Kung Fu Craze Hits USA! An Interview With These Fists Break Bricks Co-author, Grady Hendrix

Originally, this interview with THESE FISTS BREAK BRICKS co-author Grady Hendrix was intended to be part of the recent review of the book's new expanded edition  (which you can read HERE). It's presented here as a stand-alone interview, but will eventually be added to the book review for the revised, expanded edition--complementing the book review of the first edition that featured an interview with co-author, Chris Poggiali (which you can read HERE).

 

The new, revised edition contains even more of the history of the genre's place in American pop culture in the 1970s and 1980s. It was a unique time for the Hong Kong Cinema exports (and those from Taiwan as well). Those films were unlike anything Occidental eyes had seen before. This interview is how co-author Grady Hendrix came to appreciate this wild genre and, along with co-author Chris Poggiali, sought to tell the story of how Kung Fu Fighting came to America.

 

VENOMS5: What was the first Kung Fu movie you saw and what was that experience like for you?
 

GRADY HENDRIX: I remember catching dubbed kung fu flicks on Saturday afternoon, but I never paid them much attention. To me they were threadbare punchlines that we made fun of, talking in bad dubbing on the playground. I saw KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE’s “A Fistful of Yen” parody of ENTER THE DRAGON years before I actually saw ENTER THE DRAGON itself. When I moved to New York for college I started going to the Music Palace and catching first run Hong Kong features, renting VHS tapes of Hong Kong flicks from Kim’s Video, seeing screenings of prime Jackie Chan and Jet Li at Peter Chan’s retro screenings, but Shaw still had their library locked up tight and, anyways, the old school stuff looked cheap and out-of-date to me. 

 

Then I bought a bootleg of CRIPPLED AVENGERS (1978) sight unseen for reasons I don’t remember. It was letterboxed and dubbed and I was surprised at how much I liked it. That was around the time me and some other guys formed Subway Cinema and we had our first Old School Kung Fu Fest and seeing CRIPPLED AVENGERS (1978) and Angela Mao’s SCORCHING SUN, FIERCE WINDS, WILD FIRE (1980) on a big screen with a packed audience finally made me a convert. But it took that long for the penny to drop and for me to really understand that these movies were weaponized entertainment machines, designed to mercilessly destroy audiences.

V5: Did any of your family and friends share your interest in these films?

GH: Not a one. Subway Cinema was the first time I found freaks like me.

V5: What was it that led to your interest in writing books?

GH: I had written a book called Paperbacks from Hell about the horror paperback boom of the ‘70s and ‘80s and it’d done really well. Chris liked it and he approached me and asked if I thought we could do something similar with his collection of ad materials and posters for martial arts movies. So we talked. And we talked. And we talked. We talked for a long time. My big concern was making sure there was a story here with a beginning, a middle, and an end, but the deeper we dug the more it became apparent that not only was there a story here but, to our surprise, no one had told it before.

V5: You are a NYT best selling author and have had your work optioned for both film and television. How has that experience been for you?

GH: It’s fun, but to be honest, I don’t feel like Mr. New York Times Bestselling Author. By the time a book comes out, it’s a year in my rear view mirror and I’m working on the next book, terrified that THIS time I’m screwing it up, THIS time I’m getting it wrong, THIS time it’s all just going to fall apart into a big pile of garbage.

V5: What story in THESE FISTS BREAK BRICKS do you think would make a good movie?

GH: I love writing novels, but I’m the most proud of my nonfiction books, Paperbacks from Hell and These Fists Break Bricks. So many writers have had their work brought back
into print because of Paperbacks and so many readers have rediscovered unfairly forgotten writers like Ken Greenhall, and Elizabeth Engstrom, and Michael McDowell from it. I’m hoping something like that happens for These Fists, not just with the movies but with the history of the people who brought martial arts to America. The friendship between Charles Bonet, the Puerto Rican Panther, and Ron Van Clief, the Black Dragon; the Japanese judo masters like Professor Ito and Sego Murakami whose schools were gutted by the World War II internment camps; and badass stuntmen like Kim Kahana,
who hitchhiked to LA at 13, became a paratrooper in the Korean War where he was unsuccessfully executed by a North Korean firing squad, dug himself out of a mass grave, spent two years completely blind after a hand grenade went off in his face, and survived a plane crash that killed 35 other passengers. I want people to know all of them! (Insert: Kim Kahana)

V5: What’s your favorite Kung Fu movie and KF movie actor and why?

GH: In terms of old school kung fu, I developed a deep love for SOUL BROTHERS OF KUNG FU (1977) starring Carl Scott and Bruce Li. Scott was 15 years old at the time and he’d studied with Sijo Steve Muhammad at the Black Karate Federation, but he was discovered by Pau Ming while working as an extra on Ng See-yuen’s BRUCE LEE: THE MAN, THE MYTH (1976). He was a kung fu guy, not a karate guy, which made him fast and agile, and in a movie like SOUL BROTHERS OF KUNG FU he’s a baby-faced badass with great control, good rhythm, dropping low and popping high. He’s having a blast in the movie, breaking into a grin in the middle of fights, and he essentially takes over the film, playing possum in the big finale, head butting the bad guy, throwing rocks. He only made a handful of movies but I wish he’d stayed in the business. He would’ve made a great opponent for Jackie Chan.

V5: How did you and Chris meet and is it possible there will be a third edition in the future?

GH: I don’t know how I met Chris, honestly. He’s always been around at Exhumed Screenings and Subway Cinema screenings. I think the first time we worked together was when at the last minute we were both asked to host an action movie marathon at an Alamo Drafthouse in upstate New York. As to a third edition, I’d love to but non-fiction takes a long time and is a ton of work so it might be a while.

V5: What’s projects are you working on now?

GH: Right this minute I’m finishing my next novel, then I’ve got a novella I need to finish for a British publisher, I’ve got to finish the scripts for the new season of my podcast about the
history of horror, Super Scary Haunted Home School, and I’m writing a ton of introductions for these amazing 4K restorations Shout is putting out of classic Hong Kong flicks from the ‘80s.

 

I would like to thank Mr. Hendrix for participating in this interview. If you'd like to purchase a copy of THESE FISTS BREAK BRICKS, you can do so at Amazon HERE.