![]() ![]() In most of these films, a single hero (like Chan in his seminal Drunken Master series, a local favorite) beats all the bad guys single-handedly, with wit and skill instead of the latest high-tech weapon. In contrast, bootleg versions of Hong Kong action films, played weekends on flickering reels at the community hall, offered another scenario. “We were sick of watching movies where only the Western guys win,” says Ntobeko Peni, 27, an office manager in Guguletu. “They were our only outlet.”Īmerican box-office hits, simplistic and politically pallid, were not relevant to the South African struggle. “The kung fu films were more than fun,” recalls 22-year-old Samora April, a resident of Guguletu township who wears a three-piece suit and a dazzling smile. ![]() Young blacks caught in the violence of apartheid’s last days felt angry and powerless. When you stop to think about it, the appeal of kung fu films in the townships isn’t hard to understand. Ignited in the 1980s by Chinese blockbusters like Enter the Dragon and Shaolin Temple, a kung fu craze has swept South Africa’s townships. So do children who speak Sotho, Pedi, Zulu or Tswana. And Jet Li, Chow Yun-Fat, Bruce Lee, and on and on. “They’re talking to me in Xhosa.” Then, from the babble, I made out the distinctly English words: “Jackie Chan! Jackie Chan!” I was on a tour of the townships outside Cape Town when a crowd of little boys surrounded me and started jabbering in unison.
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