Authors Grady Hendrix and Chris Poggiali bring These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World to Mondo Books September 19, 2021. Hendrix is best known for his horror novels, and Chris Poggiali as a film historian. This book talks about how the movies came to America and made a huge impact before racism shut them down. The forward is written by RZA of Wu Tang Clan.
This one is definitely going in the to be read pile. Check out the synopsis:
When a Hollywood studio released Five Fingers of Death to thrill-seeking Times Square moviegoers in 1973, only a handful of Black and Asian audience members knew the difference between an Iron Fist and an Eagle’s Claw. That changed overnight as Five Fingers kicked off a kung fu craze that would earn millions at the box office, send TV ratings soaring, influence the birth of hip hop, reshape the style of action we see in movies today, and introduce America to some of the biggest non-white stars to ever hit motion picture screens.This lavishly illustrated book tells the story of how these high-kicking, brick-breaking movies came to America and raised hell until greed, infomercials, and racist fearmongering shut them down. It’s about CIA agents secretly funding karate movies, The New York Times fabricating a fear campaign about black “karate gangs” out to kill white people, the history of black martial arts in America, the death of Bruce Lee and the onslaught of imitators that followed. Here for the first time is the full uncensored story.
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