Reel Talks: How Kung Fu Movies Changed the World

Talks on movies, the culture of cinema, and filmmaking.

In 1973, the Hong Kong movie Five Fingers of Death opened in New York City and became a blockbuster hit. Within five years, Bruce Lee posters were on the walls of every American bedroom, martial arts movies were blowing up the box office, appearing on TV screens, and influencing everything from Hollywood to hip hop. Here's the story of how a bunch of Asian, Black, and Latino kids learned how to do kung fu and changed pop culture for good.

Grady Hendrix is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, and many more. His history of the horror paperback boom of the '70s and '80s, Paperbacks from Hell, won the Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction. He's a longtime journalist who has covered the Asian film industries for Variety, Film Comment, and Sight & Sound, and is one of the co-founders of Subway Cinema and the New York Asian Film Festival. He also wrote the 2019 Netflix documentary, Iron Fists & Kung Fu Kicks.

Scott Adlerberg is the author of five novels, including Graveyard Love, Jack Waters, and The Screaming Child.  He has written many short stories and contributes pieces regularly to sites such as CrimeReads and Mystery Tribune.  He was born in New York City and lives in Brooklyn.