->''"Our story begins with the death of Ho Yun Chia, a legendary Chinese hero. Famous for his victories over Russia's champion wrestler, and Japan's Bushido experts.''

->''He was poisoned. By whom? For what? It was not known for certain, but there has been speculation. Here we offer the most popular version."''
-->-- Opening narration

[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/220px-FistofFuryHongKongposter_4634.jpg]]
''Fist of Fury'' (Chinese: 精武門; aka ''The Chinese Connection'' and The ''Iron Hand'' in the United States) is a 1972 Hong Kong action martial arts film written and directed by Creator/LoWei. It starred Creator/BruceLee in his second major film after ''Film/TheBigBoss''.

Set during the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar, Bruce Lee plays Chen Zhen, a student of Huo Yuanjia, who fights to defend the honor of the Chinese in Japanese-occupied Shanghai and to bring those responsible for his master's death to justice. The movie has themes of racism and the consequences of revenge.

Not to be confused with ''Film/TheBigBoss'', which was confusingly released as ''Fist'''s''' of Fury'' in some territories.

The movie would be remade in 1994 as ''Film/FistOfLegend'', starring Creator/JetLi as Chen Zen.

Has a belated sequel, starring Creator/DonnieYen as Chen Zen, titled ''Film/LegendOfTheFistTheReturnOfChenZhen'' in 2010, which retcons Chen's fate completely in an AlternateContinuity.

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!!This movie contains examples of:

* ActionGirl: There are at least two female students at the school and they can more than hold their own.
%%* AlliterativeTitle
* AllThereInTheScript: Yuan Le-erh, Chen Zhen's fiancée. The character's name isn't mentioned in the film.
* AntiHero: Chen Zhen has frequent fits of rage, isn't ashamed of using dirty tricks while fighting and even [[ManBitesMan bites]] his opponent's ankles once he starts losing in a fair fight.
* ArrestedForHeroism: Chen's RoaringRampageOfRevenge ends up escalating things until the violence gets out of control and the authorities become involved.
* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts:
** The Japanese school, where people are variously seen practicing UsefulNotes/{{Karate}}, UsefulNotes/{{Judo}} and kenjutsu, describes their martial art as ''bushido''. In real life, bushido is a philosophical concept, not a martial art, unless they decided to create one with that name. A better term would be 'Budō' (武道), which is a blanket for Japanese martial arts, and more accurately describes what the characters are actually doing.
** Petrov is described as a wrestling champion, and he does have the look and size of one, but whenever he actually fights, he uses zero wrestling (save for a single armbar), instead using karate like the rest of the Japanese.
* AssholeVictim: It's difficult to feel sorry for the Interpreter during his abuse scenes.
* BeneathNotice: Chen disguises himself as an AsianAndNerdy telephone repairman in order to infiltrate the home of the man who arranged his teacher's death.
* BerserkButton: Looking down on Chen for being Chinese. This was one for Bruce Lee as well, and hey, who could blame him?
* BewareTheNiceOnes: People keep being racist, abusive, or disrespectful to Chen. Pacifism clearly isn't working here.
* BigBad: Hiroshi Suzuki, the main villain of the movie.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Chen achieves his revenge, but he ultimately [[FaceDeathWithDignity sacrifices himself to the Japanese and faces execution]] to spare his friends from being arrested.]]
* BloodKnight: The only reason Petrov dirties his hands in the mess with Chen is because he sees a good fighter and he'd really like a chance to test his mettle.
* BolivianArmyEnding: [[spoiler:The film very famously ends with Chen walking outside to be met with a line of Japanese policemen armed with rifles and pistols, trained on him. Realising he's going to die, he lets out a final cry and performs a running jump kick at them, the final frame catching him in mid-air as a crescendo of rifle fire sounds. Given Lee's disdain for the GunsAreWorthless trope, it's very unlikely that Chen survives]].
* BullyingADragon:
** A semi-literal case since they're bullying BRUCE LEE.
** One which might easily be missed. [[spoiler: The Jingwu school is massacred but didn't go down without a fight. The Japanese school is annihilated.]]
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Chen and Yuan Le-erh have known each other since childhood. When she finds him hiding out in a cemetary, she reminices about how they'd go there as children.
* CombatPragmatist:
** Chen, unsurprisingly if you know anything about Jeet Kune Do. While he prefers to use his fists, he makes no attempt to continue fighting 'fair' once the Japanese start cheating.
** Petrov manages to get Chen in a very decisive arm lock. Chen responds by biting his leg as hard as he can.
** When Suzuki is coming after him with a sword, Chen's also not above throwing some hard rice into Suzuki's face to briefly disorient him and buy enough time to take out his own weapons to even the odds.
* CycleOfRevenge: The object lesson of the film.
* DarkerAndEdgier In many ways this film is much darker than Lee's first "big film", ''Film/TheBigBoss''. It's yet another story about a young Chinese man on an asskicking quest of vengeance, but ''Fist of Fury'' not only depicts violence in a much more serious light (at one point Chen [[ColdBloodedTorture brutally beats a Japanese man to death in trying to get information out of him]]) but also explores the negative consequences of escalating violence -- things quickly go FromBadToWorse when the Japanese authorities in Shanghai take notice of a SerialKiller systematically targeting Japanese people, and [[spoiler:the escalating violence results in most of the Chinese PacifistDojo being dead by the end of the film, including Chen himself.]] The film also explores serious themes of anti-Chinese racism and colonialism not present in ''The Big Boss''.
* DeathByRacism: Not really deaths in most cases, but the film is all about a bunch of stupid, ''stupid'' people being racially discriminating and abusive against the Chinese - and Chen and Bruce Lee personally himself, by extension - and promptly getting the snot beaten out of them. [[spoiler:In a more literal case, Chen himself: yes, Chen was guilty of a number of crimes, but there was absolutely no justice in his [[SuicideByCop "arrest"]] in the film's ending sequence. [[KarmaHoudini It is highly likely that no-one in the Japanese school faced punishment for massacring the students at Chen's kung-fu school]], seeing as how the Japanese authorities viewed the Chinese as lesser people.]]
* DeconstructedTrope: The film shows the hero's RoaringRampageOfRevenge escalating the violence rather than stopping it, to the point that [[spoiler: by the end of the movie, Chen is a completely broken man who has lost everything in his desire for revenge... including his girlfriend and his family, who have been brutally slain by the enemy. In the end, he kills the BigBad and soon turns himself in to the police, [[DespairEventHorizon having nothing left to live for]].]]
* DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler:The film ends with Chen, the villains defeated and his master avenged, agreeing to take all the blame for the deaths of the Japanese school, saving his friends. He walks outside to find a row of Japanese policemen with their rifles and pistols trained on him, then runs right at them and leaps into the air with a kick as gunfire sounds off.]]
* DirtyCoward: Virtually the entire Japanese school. They try to team up 20-on-1 with Chen early on, frequently resort to using weapons, murder a rival martial arts master with poison, and otherwise show themselves to be honorless jerks.
* DuelToTheDeath: Chen's showdown with Hiroshi and Petrov.
* {{Fanservice}}: A strip-tease by a Geisha in the middle of the movie. No, seriously.
* FunnyBruceLeeNoises: Notably the first film to feature Lee's future legendary fight noises. Chen and Petrov especially scream at each other a lot while they fight.
* GroinAttack: Chen crouches and gives the last mook before fighting Petrov the old one-two punch. The mook is so stunned he doesn't move until [[FunnyBackgroundEvent Chen nonchalantly tips him over.]]
* HeroicBSOD: Chen at first seems like he would pull through the funeral once arriving, but then utterly snaps when he sees his teacher being buried, going as far as trying to dig him back up while they were burying him. However, once calmed, he spends most of the movie in this trope. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain That is until Suzuki's men come to the funeral]] and [[BerserkButton insult the Teacher along with the entire Chinese community.]]
* TheHeroDies: [[spoiler:Chen takes on a suicidal fight against a large group of adversaries in order to retain his honor and protect his school. Notably, the real-life Chen Zhen survived and successfully escaped from Shanghai]].
* HeroWithBadPublicity: Chen discovers who killed his master and gets his revenge. The public doesn't know about all this, however, and only sees Chen as a serial killer.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Yoshida, the head instructor at the Japanese dojo, attempts to kill Chen with a katana. Chen knocks out of his hands, sending it up in the air and Chen arranges it so it lands in Yoshida's back.
* HuskyRusskie: Petrov is a Russian wrestling champion. He is big and strong.
* IdiotBall: The Japanese's first attack on the kung-fu school in retaliation for Chen's first attack. There's no reason for them to believe Chen - who just wiped the floor with the entire Japanese school - wouldn't be there. Only plot contrivance caused them to avoid fighting Chen and lots of back-up.
* ImpliedDeathThreat: Chen gives one to two Japanese students at a Dojo, all while forcing them to eat pieces of paper with the insult: "Sick Man of East Asia."
-->Now you're eating paper. The next time, it's gonna be glass.
* ImprobableHairstyle: The story is ''supposed'' to take place around the early 20th century, but most of the haircuts (or rather lack thereof) are clearly from the time period the film was shot, very evident on Petrov the Russian and Chen's fiancé Yuan. And the hair isn't the only improbability...
* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Virtually the entire kung-fu school other than Chen. They react remarkably well to a pretty horrific series of events, Yuan Le-erh especially.
* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: It rains at master Huo Yuanjia's funeral.
* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Chen does this twice, once on the two men that killed his teacher. It didn't work because [[DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength Chen got too emotional]] [[PunctuatedPounding and beat them to death.]] The second time, he does this with the Interpreter by throwing him and his rickshaw, demanding information on Suzuki. He succeeds, but ends up killing him anyway, because the Interpreter tries to sneak attack him with a brick once let go.
* JanitorImpersonationInfiltration: Chen disguises himself as a telephone repairman to infiltrate the Japanese school.
* KatanasAreBetter: Played with. When they're wielding katanas is the only time the two heads of the school are ever seriously threatening to Chen, yet the weapons aren't portrayed as inherently awesome, just...well...swords in a fist-fight.
* KickTheDog: The Japanese school is responsible for a RIDICULOUS number of these. Here's a short count: poisoning Chen's master, crashing his funeral, trying to get Chen to bark like a dog to enter a park forbidden to Chinese ("No dogs and Chinese allowed"), siccing the police on Chen, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick plotting to MURDER the entire Kung Fu school]]. The list goes on and on.
* KingpinInHisGym: Petrov is seen bending metal bars and hammering nails into a board with his bare hands.
* KnuckleCracking: The Japanese disrespect the kung fu school and the recently deceased master. Chen takes the insults but with a knuckle crack to show how angry he is getting and to step up the tension.
* LastDisrespects: A variant. During Huo Yuanjia's memorial service, the Japanese arrive to insult the Chinese and present their "gift" of the "Sick Man of East Asia" sign.
* LeftHanging: According to the opening narration. What was the motive for Huo Yuanjia's murder?
* ManBitesMan: When Petrov puts Chen in a leg-lock, Chen responds by biting Petrov's ankles.
* MasterOfDisguise: Chen disguises himself as a rickshaw driver, an elderly man and a Japanese telephone repairman.
* MightyWhitey: An interesting aversion. While Chen is the absolute biggest badass in the movie, the ONLY person who gives him a hard time is the Russian expatriate. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Russian is the only one who actually fights him alone and with pure martial arts. Chen also has no grudge against Petrov. He's just a bystander visiting the Japanese school.
* TheMole: Tian and Feng Guishi, the school's cook and caretaker respectively, were working for the Japanese all along and were the ones who poisoned master Huo Yuanjia.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Chen keeps trying to avenge his master's death, only for the Japanese school to retaliate against his dojo rather than him.
* NiceToTheWaiter: Horribly averted with the Japanese school. There's a particularly horrible one where they humiliate their Interpreter who has been nothing but supportive, just because he's Chinese.
* NoAnimalsAllowed: Subverted. When Chen Zhen decides to visit a park in Shanghai, the guard bars him while pointing out a sign forbidding dogs or Chinese from entering. [[DoubleStandard But then a woman with a dog enters the park without trouble]]. A Japanese guy then suggests Chen might get in if he ''acts'' like a dog.
* OhCrap: Wu En damn near craps his pants when he sees that his rickshaw driver is a very pissed-off Chen.
* OneManArmy: After Chen kicks the ass of the Japanese school, you think that the latter either sucks or Chen's school is better. No, it turns out Chen is just ''that'' good.
* PacifistDojo: The Jing-Wu school, whose founder was recently poisoned to death. There is a lengthy lecture early on in the film that stresses what their founder was really aiming for. Their current sensei does not take kindly to finding out that Chen decided to take matters into his own hands toward the Hon-Kyu school, at least, not until after he sees the results of their dojo's retaliation. It's also a chilling example of Creator/BruceLee, as Chen, straddling the fine line between MartialPacifist and ArrogantKungFuGuy.
* PaperThinDisguise:
** Chen uses quite a few while infiltrating Hon-Kyu. Interestingly, whether Suzuki is fooled by the disguise or not isn't made clear, as he shoots a long, ambiguous stare to Chen when he leaves.
** And the Hon Kyu students get the idea of raiding Jing Wu...[[DressingAsTheEnemy wearing the kind of attire the Jing Wu would!]]
* PresentDayPast: The story is set some time in the early twentieth century (1908 or the 1930s, depending on who you ask), but makes no effort to disguise 1970s cars and fashion. This may have been because of budget limitations.
* PunchClockVillain:
** Petrov, the Russian friend of the Japanese dojo.
** Subverted with the Interpreter. He tries to plead for his life, invoking this trope. It does not work.
* PunctuatedPounding: "WHY?! WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY???!!!"
* PyrrhicVictory: In line with Chen's BittersweetEnding. He ''did'' manage to save Jing Wu in the process, so there ''was'' a HappyEnding for the academy.
* TheQuisling: The Interpreter is a Chinese who supports the Japanese dojo.
* RankScalesWithAsskicking: Yoshida, the head instructor of the Japanese dojo, is the only Japanese who gets somewhat resembling a CurbstompCushion in the initial Chen Zhen, landing a wrist lock throw on Chen and generally making him work more than the rest.
* RedBaron: ''Fist of Fury'' is the title Chen is given after he beats down the Japanese school.
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: Played with. It's obvious the Japanese school considers the Interpreter no better than any other Chinese person and abuses him during a party. The Interpreter gleefully laps it up.
* RivalDojos: Combines with [[YouKilledMyFather You Killed My Master]] to be the premise of the movie. It's a fairly one-sided rivalry as well with the kung-fu school seemingly unaware of the seething hatred the Japanese school bears them at the start of the movie.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Several.
** Chen heads to the Jaoanese school after they interrupt his master's funeral and proceeds to kick the entire school's ass by himself.
** It gets worse when he discovers his master was actually murdered. He goes back to the Japanese school, grabs the first guy he finds, and immediately ''beats him to death'' while demanding information.
* {{Sarashi}}: In some edits, Chen is able to figure out someone is a Japanese spy when he spots them in a sarashi. Not so much by ''what'' he's wearing but in ''how'' he's wearing it. The man's nipples were exposed, as is standard for Japanese men (as in the page image); Chinese prefer to keep them hidden.
* SatelliteLoveInterest: While Yuan Le-erh is well-acted, it's fairly obvious she's only there to add pathos to Chen's plight; her name isn't even mentioned ''once'' in the dialogue.
* ScrewTheRulesTheyBrokeThemFirst: Chen takes this stance. When it's clear pacifism isn't getting him anywhere in finding out the truth about his instructor's death, he goes on a one-man rampage against the rival dojo.
* ShovelStrike: The priest at master Huo Yuanjia's funeral does this to Chen when he goes beserk and starts attacking the coffin.
* SuicideByCop: [[spoiler:Chen didn't really have a choice, though.]]
* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler:Though most of the Jingwu school students were massacred by the attack in the end of the film, they visibly gave as good as they got. The Japanese dojo are annihilated.]]
* ThugDojo: The Hon Kyu school. Surprisingly, despite being honorless jerks, their actual techniques aren't much different than Jing Wu. The main difference is that Hon Kyu have inflated egos and go out of their way to cause trouble.
* TitleDrop: Chen becomes known as "Fist of Fury".
* TooDumbToLive: Wu En, Suzuki's translator and a normal man, tries to attack Chen with a rock... after Chen had just decided to spare his life!
* {{Tragedy}}: Certainly one for Chen Zhen.
* TranquilFury: Played with. Chen absolutely SEETHES virtually every moment he's on screen but only shows it in small ways. There's one exception, when Chen tries to throw himself on his master's coffin.
* TranslationMatchmaking: In America, the film was retitled ''The Chinese Connection'' (after ''Film/TheFrenchConnection''). The title (''Chinese Connection'') was actually intended for ''Film/TheBigBoss'' (since the plot of that film involves drug trafficking just like ''The French Connection''), but the American distributor messed up and ended up accidentally switching the titles for both films.
* [[YouKilledMyFather You Killed My Master]]: Combines with RivalDojos as the plot of the movie.
--> '''Chen:''' I have come here to avenge my teacher.
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: In the fact that there ''was'' a martial arts master in China named Huo Yuanjia, who was beloved and died under mysterious circumstances (most famous is his portrayal by Creator/JetLi in ''Film/Fearless2006''). A note at the beginning of the film (that says that otherwise ThisIsAWorkOfFiction) mentions that the writers created the story using one of the various theories that were flung around at the time (that he was assassinated).

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