Season 5, Ep. 10: The Big Boss and Way of the Dragon

Saturday School Podcast

It's our Season 5 finale of Saturday School, and in some ways, it's all been leading to the most famous Asian American of all time: Bruce Lee. In this episode, we discuss his films "The Big Boss" from 1971 and "Way of the Dragon" from 1972, as a way of highlighting the movies he made in Hong Kong that are specifically about the diaspora experience. "The Big Boss" takes place in Thailand, and "Way of the Dragon" takes place in Rome, Italy.

We talk about Bruce Lee's legendary backstory - born in the US, raised in Hong Kong before moving back to the US, and how it wasn't until he went back to Hong Kong that he became a big star internationally (and Hollywood REALLY came a-knocking). We try to examine which parts of these films we can claim as "Asian American," knowing that everyone tries to claim Bruce Lee and that most scholarship about him has been about his Chinese-ness or global Hong Kong-ness. We also talk about Chuck Norris' chest hair. So much chest hair.

And this leads us all to the grand master plan we had for our 2018-2019 "school year" all along, which is that this season, we're talking about Asian Americans in Asia, and next semester, we'll be flipping it. Asians on Asian America, with all the stereotypes, expectations and desires that audiences and filmmakers in Asia have of Asian Americans. Will be fun!