Chuck Norris (who first appeared with Bruce Lee), Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Mark Dacascos. There have also been many Asian stars who have become major players in Hollywood and across the world like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Tony Yaa and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star Michelle Yeoh.

It may once have been just a cult genre, seen by a few, but in the past thirty years, martial arts movies have become a fixed fixture in mainstream cinema, influencing many other genres, thanks to its innovative techniques and choreography.

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