It was out of this cultural context that Tsui Hark’s classic martial arts epic Once Upon a Time China was released, an action-packed tale of the culture clash between east and west in 19^th century Hong Kong.   While the film’s protagonist, Dr. Wong Fei-hung, is a folk hero that has been portrayed in countless films, Jet Li’s version of the character helped reinvigorate Hong Kong kung-fu movies and would come to be his definitive role as an actor. Li’s take on Wong redefined the role of the intellectual warrior who must defend his countrymen against foreign tyranny.  Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, which is a continuation of a TV series called Fist of Fury, is the latest in this tradition.

The TV show Fist of Fury was a re-working of the famous Fist of Fury film starring the legendary Bruce Lee.  Let me tell you, knowing the story so far going into Legend of the Fist helps, otherwise it’s a confusing narrative to say the least.  After avenging his slain teacher’s death at the hands of the Japanese, Chen Zhen (Donnie Yen) is presumed dead.  Chen travels to Europe to join his countrymen to fight in the European theatre of World War I (the film informs us of China’s ignored-yet-important role in said conflict).  After the war is over, he returns to Shanghai under the alias of a fallen comrade, finding the city torn between the occupying British and Japanese forces.  Joining an underground rebel movement, an incognito Chen becomes the manager of a posh nightclub for foreigners dubbed, homage ahoy, Casablanca.  Like in the Bogart/Bergman classic, the club is a place where powerful political enemies often find themselves tables away from each other, giving Chen a valuable position that is not only close to his enemies, but will also help him avoid suspicion.  Chen takes on the invaders in public by disguising himself as a masked hero, who looks an awful lot like Kato from The Green Hornet (no doubt another tribute to Bruce Lee).  Using his new superhero identity, Chen uses it to save the political enemies of the murderous Japanese forces, in an effort to rid Shanghai of their foreign influence.

If that paragraph above makes the plot to this movie sound simple in any way, I assure you it is not.  Legend of the Fist honestly feels like a season of a television show cut down into a feature film.  Characters are casually introduced and killed, slapdash subplots come and go, and none of it feels like it has any consequence.  On top of that, much of Chen Zhen’s kung-fu superheroics are given the montage treatment, as though a ton of action scenes were consolidated into a shotgun blast of various explosions and beatdowns.  These bite-sized bits that are neither exciting, nor satisfying.  The movie’s opening sequence, which takes place on a World War I battlefield, involves Chen fighting through enemy territory with dual bayonets in an effort to kill as many German troops as possible in the most insanely over-the-top manner imaginable, and it’s damn good fun.  The scene where he first attacks the Japanese assassins in his Kato costume is also excellent, and promises a fun, pulpy adventure for our hero.  But the movie loses steam shortly afterward, the story gets convoluted, it lacks focus, and eventually it becomes hard to care about anything that is happening.

The film’s director, Andrew Lau, is best known for co-directing the excellent Infernal Affairs films with Alan Mak, which went on to inspire the Oscar-winning Martin Scorsese remake, The Departed.  The Infernal Affairs movies were gritty (save for the occasional cantopop-laden sequence), but Legend of the Fist has a classical visual extravagance to it.  The pre-World War II Shanghai setting recalls the opening action scene in Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  Combine that with the pulp superhero vibe, and you have what should be a unique martial arts concoction.  But Lau isn’t content to let his jazzy setting and extravagant production design do the work for him, and this is his undoing.  Flashy editing and modern music ruin the sense of time and place, it’s an approach that’s akin to serving a fine cut of steak with a side of ketchup.

Legend of the Fist is one I hoped to love, Donnie Yen is one of the greatest leading men in Hong Kong martial arts movies right now, his work in movies like Kill Zone and Ip Man are high above the rest of the city’s recent crop of films, and I can find no fault with his brutal action choreography in this film.  The cinematic tradition Legend of the Fist draws from, from Bruce Lee to Tsui Hark, is a rich one.  But it can’t be discussed in the same breath as films like Hark’s Once Upon a Time in China, or Ronny Yu’s magnificent Fearless (which deals with Chen Zhen’s late master, another legendary Chinese hero).  In fact, I would recommend watching those instead, if you haven’t seen them already.  For great movies featuring the Chen Zhen character, go snag Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury, or the remake starring Jet Li, Fist of Legend.  They bring the goods in a manner that this film fails to.

It was on a Friday night and I was in the Wal-Mart DVD aisle desperately searching for anything that might help to take the edge off a particularly brutal week of corporate bill collecting when the tagline “Work Sucks” caught my eye. Normally the thought of paying retail would’ve worked against such an impulse buy, but the comfort gained from those two words were alone worth $19.99, and home with me “Office Space” went.

Let me ask you something. When you come in on Monday and you’re not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, “Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays”?

No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you’d get your ass kicked sayin’ something like that, man.

For those of you who have never been planted in a cubicle, who have never spent 40 hours a week swallowed by a McOffice Park, suffered through endless office birthday parties, been passively-aggressively terrorized by a Bill Lumbergh, or slogged daily through endless piles of mindless, pointless corporate bull shit created for the sole purpose of being mindless, endless corporate bull shit… For those of you who don’t know what it’s like to hate yourself for worrying about losing a job you loathe… You can’t begin to understand why, after “The Searchers” and “Deuce Bigalow,” the vicarious revenge Mike Judge created just for us ranks as the third greatest movie ever made.

“Oh, and remember: next Friday… is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.”

Peter Gibbons, an office drone/software developer played to dull-eyed desperate perfection by Ron Livingston, hates most everything about his existence; the generic apartment, his grating daily commute and most especially the time he spends at Initech where life is one endless cycle of worrying about being asked to work the weekend and this:

Hi  Peter. What’s happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports.

Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it.

Yeah. Did you get that memo?

Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time. And I’ve already taken care of it so it’s not even really a problem anymore.

Ah! Yeah. It’s just we’re putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that’d be great. All right!

To his credit, Peter is at least wise enough to have figured out ambition is a poison you take yourself and has no desire to advance his way out of Initech. But there is rent to pay, which means he’s stuck at Initech or someplace just as bad … unless of course he wins the lottery, in which case he would do exactly what I dreamt of with each and every scratch off: “… relax … sit on my ass all day …do nothing.” The only problem is that unless that unlikely ship docks, Peter can only see life unspooling in a manner in which a good day is one where his boss Bill Lumbergh (a way beyond brilliant Gary Cole) doesn’t “request” his presence on Saturday.

Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. Ahh, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too…

The only bright spot in Peter’s day is sneaking off with his fellow cube-bots Samir and Michael Bolton (no, not the singer) and strolling over to Chotchkie’s (one of those obnoxiously-themed restaurant chains that glom on to McOffice Parks like sucker fish on a shark) where from afar he admires Joanna (an all kinds of fetching Jennifer Aniston), a waitress as dissatisfied with her fifteen pieces of flaired existence as Peter. (You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair… that they made the Jews wear.)

Peter: Lumbergh’s gonna have me work on Saturday. I can tell already. I’m gonna end up doing it, because, uh… because I’m a big pussy, which is why I work at Initech to begin with.

Michael Bolton: Uh, yeah, well, I work at Initech and I don’t consider myself a pussy, okay?

Samir: Yes, I am also not a pussy.

Anne, Peter’s controlling girlfriend (who’s probably cheating on him), is tired of his increasingly gloomy outlook and drags him into hypnotherapy to get help. As a relaxation exercise, the therapist hypnotizes Peter and essentially orders him not to give a damn. But before he can bring Peter out of the spell, the therapist has a heart attack and a new Peter is born.

I uh, I don’t like my job, and, uh, I don’t think I’m gonna go anymore.

You’re just not gonna go?

Yeah.

Won’t you get fired?

I don’t know, but I really don’t like it, and, uh, I’m not gonna go.

Rather than detail and ruin the surprise of what follows, suffice to say it fulfills the non-violent but still very satisfying daydreams every cubicle rat has ever had. In other words: Damn it feels good to be a gangsta’.

The consequence of Peter’s behavior ends up being what you might call counter-intuitive. Instead of his attitude getting him fired, Peter is seen as showing leadership, given a raise and promoted. Unfortunately, Samir and Michael Bolton (no, not the singer) are “downsized” by the “two Bobs,” a couple of hired guns brought in by Initech to “evaluate” everyone’s job.

–

After taking revenge on a hated office machine (see above) that only ever produced error messages (Mother… shitter… Son of an… ass. I just…), the trio steals Richard Pryor’s genius idea from “Superman III” and plots an even bigger revenge against Initech — the kind of revenge that might land them in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. All the while, Peter’s new give-a-damn attitude continues to make his dreams come true when he suddenly finds himself free to pursue Joanna after Anne dumps him.

I wanna take you out to dinner, and then I wanna go back to my apartment and watch ‘Kung Fu.’ Do you ever watch ‘Kung Fu’?

I love ‘Kung Fu.’

Channel 39.

Totally.

You should come over and watch ‘Kung Fu’ tonight.

Ok.

Besides the terrific performances already mentioned, Stephen Root disappears behind a genius mix of pathetic and creepy as the Swingline stapler-obsessed Milton Waddams. Richard Riehle (who would reach the heights of cinema esteem that very same year as Deuce Biglow’s dad) captures so well those middle-aged guys who do nothing all day beyond perfecting the art of looking busy and vital. As Lawrence, Peter’s construction-worker neighbor wise beyond his I.Q., Diedrich Bader gets most of the bigger laughs.

Another special mention must go out to Gary Cole’s — yeah-that-would-be great — work as Lumbergh. Somehow, in a single iconic performance, Cole brought together the characteristics of every manipulative, obtuse, coffee cup-carrying middle-manager who wouldn’t know an original thought if it kissed him on the mouth. The impact of this performance is so great you don’t realize how few scenes he really has.

For as long as there are soul-numbing commutes, sad little men in business-casual dying slowly under flickering fluorescents, and chirpy secretaries who define their existence planning that day’s office party, “Office Space” will live on because Judge brought this world to life with both penetrating insight and a sincere, good-natured sense of humor that never condescends but only sympathizes. Most important, in his delivery, Judge understood that you don’t have to exaggerate that which is already exaggerated.

In my day I’ve worked for more than my share of Lumberghs, with too many office supply-obsessed Miltons, and sang Happy Birthday to more people I loathe than I care to remember. Come Friday night, “Office Space” was my palate cleanser, my spirit guide, and my way to wash off the stain of the work week and begin another two day countdown to the next case of the Mondays.

Yes, by that objective standard, there are plenty of “superior” films.

But how many of those help to get us through? Or introduced us to the O Face?

A look at Carradine’s resume is a look at an actor who loved to work, relentlessly searched out paychecks, or both. My guess is that genetics might have played a part. His old man, John Carradine, has a list of credits longer than the end titles of a Michael Bay movie.

There are stories about David Carradine. Plenty of them. And if today’s reports prove true — if he indeed did hang himself in some Bangkok hotel room, well, obviously there was some bad news, personal demons, or a toxic mixture of both. Whatever it was, I’m not interested in hearing the story or passing it along. Unless it’s in self-defense, demystifying movie stars borders on the profane in this house.

Whatever it was, I hope he’s found peace.

And I hope that in life he found some peace in knowing he had achieved artistic immortality playing Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby’s 1976 “Bound for Glory,” one of the finest bio-pics ever produced, thanks mainly to Carradine’s Oscar-worthy performance. (He did win a Golden Globe.)

At 147 minutes, “Bound for Glory” must’ve looked awfully difficult to pull off on paper. Essentially, it’s a character study covering just a few years in the life of a complicated, difficult, and frequently unlikable man. Thanks to Ashby’s direction, the best of his career, and Haskell Wexler’s Oscar-winning cinematography, “Glory” hits in all the places an actor can’t, but this is also the kind of film where the central performance can make or break, and Carradine makes it, and then some.

Thanks to a real screen presence and a quiet, understated performance, Carradine carries the film all on his own thin, angular frame. He inhabits most every scene and quickly makes you forget all that “Grasshopper” stuff. His Woody Guthrie is mostly silent but always fascinating; conflicted by ambitions and a loathing for what it takes to fulfill them, he’s willing to risk death in order to rouse the working man to stand up for himself, but can’t summon the everyday decency to remain faithful to his own wife. And that’s Carradine singing the songs and playing the guitar, but not one note is impersonation, just pure performance.

–

Though nominated for Best Picture, “Bound for Glory” got a little lost when released, probably because it was made about five years too late. This is a 1971 film, not 1976 — the year of “Rocky” — the year before everything would change with “Star Wars.” But thanks to DVD and some love on Turner Classic Movies, “Glory” has enjoyed a bit of revival these past few years, an appreciation I think will continue to grow until the film receives a wider recognition for the timeless classic it is.

Certainly it helps that Wexler’s photography created one of the five most beautiful color films of the last thirty-five years, but having first seen it only last year, I can tell you it’s Carradine’s work that lingers long after the fade. After decades of seeing him as the guy who made an odd television show in the seventies, this one performance changed my perception entirely.

David Carradine was a great actor capable of great art and an integral part of something that will be appreciated and enjoyed long after TMZ and the like have had their fun.

Preliminary reports have the death as a suicide by hanging.

The circumstances of his death, however, should not be allowed to overshadow his accomplishments as an actor.

As the son of actor John Carradine, David Carradine both benefited from his Hollywood family connection and rebelled against the industry that employed him. He appeared in a few very good movies, such as Bound for Glory and The Long Riders, and many, many very poor ones. He played a wide variety of roles, with numerous appearances as villains, some of which were quite memorable, even in some very bad films.

What he’ll be most remembered for, however, is probably the TV series Kung Fu. The show ran from 1972 through 1975, and it reflected a big change in American attitudes. Set in the Old West, Kung Fu featured Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk, a serene and peaceful practitioner of Eastern religion and Chinese martial arts transplanted to the United States. Kung Fu included only a couple of minutes of physical action scenes per episode, concentrating most of the time on interesting angles on personal relationships.

In that regard, however, the show was actually quite traditional. Many excellent Western TV series tended to concentrate on personal stories instead of mere action, notably classics such as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and Have Gun, Will Travel. What Carradine and the show’s writers brought to the genre was a post-Vietnam attitude of weariness toward conflict, a yearning for peace that manifested in an oddly Christian way: a simple refusal to seek revenge for wrongs done to oneself.

In this regard, Kung Fu had the blend of traditional elements and innovation that makes for good entertainment and sometimes real art. The show was serious in its presentation of Caine’s ideas and their source in Eastern thinking, including frequent flashback scenes depicting his childhood years in a Shaolin monastery in which he learned the lessons he applies in the main story lines.

Like any conventional Western hero, Caine seeks peace for himself and others, but he always must ultimately employ violence in pursuit of that elusive goal. In that way, Kung Fu still has resonance today, for the attempt to bring peace to a violent world perpetually requires the use of force, as is evident both in national defense issues and society responses to crime. Carradine’s work in Kung Fu remains a valuable contribution to that eternal debate over when and how the use of force is justified.

–S. T. Karnick, editor of The American Culture