Martial arts

Hong Kong martial arts cinema, and the Western exploitation circuit that imported it.

The studios

Shaw Brothers ran an actual studio system out of Clearwater Bay: contract players, standing sets, and a production line that turned out hundreds of films. Chang Cheh made the violent ones, Lau Kar-leung made the technically serious ones, and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) is the best training film ever made.

Golden Harvest broke away in 1970 and signed Bruce Lee, which decided the next decade.

How it reached the West

Through the grindhouse and the drive-in, usually in prints dubbed carelessly and retitled twice. American distributors cut them, rescored them, and sold them alongside blaxploitation on double bills, which is how Enter the Dragon and Black Belt Jones ended up sharing an audience.

Bruceploitation

Bruce Lee died in 1973 with an unfinished film. The industry responded by hiring lookalikes named Bruce Li, Bruce Le and Dragon Lee and making dozens of films with them, including several in which Lee's death is a plot point. It is one of the strangest episodes in film history.

Where to start

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, then Five Deadly Venoms for how odd Chang Cheh got.