This year, we will celebrate Bruce Lee’s birthday with an insight on his most popular character: Chen Zhen and his legacy. Conceived and modelled on Bruce Lee himself, the fictional character of Chen Zhen, was portrayed by the movie martial art excellence. Let’s see how and when…
Bruce Lee
The character of Chen Zhen was created by Hong Kong writer Ni Kuang in 1972. Portrayed for the very first time by Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury. Despite the association of Chen Zhen to a real martial artist who lived during the Chinese Qing dynasty, the international success of Fist of Fury, depicted Bruce Lee as the legendary champion and best student of the Chinese martial art authority Huo Yuanjia. The correspondence of the actor with the fictional character indeed grew up with the popularity of Bruce Lee movies up to bring the conviction of the people that: Chen Zhen IS Bruce Lee.
After the death of Bruce in 1973, many Asian actors who looked alike the little dragon changed their stage names into Bruce, creating the Bruceploitation movement, a martial art exploitation film subgenre. The Taiwanese martial artist Ho Chung-tao was the most successful imitator, known as Bruce Li, he starred in more than thirty martial art movies, among which Fist of Fury II and Fist of Fury III.
Jackie Chan
In 1976, Jackie Chan, who previously worked as stuntman in Fist of Fury, became the protagonist of its sequel, New Fist of Fury, portraying a young Taiwanese boy who will become Chen Zhen’s successor. Despite Jackie Chan effort to imitate Bruce Lee style, its way to act and move were unique and worthy to be filmed in a new original environment. From this will be born the myth of Jackie Chan. Close friends like Sammu Hung, who was leading parody films of Bruce Lee, and Yuen Biao, proper stunt double of Bruce, joined forces with Jackie, and together managed to completely rewriting the martial art movie history.
Jet Li
When Jet Li starred in Fist of Legend, remake of Fist of Fury directed by Gordon Chan, the actor was already well known for his abilities. Jet Li’s reinterpretation of Chen Zhen followed his own style of wushu, moving away from the scrupulous Bruce Lee’s imitations of the previous years. The remake was a completely success, projecting Jet Li to the American market and assuring him a seat for one of the most influential martial art movie actor of the world.
Donnie Yen
In 2010, another great martial artist takes the role of Chen Zhen in this sequel of Fist of Legend. Donnie Yen, at that time already internationally acclaimed for his interpretation of Ip Man, starred in Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen with great expectation. Giving to the audience another astonishing portrayal, this time a lot closer to Bruce Lee Jeet Kune Do. Donnie Yen managed to perfectly replicate a lot of Bruce Lee’s signature moves, finding time to show some of his Wing Chun and MMA during some sequences.
We have seen how the character of Chen Zhen and his legacy have forged the martial art cinema industry during three decades. Who knows if some great young martial artist of the present will portrayed once again the legendary Chen Zhen and become the new king of martial art movie genre? Who would you like to see?