Mind Fist : The Asian Arts of the Ninja Masters

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Iron Fist has been around since 1974's Marvel Premiere #15, and it's almost always been Danny Rand wielding the power of the dragon Shou-Lao and defending the mystical city of K'un-Lun. But while Danny certainly has a sizable fanbase, the character has also come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. It’s hard to not imagine what could have been. For years, Asian-Americans had hoped that Marvel would cast an Asian-American actor as the lead of its Netflix series Iron Fist, only for the role to go to Game of Thrones alum Finn Jones. The decision wasn’t exactly surprising — after all, the character Danny Rand is white in the original comics — but a casting reversal would have turned a stereotypical narrative into a fresh story about an Asian-American reclaiming his roots. Now, we know that Marvel had seriously considered the possibility: Actor Lewis Tan was on hold for Danny Rand before he was offered the role of the one-off villain Zhou Cheng, who appears in episode eight of Iron Fist. Liu: And so serene, like seeing the way that a single foot dipping into the pond creates the ripples and the water is so still – oh my gosh.

Sun: You mentioned the dubbing, and for anybody who is really coming into this totally new, let’s talk a little bit about what you’re talking about. How did martial arts movies become a popular genre in American pop culture? Where did they come from? Large/medium coccyx Bottoms may have trouble girth fisting, as the opening to the fist chute can be limited by the coccyx.Interestingly, Wong echoed comments recently made by Superman: Son of Kal-El writer Tom Taylor regarding Jon Kent coming out as bisexual. Wong feels this new Iron Fist is an important step forward for the franchise and the ongoing push for diversity in superhero comics. Well, I knew about Iron Fist before anyone was talking about it in the public. I heard it going around inside the industry, and I was like, “Wow, if I get a chance to audition for the lead, this could potentially be a great vehicle for me.” I had a lot to offer here, but I knew that the character is white in the comic book, so I was concerned. But I thought at least I had a shot — I’m half white and I do martial arts and I could easily play that role. So I was excited. And then I read for Danny and they liked me a lot. I read again and again and again, and it was a long process, and it got to the point where they were talking about my availability and my dates. That’s always a good sign, you know? And then they went with Finn and they had me read for a villain part maybe two weeks later. I was in Spain, and I read for the part and I got it. Once past the ridge, there are no pressure or pain points—find a spot that is comfortable for the Bottom to rest. The last ring encountered in depth fisting is at the ninety degree angle between the descending and transverse colons. The technical name for this ring is the splenic flexure. Practice allows the transverse colon to straighten out, allowing the post elbow-depth arm to move past the stomach and towards the heart. The diaphragm will prevent a Top from directly touching the lungs or heart. Piguaquan and Bajiquan are often taught as complementary martial arts, especially in Taiwan. In fact, there is a Chinese martial arts proverb that goes: "When pigua is added to baji, gods and demons will all be terrified. When baji is added to pigua, heroes will sigh knowing they are no match against it." (八極參劈掛，神鬼都害怕。劈掛參八極，英雄嘆莫及) [4]

Sun: Absolutely. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with having an accent or knowing martial arts, but the problem is when every Asian is expected to come with those two characteristics, where it becomes stereotypical and limiting. So when you talked about that first and second wave – Bruce Lee, it’s so crazy because his legacy is enormous and has really reverberated and obviously lasted for decades, but his active period was tragically brief – I think he died in 1973 and his first movie, The Big Boss, had come out only in 1971. So this is a very small canon that the world was allowed to get from him. So after he passed in the early ’70s and Rumble in the Bronx came out, I think it was like the mid-’90s, that’s like 20 years, that’s almost 25 years of a gap. A total void of Asian leads – however, not a void in projects that were inspired by martial arts. And you mentioned, there has been and still is a rise of white stars who became martial arts practitioners but also got to become leading men. Meeting friends, farewell, wedding ceremony, birthday party, victory banquet, paying visiting, etc… Fist and palm salute means greeting, say hello, congratulations and so on. Chow: That was kind of that first conversation that happened before it really hit the fan for Hollywood. That predated #OscarsSoWhite, that predated #StarringJohnCho, #WhitewashedOut, right? There are a few reasons why I prefer not to have shit be part of my fisting experience. For one, it’s not particularly comfortable. It’s grittier than lube and can cause more friction. And each to their own but I don’t know how you play in the mud on purpose without it getting everywhere (although I have heard tarpaulin is the answer). Pigua Zhang is one of the fighting styles of the character Hermit (Tanimoto Natsu) in the Japanese manga and anime series History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi along with Bajiquan.

On The Go

Chow: We were talking about the dubbing piece when I was a kid being a distraction for me. And not even English dubbing, because what people don’t understand is that all of those movies were dubbed in Chinese, too. Like, they weren’t speaking words. They would just move their mouth, and some other cat would come into the booth and record their dialogue because they would do a Mandarin dub and a Cantonese dub. And it was never Jet Li’s voice when he was playing Wong Fei-hung [from the Once Upon a Time in China franchise]. It was always just some other guy’s voice. And I just knew that intrinsically as a young person, and it just turned me off. And that’s another reason why I was like, “This ain’t for me. This ain’t my bag; I can’t deal with it.”