Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book (34 page)

Coming from an impoverished childhood and still insecure about his acting, Norris chose to take money in the hand rather than pie in the sky. Golan/Globus apparently paid him one million dollars just for signing, and promised one million dollars for each of seven films. Besides, would major studios allow his brother, Aaron, to continue choreographing and directing his pictures?

Whatever the reason, it was a shame. While Andy Davis
and Norris’ action peers went on to bigger and/or better things, Chuck toiled in the slums of filmdom for the next ten years. The first few were okay.
Missing in Action
(1984),
released prior to
Code of Silence
,
but made afterward, was effective enough, as was its sequel,
Missing in Action 2
: The Beginning
(1985) — both establishing Chuck now as “Rambo
-lite.” Now forty-five years old, Norris went the way of so many martial arts stars by downplaying karate
for gunplay. He co-wrote his next Cannon loss leader,
Invasion U.S.A.
(1985), which had him taking on foreign terrorists in Florida.

The Delta Force
(1986) was, arguably, his best Cannon Film, as well as one of Cannon’s best. Monachem Golan
returned to the director’s chair for this combination of
The Dirty Dozen
and
Airport
,
filling the cast with familiar but talented actors, ranging from
The Dirty Dozen
’s
Lee Marvin
to
Airport
’s
George Kennedy
to
The Poseidon Adventure’s
Shelley Winters
. In the mix was also the great Martin Balsam
, Robert Forster
, and even Joey Bishop
. At two hours and ten minutes long, Golan was able to make two movies: one a fairly credible docudrama about the real skyjacking that the film was based on, and the other a patriotic revenge fantasy that had Lee and Chuck saving the day.

From there it was a slippery downhill slope.
Firewalker
(1986) had the right idea — teaming Chuck with Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett Jr.
to play wisecracking treasure hunters — but it had a script that did no one justice. Norris wrapped up his initial Cannon contract in 1988 with
Braddock: Missing in Action
III
and
Hero
and the Terror,
both which showed a creeping indifference on the part of cast and crew alike.

It only got worse.
Delta Force
2
arrived in 1990 after an on-location helicopter accident that killed a stuntman.
The Hitman
(1991) was an embarrassment, combining a greater violence and profanity quotient with the “heartfelt” tale of a boy looking for a father figure. But even it wasn’t as bad as
Sidekicks
(1993) with Chuck training a kid to be a responsible martial artist. But neither of those efforts could compare to the nearly unknown U.S./Canada/Israel co-production
Hellbound
,
which went directly to video in 1993 and had Chuck fighting a demonic spirit. Finally, there was
Top Dog
(1995) and
Forest Warrior
(1996), two sad attempts to sustain Chuck’s career.

Thankfully, Chuck’s saga has a happy ending.
Walker, Texas Ranger
went on the air in 1993, and was immediately decried as the most mindlessly violent show on television. Its millions of watchers didn’t care. Recycling
Lone Wolf McQuade
into a teen-friendly action hour, the nearly sixty year-old karate
champion found the success he had longed for in a medium that didn’t intimidate him. Few expected greatness of Norris on television — his fans wanted good times and his bosses wanted good rating, and that’s what he gave them for a full eight seasons. With a spinning back kick, of course.

Meanwhile, back in 1984, when Chuck was starring in
Missing in Action
, another film appeared that would have a lasting effect on American martial art movies. Ironically, it was one that Chuck was supposedly asked to co-star in, but turned down because of the script’s negative view of American martial arts (a report Norris denies). In any case, the film’s point of view might have been negative, but it was an accurate snapshot of American martial arts mentality.

The movie was, of course,
The Karate Kid
(1984), the canny original written by Robert Mark Kamen
, directed by John Avildsen
, and starring Ralph Macchio
and Pat Noriyuki Morita
as the venerable Mister Miyagi. Now this was a flick that made perfect sense to a short-cut-loving, anything-worth-having-can-be-paid-for society. Even so, it took a misshapen crane-style kung fu move to save the day during the finale. Nevertheless, it holds a deserved place in the hearts of many fans (including me).

The difficult reality of kung fu is that, while the pay-off is impressive, the set-up is strange to western eyes. Americans seem far more comfortable with angry emotion and muscular motion than calm, smooth defense. As I’ve said to my students, Japanese martial arts is like ice. Chinese kung fu is like water. Rarely was the difference more conspicuous than two years after
The Karate Kid
, when
Big Trouble in Little China
(1986) showed up. Original scripters Gary Goldman
and David Weinstein
wanted to create an American-friendly version of “manhua” (Chinese comic books) movies like Chu Yuan
’s
Heaven Sword and Dragon
Saber
, Tsui Hark
’s
Zu Warriors of the Magic Mountain
and Lu Chin-ku
’s
Bastard Swordsman
, but set in the old west. Screenwriter W.D. Richter
reportedly modernized it, then director John Carpenter
further amended it to his liking.

The result was a major box office disappointment at the time, and remains an egregious missed opportunity. It’s a classic example of what happens when an American film crew portrays an ethos they know little about. It didn’t help matters when star Kurt Russell
was inspired to play his leading role by doing an impersonation of John Wayne
. It might have been interesting to see how Wayne’s patented round-house punches stacked up against authentic kung fu, but
Big Trouble
had precious little of that.

Despite having Conan Lee
(star of such outstanding kung fu films as Corey Yuen’s 1982
Ninja
in the Dragon
’s Den
and Liu Chia-liang
’s 1988
Tiger on Beat
) on set, stunt coordinator Kenny Endoso
settled on more familiar pushing, punching, and kicking … when the stereotypical Fu Manchu
-ish Chinese characters weren’t ponderously floating or incongruously shooting lightning out of their fingers and/or eyes. Suffice to say,
Little China
didn’t approach the power of the films that inspired it.

Elsewhere in 1986, when
The Delta Force
and
The Karate Kid
Part II
hit theaters, a little movie called
No Retreat, No Surrender
also came out. It was a laughable effort, ripped off from
Rocky IV
(1985) with an American martial arts team fighting a seemingly unstoppable Russian bruiser. The filmmaking skill on display was barely above home-movie level (despite the fact that Corey Yuen Kwai
directed it), but there was something about the intensity of the actor playing the Russian that stood out.

That was no accident. Twenty-five-year old Brussels, Belgium native Jean-Claude Van Varenberg (aka Van Damme
) had been preparing for that moment almost all his life. “I’d been dreaming of working in show business since I was ten years old,” he said. “I started to work in France, but I thought America was the best place in the world to succeed as an action film actor.” The reason he felt that way could be summed up in one name: Arnold Schwarzenegger
.

If Chuck Norris
was the poor man’s Clint Eastwood
, Van Damme was certainly Arnold-lite. Like Schwarzenegger, he was a heavily muscled man with a heavily muscled accent. The comparison was not lost on Van Damme, who came to Hollywood with little money, no English, and the laughable Westernized name of “Frank Cujo.”

“I tried to look as charming as I could and started knocking on every door. It took me three years to even begin making a name for myself. I was obliged to take a lot of odd jobs, including as a taxi driver and a bouncer.” He also got work in
Missing in Action
2
, where he asked Chuck Norris
to serve as his agent (“I was very naive at the time,” he says) and in Schwarzenegger’s
Predator
(1987),
where he worked inside the alien suit.

“I was wearing the suit for three weeks before Kevin Peter Hall took my place,” he explained, “because he’s a lot taller than I am. This experience was a big step in my career. I remember that they asked me to do a very dangerous stunt, and I was obliged to say no, because I had just been hired for
Bloodsport
and I was afraid I’d break my leg.” Van Damme saved his leg for the Mark DiSalle
production, which appeared in 1987.

The earnest, decent-looking variation on
Enter the Dragon
,
which told of international martial artists competing in an illegal battle to the death, was silly and predictable, but enjoyable for all of that. And, of course, it had Van Damme giving it his all. Van Damme saw Chuck Norris
’ spinning back kick and raised him one: Jean-Claude could not only do a 180-degree flying front kick, ballerina-style, but he could do splits like nobody’s business. Van Damme hoped
Bloodsport
would be his ticket to the major leagues, but he toiled in independent exploitation features for years more. Up next was
Black Eagle
(1988) in which he played villain to one of Sho Kosugi
’s last gasps as a ninja
hero.

Cyborg
(1989) treated Van Damme a little better, in that it was Albert Pyun
’s bargain basement variation on
Terminator
(1984). On the one hand, Van Damme found his new director even more inspiring than the man who made
Die Hard
and
Predator
.
“John McTiernan
is a wonderful, hardworking director,” he said at the time. “But I’m more impressed by Albert Pyun
’s work because he gets wonderful results without a big budget. He’s a very resourceful person.” On the other hand, Pyun was not resourceful enough to avoid being second-guessed by his star. “I was very disappointed in
Cyborg
because I didn’t like the editing,” Van Damme also said at the time. “I had to go back and reedit it myself to make something coherent out of the film.”

It would not be the last time Van Damme felt the need to do that to his director, nor would it be the last production Van Damme worked on where a stuntman was reported hurt. For the moment, however, he returned to work with Mark DiSalle
, who directed his next picture,
Kickboxer
(1989). It worked along the same lines as
Bloodsport
,
but to lessening returns. Even so, Van Damme’s first five movies established him as an ambitious actor willing to do almost anything to get ahead.

Death Warrant
(1990), coming from Canadian director Deran Serafian
, was Van Damme’s first movie with any real industry credibility. This was the old chestnut about a French-Canadian mountie being sent undercover into a prison to see who’s killing convicts — but even aside from the clichéd plot, Van Damme’s films were already of a recognizable type. He would glare, lose the first fight, do a split, do a slow-motion leaping front kick, and then win the second fight for no apparent reason other than the script said so. There was no training, no discovery of an enemy’s weakness, no growth, and no change.