Looking For a Good Book

My formative years were in the 1970’s and I grew up with these awesome Kung Fu movies. Yes, I had the iconic Bruce Lee poster on my wall and I probably would have taken some kind of martial arts classes if my small town offered it.

This book takes a deep dive and explores the many … MANY … Kung Fu movies through the years. Producers, distributors, directors, stars – pretty much anything that you can think of that might be connected to a Kung Fu film is explored and shared here.  It’s frankly exhausting, it is so thorough.

I can’t say that I was such a fan that I knew the names of the stars and/or sought out a film because of who was in it.  Like most, I presume, I knew Bruce Lee and I knew Chuck Norris, and I watched the Kung Fu television show regularly when it was on. And I was familiar with the name Bruce Li (a Bruce Lee alternative/imitator). I watched a lot of these films, and even today I might turn such a film on if I see one and I’ve got some time to kill

The book offers much more than the average Kung Fu watcher (like me) really needs (or wants) to know.  But it is impressive that authors Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali were able to get so comprehensive.  This had to take massive amounts of research.

What I found most interesting in this read was how cheaply these films were made (as if you couldn’t tell by watching them), and how often the films were reused and re-titled to get the most bang for the buck. And of course there were the scam producers/distributors. I did find it interesting that Hendrix and Poggiali didn’t hold back at all and named names wherever possible.

I also found a small handful of films I’d be interested in watching – generally for the performers mentioned (such as Angela Mao and Jud Lee).

The book is Lavishly illustrated (capital ‘L’ intentional), There are lots and lots of film posters and window cards shared here.  Of course, on my Kindle, they’re in B&W … I can’t say how they might appear in a printed book or on a computer screen.

My ARC of this book has some small formatting issues – mostly having to do with the images and descriptions not lining up but also with fonts that change from a ‘normal’ look to fonts that are a 50% gray and hard to read, and then back to standard appearance, It definitely made for a bit of a challenging read. Hopefully this issue is corrected for publication.

The book is subtitled “Revised and Expanded Edition” but at the very end the authors note:

There’s always more to this story. We haven’t even talked about the late 80’s craze for girls-with-guns movies that introduced the world to hard-hitting, high-kicking action actresses like …. We completely skipped any mention of the legion of talented disabled martial artists who made their way to the silver screen, too…

So perhaps there will some day be a newly revised and expanded edition?

Looking for a good book? These Fists Break Bricks (Revised and Expanded Edition), by Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali is a well-researched, exhaustive look at Kung Fu movies and martial artists up through the 1970’s. Anything you could ever want to know about these films is probably found within these pages. Anyone with even a slight interest should check this out.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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These Fists Break Bricks (Revised and Expanded Edition)

authors:  Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali

publisher: Running Press Adult

ISBN: 9780762489480

hardcover, 384 pages