How Stephen Chow and Donnie Yen reinvented Bruce Lee’s classic Chen Zhen in their own ways
Fist of Fury 1991 with Stephen Chow and TV series Fist of Fury with Donnie Yen saw two different versions of Bruce Lee’s famous character
A scene in which Chen makes students at a Japanese karate school eat the paper on which they had written “China is the sick man of Asia” was especially popular, as was the scene in which Chen smashes a sign outside a Shanghai public park reading “No dogs or Chinese”.
Here, we look at two very different retellings of the Chen Zhen story.
Fist of Fury 1991 (film version, 1991)
Chow had been a fan of Lee since childhood.
Fist of Fury 1991 falls somewhere between a tribute to Lee, a loose modern retelling of the original film, and an out-and-out oddity.
Scripted by Jeff Lau Chun-wai and directed by actor Rico Chu Tak-on, it retains the story’s core thread but distorts it through Chow’s unique comedic style. The film is recognisable as a remake only through key set pieces and its rebellious sensibility.