Enter the Dragon may be Bruce Lee’s biggest film, but the most important character he ever played was Chen Zhen, the fictional character created for Fist of Fury. Released in 1972 by director Lo Wei, Fist of Fury was Bruce Lee’s second martial arts film. This was made shortly after he achieved great success in Hong Kong with the 1971 film The Big Boss.
In Fist of Fury, Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee) is introduced as a Chinese martial artist who comes home to find his kung fu master Huo Yuanjia dead. During this time, the students of his school are bullied by the fighters of the Japanese dojo, who look down on the Chinese.
For a while, Chen Zhen and the others are ordered to bear it, but eventually Chen Zhen learns that the Japanese are responsible for his master’s death. He eventually uses his kung fu skills to strike back at his enemies. Although he wins the battle, Chen Zhen’s story ends tragically when he is shot at by a line of Japanese soldiers. The film ends with Chen Zhen attacking, implying that he is about to die. Although Fist of Fury is a work of fiction, Huo Yuanjia’s death was a real event, a fact that has led some to wonder whether Bruce Lee’s character was loosely based on Huo Yuanjia’s student, Liu Zhensheng.
After Fist of Fury, Lee starred in Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon, both of which were far more successful than his first two films. While The Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon had a huge impact on the martial arts genre, the characters he played in them don’t match the importance of Fist of Fury’s Chen Zhen, who left a lasting (and impressive) legacy in kung fu. movie. Part of what made him so revered by the Chinese public was what he represented. Fist of Fury was a film built on Chinese nationalism as it focused on a character who was deeply proud of his Chinese heritage and was not afraid to express it.
By daring to
stand up against the oppressive Japanese film villains, Chen Zhen became a beloved heroic symbol of Chinese patriotism.
Chen Zhen’s importance is reflected in how he was used in other films. Hong Kong studios have revisited some of Bruce Lee’s films from time to time, but none have served as the basis for more films than Fist of Fury. In New Fist of Fury, Jackie Chan played his first leading role in a character similar to Bruce Lee’s version. Later, direct sequels to the original Fist of Fury were filmed, in which Bruce Lee doubles took on the role.
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On top of that, the character of Chen Zhen was played by two of the biggest martial arts actors of recent years, Jet Li and Donnie Yen. In 1994, Jet Li played Chen in the acclaimed remake of Fist of Legend, considered by many to be one of the best Kung-fu films of the decade. Even in the 2000s, Bruce Lee’s Chen Zhen was still a popular figure. Several TV shows have been made about his adventures. In 2010, Donnie Yen played a superhero version of him in The Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, which stayed true to the themes of the original film.