Chuck Norris: This good guy always wins
For a skinny kid growing up on a sleepy college campus in the suburbs of Kampala, Uganda, in East Africa, Chuck Norris was the ultimate movie hero for one reason -- he could beat any bad guy, and he didn't need a gun to do it.
It was the late 1980s and early 1990s, and for most teenage boys in my neighborhood, martial arts action stars and larger-than-life characters who could take on any villain were in vogue.
And Norris, a former six-time karate world champion, simply became The Man.
Forget Walker, Texas Ranger. I'm talking about the Norris of Code of Silence (1985), Good Guys Wear Black (1978), An Eye for an Eye (1981), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), The Delta Force (1986), Delta Force 2 (1990), Missing in Action (1984), Missing in Action 2 (1985), Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988).
Sure, we also had Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and later Bruce Willis, but none of them came close to Norris.
For one thing, he was not bombastic. He didn't have a massive chest or rely on oversized guns and unfamiliar accents. He was the lean and soft-spoken hero, who rarely delved into touchy-feely sentimentality but somehow always got the girl.
Nobody could take Norris in a one-on-one fight; even Bruce Lee had to go a few rounds before taking him down in Return of the Dragon (1972), but Lee was in a class of his own.
I remember one balmy Friday afternoon in 1989, in an incredibly crowded classroom at Buganda Road Primary School in the heart of Kampala when Norris -- the superhero -- came alive for a couple hundred 11-year-olds, including me.
My friends and I squeezed into the small classroom that had been converted into a rudimentary movie theater on Fridays. It had a 32-inch screen television with a shaky picture and even worse sound quality.
An Eye for an Eye, the first Norris movie I ever saw, was the featured film. The movie itself was nothing special, especially for a bunch of kids who knew little about American culture, much less the intricacies of being a San Francisco police officer framed in an undercover sting operation.
But we understood action, and who the good guy and the bad guys were. Norris was a good guy. I distinctly recall the scene in which he stole the show.
It was a one-on-one fight with a much bigger and stronger enemy. From our standpoint, Norris was clearly the underdog. He had suffered many injustices in the movie. Everybody was out to get him and so we rooted for him.
We feared Norris would lose the fight. He'd been slapped and kicked around, and even staggered to the ground a few times until one point when the bad guy charged at him for the last time. And we knew it. We could see the determination in his eyes.
And that is when he performed his classic roundhouse kicks. Swinging on one leg as his fulcrum, he leveled a couple of kicks, but the bad guy barely flinched.
The room, packed with little boys and girls squeezed on benches and standing on desks, grew louder with every kick.
The filmmaker must have known we were waiting for him to cut down the bad guy, because Norris sprang in the air and with three swift roundhouse kicks, smacked his nemesis in almost the same spot until the giant just tumbled to the ground.
You should have been there. It was sheer exhilaration. We jumped, hugged, screamed, broke desks and chairs -- all because of Norris.
I knew then that I wanted to be like Norris. And thus, a Walker, Texas Ranger fan was born, long before I knew what it meant to be a Texas Ranger. And now, thanks to Norris, I know that "when you're in Texas look behind you, 'cause that's where the Ranger's gonna be."
By: Rujumba, Karamagi, Blade, The (OH), Sep 06
It was the late 1980s and early 1990s, and for most teenage boys in my neighborhood, martial arts action stars and larger-than-life characters who could take on any villain were in vogue.
And Norris, a former six-time karate world champion, simply became The Man.
Forget Walker, Texas Ranger. I'm talking about the Norris of Code of Silence (1985), Good Guys Wear Black (1978), An Eye for an Eye (1981), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), The Delta Force (1986), Delta Force 2 (1990), Missing in Action (1984), Missing in Action 2 (1985), Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988).
Sure, we also had Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and later Bruce Willis, but none of them came close to Norris.
For one thing, he was not bombastic. He didn't have a massive chest or rely on oversized guns and unfamiliar accents. He was the lean and soft-spoken hero, who rarely delved into touchy-feely sentimentality but somehow always got the girl.
Nobody could take Norris in a one-on-one fight; even Bruce Lee had to go a few rounds before taking him down in Return of the Dragon (1972), but Lee was in a class of his own.
I remember one balmy Friday afternoon in 1989, in an incredibly crowded classroom at Buganda Road Primary School in the heart of Kampala when Norris -- the superhero -- came alive for a couple hundred 11-year-olds, including me.
My friends and I squeezed into the small classroom that had been converted into a rudimentary movie theater on Fridays. It had a 32-inch screen television with a shaky picture and even worse sound quality.
An Eye for an Eye, the first Norris movie I ever saw, was the featured film. The movie itself was nothing special, especially for a bunch of kids who knew little about American culture, much less the intricacies of being a San Francisco police officer framed in an undercover sting operation.
But we understood action, and who the good guy and the bad guys were. Norris was a good guy. I distinctly recall the scene in which he stole the show.
It was a one-on-one fight with a much bigger and stronger enemy. From our standpoint, Norris was clearly the underdog. He had suffered many injustices in the movie. Everybody was out to get him and so we rooted for him.
We feared Norris would lose the fight. He'd been slapped and kicked around, and even staggered to the ground a few times until one point when the bad guy charged at him for the last time. And we knew it. We could see the determination in his eyes.
And that is when he performed his classic roundhouse kicks. Swinging on one leg as his fulcrum, he leveled a couple of kicks, but the bad guy barely flinched.
The room, packed with little boys and girls squeezed on benches and standing on desks, grew louder with every kick.
The filmmaker must have known we were waiting for him to cut down the bad guy, because Norris sprang in the air and with three swift roundhouse kicks, smacked his nemesis in almost the same spot until the giant just tumbled to the ground.
You should have been there. It was sheer exhilaration. We jumped, hugged, screamed, broke desks and chairs -- all because of Norris.
I knew then that I wanted to be like Norris. And thus, a Walker, Texas Ranger fan was born, long before I knew what it meant to be a Texas Ranger. And now, thanks to Norris, I know that "when you're in Texas look behind you, 'cause that's where the Ranger's gonna be."
By: Rujumba, Karamagi, Blade, The (OH), Sep 06
posted by James at 5:44 PM
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