Clelia Kung Fu revised final version.pdf (272.96 kB)
Download fileIs everybody Kung Fu fighting? Indian popular cinema and martial arts films
Hong Kong’s martial arts film have been popular in India since the 1970s (Srinivas 2012: 66) and they have
had a profound influence on the Hindi action films of the 1970s-1980s, as martial arts were progressively
integrated into their narratives (Banerjea 2005; Vitali 2006). This article investigates the appeal of Hong Kong
the martial arts films, and of the figure of Bruce Lee in particular, with specific reference to the social, cultural
and political context of reception in India. The context within which Bruce Lee made his entrance on the Indian
screens was in fact critical for his success. In particular, the article examines the appeal of martial arts, and
their incorporation in the Hindi action films of the 1970s, in relation to (post)colonial discourses of Asian
masculinity. Drawing upon Yvonne Tasker’s examination of the “anticolonial narrative” embedded in Hong
Kong martial arts films (2012: 504), the analysis discusses the incorporation of a martial arts style of combat
within Indian popular films as a response to colonial and orientalist tropes of Asian effeminacy and softness
(Said, 1978) and argues that martial arts allowed the 1970s Hindi action hero to articulate an alternative,
anticolonial, version of Asian masculinity.
History
School
- Loughborough University London
Published in
Transnational ScreensVolume
11Issue
3Pages
218 - 232Publisher
Taylor and FrancisVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Rights holder
© Taylor and FrancisPublisher statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Transnational Screens on 12 Oct 2020, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/25785273.2020.1823075Acceptance date
2020-06-30Publication date
2020-10-12Copyright date
2020ISSN
2578-5273eISSN
2578-5265Publisher version
Language
- en