Chuck Norris Movies
American action star Chuck Norris first learned martial arts while serving in the Air Force. From 1968 through 1974, he held the world's middleweight karate championship title. During this period, he made his film debut in The Wrecking Crew (1968) and his TV bow on a 1970 episode of Room 222. Thanks to the celebrity clientèle of his Los Angeles karate school, Norris was able to make the right contacts which enabled him to embark on a starring career in films. Building a box-office following with such fast-paced (and rapidly filmed) actioners as A Force of One (1979) and Lone Wolf McQuade (1982), Norris reached his professional apex as Colonel James Braddock in the three Missing in Action films of the 1980s. Around 1987, Norris' stardom went into eclipse, thanks in part to the heady competition of Schwarzenegger, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Steven Seagal; though he still occasionally appears in films, most of his later efforts don't back their cost until they hit the video shelves. In 1986, Chuck Norris lent his name and his voice to a brief TV cartoon series, Chuck Norris' Karate Kommandos, in which, after his cartoon counterpart decimates every bad guy within 50 miles, the real Norris cautions his young audience that "violence is my last option." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1968
Cahiers du Cinema favorite Phil Karlson may have directed the "Matt Helm" extravaganza The Wrecking Crew, but the only "auteur" around these parts is star Dean Martin, coasting through yet another sexy spy romp. This time, secret agent Helm must prevent a billion-dollar gold hijacking, masterminded by the unspeakable Count Massimo Contini (Nigel Green). Aiding and abetting our hero is all-thumbs Scandinavian spy Freya Carlson (a brilliant comic turn by the late Sharon Tate). Sidebar: future action-star Chuck Norris plays a minor role, while Bruce Lee served as the film's martial-arts advisor. The last of the Matt Helm films, The Wrecking Crew was sort of based on a novel by Donald Hamilton; like the other films in the series, the title bears precisely no relation to the plot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dean Martin, Elke Sommer, (more)
Bruce Lee's pre-Enter the Dragon outing is a surprising change of pace from his usual hard-hitting action fare because it favors humor as much as it does kung-fu. It's also notable because it represents Lee's only venture as a director. For the most part, Return of the Dragon works thanks to its charismatic star. Lee shows great comic timing in the humorous set pieces in addition to the usual physical prowess he displays during the action scenes. He also manages to utilize both skills at once on occasion, the best example being a scene where he squares off with a group of mobster goons at a restaurant. It also benefits from its picturesque Italian setting (a novel location for a kung-fu film) and an impressive fight finale between Lee and Chuck Norris (making his film debut). On the down side, the film's low-budget shows and the other performers all pretty much pale in comparison to Lee. However, the real flaw with Return of the Dragon lies in its ending, which features a last-minute twist that doesn't work because it is too unexpectedly tragic for a film that had previously been so lighthearted. Despite this misstep, it remains a likeable blend of kung-fu and comedy that is likely to bring a smile to the face of Bruce Lee fans. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
- 1973
- R
When his partner is murdered, a police officer (Don Wong) sets out to avenge his death and rid San Francisco of the corrupting influence of an evil man (Chuck Norris). This film was released to video under the title Karate Cop. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wang Tao, Chuck Norris, (more)
One of the most popular kung fu films ever, and perhaps the peak of the famed Bruce Lee's career, Enter the Dragon achieved success by presenting a series of superbly staged fighting sequences with a minimum of distractions. The story finds Lee as a martial-arts expert determined to help capture the narcotics dealer whose gang was responsible for his sister's death. This evil villain operates from a fortified island manned by a team of crack martial artists, who also host a kung fu competition. Lee uses his skills to enter the contest and then tries to chop, kick, and otherwise fight his way into the dealer's headquarter. The story is, of course, merely an excuse for showdown after showdown, featuring masterly fighting by Lee in a wide variety of martial arts styles. Essential viewing for martial arts fans, the film was also embraced by a larger audience, thanks to a fast pace and higher-than-usual production values. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruce Lee, John Saxon, (more)
- 1973
- R
In this sexploitation film from Roger Corman's New World films, three buxom student teachers use alternative methods to instruct their handsome young students. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1976
A number of martial arts experts illustrate their technique and discuss the ancient arts of self defense. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
A typical Chuck Norris vehicle from the late '70s, Breaker! Breaker! is neither the first nor the last Hollywood attempt to translate the wide appeal of trucking into big-screen profits. Alhough, it is probably the least successful. In this "modern" Western, a small California town is ruled by the nefarious Judge Josh. Using CB technology, the Judge and his gang of henchman lure wayward truckers into their town in order to do them bodily harm. Eventually their evil ways catch up to them in the form of J.D. Dawes (Norris), who comes in search of his brother. What he finds, however, is nothing a little Tae Kwan Do and a case of dynamite can't fix. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Murdock, Terry O'Connor, (more)
Chuck Norris plays John T. Booker, a Vietnam vet who finds out that several of his army buddies lost their lives in a mission that was intended to fail. Seeking answers, Booker quits his school-teaching job and tracks down the surviving members of his unit. One by one, his old friends are being knocked off by sinister forces, orchestrated by a crooked, and legally untouchable, politician. Amidst a plethora of martial arts, gunfire and explosions, the film briefly pauses for a comic-relief scene involving over-aged bellboy Jim Backus. Good Guys Wear Black did so well at the box-office that it warranted a sequel, A Force of One (1979). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Anne Archer, (more)
Star Bruce Lee died before this film was completed, thus the producers were forced to pad out the running time with outtakes and alternate shots. They also lifted chunks of footage from Enter the Dragon and Return of the Dragon. The finished product finally hit the screens in 1978, five years after Lee's death. The film's finale pits Lee against such formidable opposition as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Chuck Norris. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
To say that Chuck Norris is the star of Force of One may smack of redundancy. Norris is cast as Vietnam vet Matt Logan, assigned to instruct a big-city narcotics squad in the intricacies of martial arts. His star pupil turns out to be Detective Mandy Rust (Jennifer O'Neill). Initially disinterested in law enforcement, Logan is galvanized into action when his adopted son is killed by the villains. Force of One was designed as a follow-up of (though not a sequel to) the money-spinning Norris vehicle Good Guys Wear Black. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer O'Neill, Chuck Norris, (more)
Karate champ Chuck Norris returns for another chop-socky vigilante flick in The Octagon, one of a handful of undistinguished Ninja pictures released during the early '80s. Norris appropriately plays a retired karate champ hired as a bodyguard for a wealthy woman (Karen Carlson) plagued by a gang of vicious ninjas. Reluctant at first to take the job, he reconsiders when he learns the gang is headed by his longtime arch rival Tadashi Yamashita (Lee Van Cleef). The script -- as is the case in nearly every Ninja film -- has holes bigger than Okinawa, and the acting is downright atrocious, particularly that of Norris, who, thankfully, improved with time. However, the production values are fair, as is the direction, and the action sequences are often exciting and comparatively realistic. Recommended for genre fans only. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Karen Carlson, (more)
The frequently used title An Eye for an Eye was applied to a Chuck Norris martial-arts festival in 1981. Norris plays Sean Kane, a San Francisco cop whose partner is murdered by an Oriental drug ring. Told to keep his distance by his superiors, Kane quits the force and sets out to exact vengeance. When he's not suffering from traumatic nightmares, our hero is single-handedly decimating every one of villain Morgan Canfield's (Christopher Lee) henchmen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Christopher Lee, (more)
The sheriff of a small Texas town is pitted against a genetically engineered super-villain. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Ron Silver, (more)
In this martial-arts actioner, a pugnacious, taciturn Vietnam vet begins working for an honest casino owner to help keep the evil gangsters at bay. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Mary Louise Weller, (more)
In this Spaghetti-western-like martial arts actioner, Texas Ranger J. J. McQuade (Chuck Norris) is up against the weapons-dealer Rawley Wilkes (David Carradine) after Wilkes kidnaps McQuade's partner and daughter and takes them to Mexico. McQuade's personal vendetta is encouraged by the government because Wilkes is hijacking U.S. arms shipments for his illicit weapons deals and the government wants him stopped. After the kidnapping incident, McQuade is assigned Kayo (Robert Beltran) a rookie patrolman, to accompany him in his fight, and he is also joined by FBI-agent Jackson (Leon Isaac Kennedy). Jackson and McQuade track down Wilkes' secret airstrip -- and that is when the fireworks begin. Every weapon known to human technology is brought into the picture as McQuade, also armed with his lethal hands and feet, goes ballistic. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, David Carradine, (more)
One of a string of Ramboesque films dashed off in the '80s, Missing in Action is yet another entry that attempts to exploit the lingering public bitterness over the outcome of the war in Vietnam. Colonel Braddock (karate champion Chuck Norris) travels to Vietnam on a mission to recover lost POWs. A former POW himself, Braddock has the saavy and bad temper to kill droves of communists at a time, not to mention the inclination. Together with former war comrade M. Emmet Walsh, he sets off for the POW camp where Americans are supposedly still held. Of course, there are lots of nameless, faceless Asian communists, and of course, every one of them dies in violent fashion. The chop-socky, shoot-em-up, explosion-a-minute action quickly wears thin. Missing in Action is a crass, dopey film that ultimately fails to connect with anything interesting in the realm of fact or fiction. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, M. Emmet Walsh, (more)
This red-baiting action film stars Chuck Norris as Matt Hunter, a retired CIA agent who lives in the Florida Everglades. A communist invasion of Miami brings Hunter out of retirement to fight the encroaching hordes led by everyone's favorite low-budget bad guy, Richard Lynch. The film is extremely jingoistic, presenting the evil communists staging an invasion on Christmas, demolishing a church, and attempting to blow up a school bus full of children. From the same school of thinking which produced Rambo and Red Dawn, this film at least features some convincing gore by makeup wizard Tom Savini (Friday the 13th), working on his third gig for director Joseph Zito. Zito and Savini returned with Red Scorpion. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Richard Lynch, (more)
Not to be confused with the 1960 film of the same name, this fast-paced karate action flick stars Chuck Norris, still riding high on his karate film successes of the early '80s, and several years away from starting his popular Walker: Texas Ranger TV series. In this story he plays Eddie Cusak, a painfully honest police sergeant who just misses pulling off a drug bust -- it seems another gang got there before him, wiped out the competition, and made off with a fortune in white powder. A bad move -- this means nothing less than all-out war between the two rival gangs, with the police caught in the middle. Cusak has other problems as well, one of his team killed an innocent bystander during the raid and he is duty-bound to squelch any cover-up. With enemies on both sides of the law, he then has to take on the drug cartel with nothing more than cannons, machine guns, shotguns, pistols, a robot car, and other sundry artillery to help him out. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Henry Silva, (more)
- 1985
- R
While the first Missing in Action film told of a rescue mission by ex-POW Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris), the second concerns his original stay in a Vietnamese prisoner camp. The camp is governed by the crazed Colonel Yin (Soon-Teck Oh), who forces the POW's to grow opium for French drug runners and tries to get them to admit to and sign a long list of war crimes. Braddock must escape the camp and liberate his fellow prisoners to have any hope of surviving. The third installment in the series, Braddock: Missing in Action 3, was released three years later. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Soon-Teck Oh, (more)
Menahem Golan melds a Chuck Norris action spectacle with the disaster film genre in The Delta Force. The story is based upon the June, 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet, where passengers were held at gun-point by terrorists in Beirut, Lebanon. The film re-enacts various real life incidents from the crisis -- an American serviceman is beaten to death, a terrorist holds a gun to the pilot's head as the pilot is being questioned by reporters -- while depicting the tension aboard the plane and the agony of the passengers, held under the threat of death by the terrorists. The Delta Force, a crack anti-terrorist commando group, is preparing to rescue the passengers. Colonel Nick Alexander (Lee Marvin) is the grizzled commander of the task force; his best soldier is Major Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris), who was planning to retire but is called back into action for one last heroic stand against terrorism. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Lee Marvin, (more)
Firewalker stars Chuck Norris as Max Donigan, an ex-Marine, and Louis Gossett, Jr. as his buddy, Leo Porter. Both set out to help Patricia Goodwyn (Melody Anderson) find a lost Aztec city and a temple filled with gold. After a few misadventures, their nemesis "El Coyote" (Sonny Landham) comes into view for awhile to make it clear that they are not without serious competition. Barroom brawls and a capture by hostile Native Americans throw roadblocks in their path, but the fearless trio forge onward toward the temple and their destiny. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Louis Gossett, Jr., (more)
- 1988
- R
Vietnam veteran Colonel Braddock had believed his Asian wife to be dead since the war, but he hears from a missionary that she is not only alive, but has a son. Soon, he returns to Vietnam to rescue them and others from a prison camp. This is the third Missing in Action film starring the well-known martial artist, Chuck Norris, as lethal hero Braddock. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Aki Aleong, (more)
O'Brien (Chuck Norris) is a detective who captured the psychotic maniac Simon Moon (Jack O'Halloran), aka the Terror, by mistake. When the obese 6' 6'' villain fell from a ladder trying to escape, he was knocked cold and the lucky O'Brien got the credit for his collar. With his psychiatrist sweetheart Kay (Brynn Thayer), pregnant with their first child, the Terror escapes. Although he is large and unforgettable, the terrible Titan manages to evade the police, and no one even notices him when he carts cadavers on his massive shoulders. This routine actioner provides a view of several historic sights in Santa Monica, California. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Chuck Norris, Brynn Thayer, (more)
