Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dismissive views on Hong Kong action cinema: “Those guys were very puny”
The 1980s was a defining decade for action cinema, with Arnold Schwarzenegger leading the charge on one side of the world while a seismic shift was taking place on the other.
Alongside contemporary and rival Sylvester Stallone, the two beefy boys became the faces of cinematic shoot ’em ups throughout the decade, attempting to one-up each other at every turn by boasting the biggest biceps, the highest body counts, and the most overcompensating array of weaponry.
That determination to outdo the other played a massive part in cementing them as a pair of Hollywood’s most notable and highest-paid performers during the decade, but over in Hong Kong, there was a brand new era waiting to be ushered in.
The origins of the movement may have started as far back as the late 1970s, but thanks largely to the contributions of John Woo and Ringo Lam, Hong Kong action cinema was a regular source of the best actioners the industry had to offer by the late 1980s. There wasn’t a six-pack in sight, either, with the focus being placed on choreography and more relatable heroes.
Naturally, Schwarzenegger couldn’t quite comprehend why people were fawning over movies featuring protagonists who couldn’t bench-press an industrial vehicle, leading him to share his opinion that the only reason heroic bloodshed ended up becoming so popular in the first place was because the actors headlining them weren’t muscular enough to play him at his own game.
“The reason why the whole style was developed over there was because those guys were very puny guys,” he suggested. “They’re not powerful-looking guys, they’re also not powerful guys. There’s no weightlifting champion coming out of Hong Kong, maybe in the bantam division or the lightweight division or something like that, but normally you don’t have really strong men coming out of there.”
According to the ‘Austrian Oak’, because they were nothing but flimsy weaklings compared to the musclebound heroes who dominated American cinema, there was no other option but to cultivate a distinctive style that proved so popular and influential that it continues to influence the genre to this day.
“They had to learn a technique that small people can do that are as effective as the big guy’s strength,” he surmised, but history did show that there was plenty of room at the table for both of them. Schwarzenegger had The Terminator, Commando, and Predator, while Hong Kong had A Better Tomorrow, City on Fire, and The Killer.
In the end, audiences were the real winners, but heroic bloodshed ended up having the last laugh when the over-muscled meatheads of yore were gradually phased out in favour of normally-proportioned action stars that were decidedly more authentic and relatable than the bulletproof one-man army.
