Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to the Ninjas, TV Detectives, Murder in Halruua, Year of the Ninja Master, The Incredible Hulk: Cry of the Beast, Dirty Harry: Duel for Cannons, Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Movie, the San Diego Comic Con Superhero Kung Fu Extravaganza.
Richard Meyers (born 1953), is an American author, ghostwriter, screenwriter, consultant, actor, editor, and teacher, who may be best known for his contributions to the martial arts film industry (Rim Films having called him "one of the men most responsible for the acceptance of Asian action movies and stars in America").
A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, memoirs, magazine articles, or other written material. In music, ghostwriters are often used to write songs, lyrics, and instrumental pieces. Screenplay authors can also use ghostwriters to either edit or rewrite their scripts to improve them.
A screenplay writer, scriptwriter or scenarist, is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films, which feature numerous martial arts fights between characters. These fights are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently featured in training scenes and other sequences in addition to fights. Martial arts films commonly include other types of action, such as hand-to-hand combat, stuntwork, chases, and gunfights.
However, Meyers has been writing, editing, and performing professionally since 1974. He is the author of more than seventy novels and non-fiction books under variations of his own name, as well as several pseudonyms, such as Dane Hartman and Wade Barker.
His most successful and popular works include Doomstar, Fear Itself, Murder in Halruua, TV Detectives, For One Week Only: The World of Exploitation Films, and Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to the Ninjas—as well as both the book Films of Fury: The Kung Fu Movie Book, and the documentary Films of Fury: The Kung Fu MovieMovie. In addition, he has made contributions to such diverse paperback book series as The Destroyer, Dirty Harry, Ninja Master, and The Incredible Hulk.
The Destroyer is a series of paperback novels about a U.S. government operative named Remo Williams, originally by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. The first novel was published in 1971, although the manuscript was completed on June 25, 1963. The main characters were adapted to film in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985). Over 150 novels have been published.
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American action crime thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. The film drew upon the real life case of the Zodiac Killer as the Callahan character seeks out a similar vicious psychopath.
The Incredible Hulk is an ongoing comic book series featuring the Marvel Comics superhero the Hulk and his alter ego Dr. Bruce Banner. First published in May 1962, the series ran for six issues before it was cancelled in March 1963, and the Hulk character began appearing in Tales to Astonish. With issue #102, Tales to Astonish was renamed to The Incredible Hulk in April 1968, becoming its second volume. The series continued to run until issue #474 in March 1999 when it was replaced with the series Hulk which ran until February 2000 and was retitled to The Incredible Hulk's third volume, running until March 2007 when it became The Incredible Hercules with a new title character. The Incredible Hulk returned in September 2009 beginning at issue #600, which became The Incredible Hulks in November 2010 and focused on the Hulk and the modern incarnation of his expanded family. The series returned to The Incredible Hulk in December 2011 and ran until January 2013, when it was replaced with The Indestructible Hulk as part of Marvel's Marvel NOW! relaunch.
Enjoying an eclectic life, Meyers has also entertained in film, television, arenas, major pop culture conventions, DVDs, radio, podcasts, and even in children's hospitals. He is also pleased to learn and teach writing, film, and kung-fu.
Early life
Meyers was born in Connecticut, and he is the son of Stanley Meyers, who was one of the top executives in the field that is now known as Intellectual Disability and Mental Health – having served as the Northeast Regional Advisor for the National Association of Retarded Citizens as well as Pennsylvania's first state secretary for what is now known as Intellectual and Developmental Disability Services. Ric was raised by actress Vera Johnson, best known for playing the older version of Rosie O’Donnell's character in the 1992 film, A League of Their Own.
Connecticut is the southernmost state in the New England region of the United States. As of the 2010 Census, it has the highest per-capita income, Human Development Index (0.962), and median household income in the United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital is Hartford and its most populous city is Bridgeport. It is part of New England, although portions of it are often grouped with New York and New Jersey as the Tri-state area. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word "Connecticut" is derived from various anglicized spellings of an Algonquian word for "long tidal river".
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle. The Commonwealth is bordered by Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to the northwest, New York to the north, and New Jersey to the east.
Roseann O'Donnell is an American comedian, actress, author, and television personality. She has been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, a lesbian rights activist, a television producer, and a collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company, R Family Vacations.
Early career
Although pursuing theater and cinema studies at Emerson College, Boston University, and the University of Bridgeport, Meyers was already an inveterate reader and writer – leading to his being hired in 1974 as assistant editor at Seaboard Periodicals and Atlas Comics. After the company folded in 1975, Meyers decided to pursue a writing career rather than return to college, hoping, like one of his idols, Donald E. Westlake, to create work in as many genres as he enjoyed reading.
Emerson College is a private college based in Downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of oratory," the college offers more than three dozen degree and professional study programs specializing in the areas of Arts and Communication with a multidisciplinary liberal arts foundation. Located in Boston's Washington Street Theatre District along the southeastern part of the Boston Common, the school also maintains satellite buildings in Los Angeles and the town of Well, The Netherlands.
Boston University is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has been historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church.
The University of Bridgeport, commonly referred to as UB, is a private, independent, non-sectarian, coeducational university located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The university is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC-CIHE). The students of the University of Bridgeport are from 80 countries and 46 states. In 2010, the percentage of students graduating that had participated in an English as a foreign or second language (ESL) program was one of the nation's highest at 5%.
With the help of his Seaboard Peridicals/Atlas Comics superior, Jeff Rovin, Meyers authored such non-fiction books as TV Super Stars, The Illustrated Soap Opera Companion, Movies on Movies, The Great Science Fiction Films, and The World of Fantasy Films. After their publication, he moved on to film and television genres he enjoyed even more, creating award-winning works on TV detectives and exploitation films. At around the same time, he was hired to be the first ghostwriter for the best-selling paperback series The Destroyer, and shortly after went on to write more than two dozen paperbacks for several publishers in the police, martial arts, and war action genres. At the same time, he was pursuing genre work under variations of his own name, including two science fiction novels, three horror novels, and a fantasy mystery for the Forgotten Realms series of Dungeons and Dragons.
Jeff Rovin is an American magazine editor, freelance writer, columnist, and author, who has appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories. Several years later, Greenwood brought the setting to the D&D game as a series of magazine articles, and the first Realms game products were released in 1987. Role-playing game products have been produced for the setting ever since, as have various licensed products including novels, role-playing video game adaptations, and comic books. The Forgotten Realms is one of the most popular D&D settings, largely due to the success of novels by authors such as R. A. Salvatore and numerous role-playing video games, including Pool of Radiance (1988), Eye of the Beholder (1991), Baldur's Gate (1998), Icewind Dale (2000) and Neverwinter Nights (2002).
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. It was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997. It was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry.
At the same time he continued to ply the editing trade, serving on the staffs of such publications as Starlog, Famous Monsters of Filmland, The Armchair Detective, and Millimeter magazine, among others. He was also head writer for the first issue of Fangoria, as well as the official tie-in magazines for the movies Moonraker and Alien.
Enter the Film Dragon
Although Meyers had seen Enter the Dragon and Five Fingers of Death in 1973, martial art movies held no interest for him until ex-Atlas Comics artist/writer Larry Hama introduced him to samurai and kung-fu cinema in 1978. In short order, Meyers had secured his first contract to write a book on the subject, and was soon in Hong Kong meeting Jackie Chan, which led to his inspiring Jonathan Ross to make a documentary on the kung fu star as part of his Son of the Incredibly Strange Film Show series in the UK. Upon its broadcast on the Discovery Network in the U.S., the English-speaking interest in kung-fu films was refreshed.
Meyers continued to promote the film genre in every medium he could, becoming a contributing editor for Inside Kung Fu magazine until it ceased publication in 2011, updating his book as Martial Arts Movies From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan & More in 2001, appearing on Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan specials for A&E's Biography and BravoProfiles, and contributing audio commentaries, liner notes, and cover copy for hundreds of DVDs in Asia and America.
Meyers hosted his first San Diego Comic Con Superhero Kung Fu Extravaganza in 1997, and recently prepared its 20th Anniversary Celebration for 2017. An artist seeing the Extravaganza led to Meyers being asked to present kung fu seminars to the staff of the first Kung Fu Panda film, as well as its subsequent NickelodeonTV series.
Stage Appearances
Although predominantly a writer, Meyers occasionally tires of typing, which has led to him playing the king at the Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, for almost two years. Shortly after, he was approached to appear as a certain jolly old elf in malls, stores, churches, homes, and even a dozen children's hospitals via video.
Awards & Honors
Meyers has been inducted into The World Martial Arts Hall of Fame, the World Wide Martial Arts Hall of Fame, the Budo Magazine Hall of Fame, and the Action Martial Arts Magazine Hall of Fame, and received an Edgar Allan Poe Special Award by the Mystery Writers of America.
In general, kung fu/kungfu or gung fu/gongfu refers to the Chinese martial arts, also called wushu and quanfa. In China, it refers to any study, learning, or practice that requires patience, energy, and time to complete. In its original meaning, kung fu can refer to any discipline or skill achieved through hard work and practice, not necessarily martial arts. The Chinese literal equivalent of "Chinese martial art" would be 中國武術 zhōngguó wǔshù.
Wuxia, which literally means "martial heroes", is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although wuxia is traditionally a form of fantasy literature, its popularity has caused it to spread to diverse art forms such as Chinese opera, mànhuà, films, television series and video games. It forms part of popular culture in many Chinese-speaking communities around the world.
Chan Kong-sang, known professionally as Jackie Chan, is a Hong Kong martial artist, actor, film director, producer, stuntman, and singer. He is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts, which he typically performs himself, in the cinematic world. He has trained in wushu or kungfu and hapkido, and has been acting since the 1960s, appearing in over 150 films.
Drunken Master is a 1978 Hong Kong action comedy martial arts film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, and starring Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien, and Hwang Jang-lee. The film was a success at the Hong Kong box office, earning two and a half times the amount of Chan's previous film, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, which was also considered a successful film. It is an early example of the comedic kung fu genre for which Jackie Chan became famous. The film popularised the Zui Quan fighting style. It was ranked number 3 on GamesRadar's list of 50 greatest kung fu movies of all time.
Kung Fu is an American action-adventure martial arts western drama television series starring David Carradine. The series follows the adventures of Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk who travels through the American Old West, armed only with his spiritual training and his skill in martial arts, as he seeks Danny Caine, his half-brother.
Chopsocky is a colloquial term for martial arts movies and kung fu films made primarily in Hong Kong and Taiwan between the late 1960s and early 1980s. The term was coined by the American motion picture trade magazine Variety following the explosion of films in the genre released in 1973 in the U.S. after the success of Five Fingers of Death. The word is a play on chop suey, combining "chop" and "sock".
Half a Loaf of Kung Fu is a 1978 Hong Kong action comedy martial arts film directed by Chen Chi-hwa and written by Jackie Chan, who also starred in the lead role. The film co-stars Dean Shek and James Tien. The film was released in Hong Kong on 1 July 1978. Chan plays a bumbling kung fu student who becomes involved in a series of adventures.
Paul Gulacy is an American comics artist best known for his work for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, and for drawing one of the first graphic novels, Eclipse Enterprises' 1978 Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, with writer Don McGregor. He is most associated with the 1970s martial-arts / espionage series, Marvel's Master of Kung Fu.
Bruceploitation refers to the practice on the part of filmmakers in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan of hiring Bruce Lee look-alike actors ("Lee-alikes") to star in many imitation martial arts films in order to cash in on Lee's success after his death. Bruceploitation is an exploitation film subgenre mostly seen in the 1970s after Lee's death in 1973.
Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. It combines elements from the action film, as codified by Hollywood, with Chinese storytelling, aesthetic traditions and filmmaking techniques, to create a culturally distinctive form that nevertheless has a wide transcultural appeal. In recent years, the flow has reversed somewhat, with American and European action films being heavily influenced by Hong Kong genre conventions.
A Kung Fu master is a person who has mastered Chinese martial arts, or their stereotypical depiction as an elderly martial arts master.
Spiritual Kung Fu is a 1978 Hong Kong action martial arts film directed and produced by Lo Wei, and starring Jackie Chan and James Tien. The film also features Yuen Biao as one of the Master of the Five Fists. Chan was also the film's stunt co-ordinator. It was known in some releases as Karate Ghostbuster.
Angela Mao Ying is a Taiwanese actress and martial artist who appeared in many martial arts films in the 1970s. One of the most famous martial artist actresses of her time, she is nicknamed "Lady Whirlwind" and "Lady Kung Fu". She was positioned as a female version of Bruce Lee.
Kung fu film is a subgenre of martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema set in the contemporary period and featuring realistic martial arts. It lacks the fantasy elements seen in wuxia, a related martial arts genre that uses historical settings based on ancient China. Swordplay is also less common in kung-fu films than in wuxia and fighting is done through unarmed combat.
Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan's career spans more than five decades and features him working as an actor, martial artist, film director, action director, stuntman, producer and singer.
Jonathan Patrick Foo is an English actor, martial artist, fine artist, digital designer, and stuntman of mixed Chinese and Irish descent.
The Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan is a 1995 fighting arcade game developed and published by Kaneko. It features the Hong Kong celebrity, Jackie Chan, who was also the producer of it, while it also features other actors from some of Jackie Chan's films.
Jan Lucanus is an American comic book writer, filmmaker, martial artist, musical artist, and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of the transmedia company Creative Impulse Entertainment, Inc., co-creator/co-writer of the mixed martial arts comic books series, JFH: Justice For Hire, is an award-winning filmmaker, an international martial arts champion in both the full contact sport of San Shou and the sport of Tai Chi Push Hands, and is a rapper/singer/songwriter. Lucanus also consults on business, production, and creative strategies for companies and individuals across comics, film, television, music, and games. He is a graduate of the New York University Maurice Kanbar Institute for Film & Television, Tisch School of the Arts, holding a degree in Film Production.
JFH: Justice For Hire is a mixed martial arts themed entertainment property that encompasses a series of comic books, films, videos, music, and animations. The JFH story follows two sons of a duo of vigilante fathers that get their family's hero-for-hire business legalized, spawning a worldwide industry of heroes, villains, and mercenaries for hire dubbed the Retribution Industry. Produced and published by Creative Impulse Entertainment, JFH remains one of the first examples of transmedia storytelling in the comic book industry.
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