Over just a few short years in the early 1970s, one man delivered a string of knockouts at the Hong Kong box office, reshaping the city’s martial arts filmmaking and providing an enduring icon for cinema. The thrills kicked off in 1971 when The Big Boss hit the screens, marking a return to local film for Bruce Lee after a decade working in the US as a martial arts instructor and actor.
Now under the direction of veteran helmer Lo Wei and signed to the Golden Harvest film studio, the former child star emerged in a new incarnation – a second coming charged up with rapid reflexes, precision moves and a confident demeanour that could flip between easygoing and fierce in a flash.
Lee is introduced to viewers as Cheng Chao-an, a bumpkin who’s accompanied by an uncle to a Thailand, where he joins the hardworking local Chinese community and picks up a job at an ice factory. All’s not as it seems at the workplace: after a management shakeup, the new head has been hiding a major narcotics operation, concealing the drugs in blocks of ice and snuffing out any factory worker who finds out.
When two of Cheng’s new housemates go missing after a visit to the manager’s office, the workers are stirred into action and Cheng breaks a vow of non-violence as he steps in on their side. A promotion and a honey trap are set up to keep Cheng quiet, but it’s to no avail. Soon the young man is arranging to see the factory’s big boss himself to get to the root of the matter.
The Big Boss marked the start of a streak of successes for Lee and Golden Harvest, at the time a newly established studio that had managed to sign the actor after he’d turned down the more established Shaw Brothers. And though the production values are mixed and the storyline bare-bones, the picture did its job ably as an introduction to Lee the martial artist, structured as it is to drip-feed the audience with playful flashes of his fighting form before showdowns are finally unleashed with all their fury and animal-like howls. Cinemagoers had quite simply never seen – or heard – anything like it before.
Seen now alongside later films from Lee’s Golden Harvest period, The Big Boss plays like the work of filmmakers only just finding their way with a phenomenon in their midst. When Lee’s martial arts skills make their appearance, filming is rough at the edges – laden with messy zooms and long shots that can leave Lee lost in a crowd. Even the action choreography, credited to Han Ying-chieh but with contributions by Lee, lacks a finesse tailored to the star. Han’s signature use of mini-trampolines is frequent, for instance, adding flashy acrobatic flourishes where later films would bring out Lee’s standout close-combat form and thunderbolt strikes with greater clarity.
Audiences, for their part, lapped up The Big Boss, propelling it to number one at Hong Kong cinemas for 1971. With more resources now at its disposal after the immense box-office haul, Golden Harvest was primed to go large with Lee’s next big-screen showcase in the sensational Fist of Fury.
Lo Wei
Lo Wei (1918-1996) started his film career in Shanghai before moving to Hong Kong in 1948. After early supporting actor roles, Lo became a leading man in 1951 with Prisoner of Love and in 1953 made his directing debut with Diary of a Husband. The versatile Lo went on to become a key director, signing with the Shaw Brothers studio and later Golden Harvest before founding Lo Wei Motion Picture Company. Today Lo, who worked as an actor and producer into the 1990s, is best known internationally for his work with stars Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan in the 1970s.
Tim Youngs