Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks

Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (2019) is a documentary you can watch online on iFILM. Australian director Serge Ou assembled critics, stunt performers, producers and actors from around the world to trace how Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers studio and its rivals turned kung fu into a global cinema phenomenon — starting in the 1960s.

The chain of consequence runs further than you'd expect. Hong Kong action cinema fed blaxploitation films in the United States, shaped early hip-hop, helped birth parkour, and ended up inspiring Uganda's Wakaliwood movement. On screen: Cynthia Rothrock and others who lived through the wave firsthand. For anyone who always sensed something bigger going on in those films — this is where it gets explained. Watch Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (2019) online on iFILM.