These Fists Break Bricks: How Kung Fu Movies Swept America and Changed the World

EXPLODING FISTS … BREAKING BOUNDARIES … DEFYING ODDS …BONE-BLASTING … SPINE-SHATTERING … BOX-OFFICE-BUSTING … 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 book tells the spine-shattering story of how these films of fury came to America and raised hell until greed, infomercials, and racist fearmongering shut them down. It’s about an 11-year-old boy who not only created the first fan edit but somehow turned it into a worldwide moneymaker, CIA agents secretly funding a karate movie, 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, and how a fight that started in Japanese internment camps during World War II ended in a ninja movie some 40 years later. It’s a battle for recognition and respect that started a long, long time ago and continues to this day in movies like The Matrix, Kill Bill, and Black Panther. Here, for the first time, is the full uncensored story.