Jim Kelly

You get Pam Greer in stuff like Foxy Brown.

And then you just get people like Jim Kelly from his cast in Enter the Dragon alongside Bruce Lee.

He becomes a major, major blaxploitation star in martial arts.

Fred Williamson's character from the original Inglourious Bastards also led to him being a major star at the time.

He was the non-white guy who stood up to the man.

And in Enter the Dragon, of course, they have a Shaft-like character that Jim Kelly played, who's the black... uh the black um karate guy who beats up a cop a racist cop at the very beginning of the film it's like shaft i remember re-watching the movie i hadn't seen it in 20 years and i was like oh my god you couldn't show that today And so Enter the Dragon really hit a lot of different buttons that were hot buttons at the time.

It was very countercultural.

And it was a straight kung fu movie, which nobody had ever seen.

And the father, who was a, the s- senior, he'd call me over, "Ali, come over." He used to call me The Fly from Bruce Lee.

You remember in one, one scene, I think Jim Kelly goes, "Ah, a human fly," when Bruce Lee's like climbing-

Oh, yeah

... over stuff.

But remember, he was strong.

Like, even Jim Kelly, like, you know, he wasn't getting put-

Mm-hmm

...

It's a movie that's sort of documenting the point where the Japanese had occupied China in the early 1900s, in the early part of the 20th century, and sort of avenging his, first of all, his Kung Fu Kun, his sort of Kung Fu school, but also on the part of all of the folks who are colonized.

And then in Enter the Dragon, he's literally part of a three the hard way type group, right? Including Jim Kelly's character, Williams, black man, and Roper, the white man, who are there sent to free the slaves, free these drugged prostitutes and slaves from this underground evil lair of this evil sort of James Bond type of villain.

So that's what they were looking for at this particular moment.

And this is a moment which all of Asia, Southeast Asia is in upheaval.

Where can I go? Can I go? Can I go with you and watch?" And that started it all, and it was just something that I was enamored with.

Obviously, Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly and all the, you know, all these, uh, karate flicks that came out kind of pressured more of the love for me to, uh, to, to, to, to do it.

And, uh, it became a way of life for me.

I mean, and this is the early '70s, right?

The Black Samurai series had eight entries, a two-year span of 1974 and 1975.

And then in 1977, it was made into a movie starring Jim Kelly, simply titled Black Samurai, which was based on the book that we are going to be talking about today, The Warlock.

I have yet to see The Black Samurai.

It's not streaming anywhere that I could find anyway.