Tough Nuts - The Martial Artists
Contrary to popular belief, not everybody was kung fu fighting in the 1970s. These chaps, on the other hand...
Chuck Norris
When he played the charismatic Colt in 1972’s Way Of The Dragon, Chuck Norris literally had the world at his feet. Already Professional World Middleweight Champion (1968), ex-airman Norris not only had genuine screen presence but, in the film’s Coliseum-set finale, more than held his own opposite friend and training partner Bruce Lee. In the years that followed, Norris reteamed with Lee for Enter The Dragon and Game Of Death, started up a string of karate schools and became the first Westerner to win an eighth-degree black belt in the Korean martial art of taekwondo. Which, even if you take into account his limited acting ability, still doesn’t explain why he’s regularly appeared in dross like Missing In Action, Missing In Action II: The Beginning and Braddock: Missing In Action III.
Bruce Lee
For muscular toughness alone, Bruce Lee deserves to finish towards the top of any survey of movie hard men. That a man given a girl’s name (Sai-Fon or ‘Small Phoenix, to confuses evil sprits) merits this acclaim has nothing to do with his being handy with weapons but because Bruce Lee was a weapon in his own right. And his transformation from Hong Kong street tough to fight legend was not because he practised martial arts but because he invented one of his own, Jeet Kune Do. Alas, Lee’s physical perfection came with a price, for it’s felt that his inability to tolerate a prescription painkiller spirited him away at the age of 31. Inner demons, a sense of purpose, a desire to be the best - whatever drove Bruce Lee, the theory that there was something in his genes is strengthened by how his children, Shannon and Brandon, followed their dad into the dojo.
Jackie Chan
Allegedly a full 12 months in the womb, Jackie Chan has been kicking and screaming since birth. Starting out on his martial arts studies at the age of six at the Peking Opera, he got involved in stunt work to help pay for his schooling. During his time making movies, Chan has become a regular visitor to A&E thanks to his policy of doing all his own stunts. Besides relatively minor injuries such as cracked digits (all 10), shattered cheekbones (both) and a broken nose (thrice). Chan almost died shooting Armour Of God when he fell 30 feet out of a tree and fractured his skull. By contrast, the time he broke his ankle making Rumble In The Bronx but continued shooting sounds positively puffy. Sure, Bruce Lee might have kicked the shit out of him when the two appeared on screen together (Lee breaks Jackie’s neck near the end of Enter The Dragon) but Chan’s 50-plus years of supreme bone shattering gives him the edge in the hard men stakes.