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ABSTRACT
Kung fu films made in Hong Kong and Taiwan are one of the most influential film references for male youth audiences around Africa, but despite their influence, their circulation around the continent has only rarely been studied. This essay addresses this gap by analysing the long-term impact of kung fu films on street gang culture in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Kung fu films began to circulate in the country the 1970s. They were screened in Abidjan numerous popular neighbourhood theatre halls along Indian films and American B-movies. Their emphasis on fighting bare hands, the discipline of the body and the revolt to forms of authority perceived as oppressive made them popular among young viewers, who took explicit inspiration from them and began practicing martial arts. The street gang movement which emerged from these influences, known as the ‘Ziguéhi’, became one of the most influential in recent Ivorian history.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Quote from an interview with Philippe Lacôte in the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy (A Prologue)’, https://cdn-static-garagemca.gcdn.co/storage/tinymce_asset/80/file-037df681-a181-4a49-9e06-b66068a96f24.pdf (accessed on August 10, 2018). Philippe Lacôte is one of the internationally best-known Ivorian contemporary filmmakers.
2 Kung fu films were produced mostly in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the US (Hollywood), but for the majority of African audiences they are ‘Chinese films’, and as such their reception can be interpreted as part of the complex history of intercultural encounter between Africa and China. Also, these films tend to offer a representation of China as a ‘mythical space’, in which real and imagined elements are mixed together; in this sense, African audiences’ confusion about the Chinese identity of kung fu films can be seen as ‘a reflection of martial arts film narration’ (van Staden Citation2017: 47) and of its invention of a mythical, often a-historical China.
3 Côte d’Ivoire became independent in 1960 and during the first few years of independence it became one of the most stable and successful countries in West Africa, mostly thanks to the prosperity of its economy based on the global export of cocoa.
4 The Structural Adjustment Programs are a set of policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank via the conditions attached to the loans provided to several countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America throughout the 1980s, as a consequence of the global economic crisis of the late 1970s. Their impact on African societies and economies has made the object of intense criticism. See Mkandawire and Soludo Citation1999.
5 See McGovern Citation2010; Newell Citation2009, Citation2012a, Citation2012b; Bahi Citation2013; Konaté Citation2002; Schumann Citation2013.
6 Houphouët-Boigny has been the first president of independent Côte d’Ivoire and, despite the existing diverging opinions about his legacy, he is generally considered as the ‘father’ of the Ivorian nation. He remained in power until his death in 1993. The end of his regime has been followed by political and economic instability (with several moments of widespread violence, as in 1999, 2002 and 2010), and by the fight between his three main political successors. Among them, Henri Konan Bédié (president between 1993 and 1999) and Alassane Ouattara (prime minister during the last years of Houphouët-Boigny’s regime, and president of the country since 2011) are historically connected to Houphouët-Boigny’s regime, while Laurent Gbagbo (president between 2000 and 2010) has been the main figure of the opposition to Houphouët-Boigny since the 1970s.
7 In an interview Alain Tailly provided a list of the most significant theatre halls in Abidjan’s popular neighbourhoods in the 1970s and 1980s: the cinemas Lux, Roxy, Liberté, Egalité, Al Akhbar, and Vogue in Adjamé; the Rio, Plaza, El Mansour, Entente, and Vox in Treichville; the Etoile, Amakébou, La Paix, and Ciné Cool in Abobo; the Kabadougou and Saguidiba in Yopougon. These theatres had an average capacity of 700 seats and entry tickets could be bought for as little as 50–200 CFA (Alain Tailly, pers. comm., October 25, 2015).
8 As Leslie Stern underscores, it was Enter the Dragon (Clause, 1973), ‘a co-production between Warner Bros and Golden Harvest, that launched kung fu into a larger international arena. Between 1971 and 1973 it was estimated that about 300 kung fu films were produced primarily for the international market, some of which were never released in Hong Kong, and the overseas market grew from over twenty countries in the early 1970s to over eighty within a few years’ (Citation2009: 195).
9 African American rap and Hip Hop artists and bands, who regularly refer to kung fu films and Asian martial arts in their songs and performances (such as the Wu Tang Clan, the Migos or Kendrick Lamar), are very popular in Abidjan and their names popped up in several conversation with the younger generation of youth audiences encountered during this research.
10 During the tenure of Henri Konan Bédié as president, Côte d’Ivoire descended into a period of intense political and social turmoil, focused around the conflicts introduced by Bédié’s use of the very controversial term of ivoirité (Ivorianness) – a concept coined by the regime to control access to power and resources in the country, on an ethnic basis. Ethnic tensions protracted themselves throughout the early 2000s, defining the political debate in the country. See Dozon Citation2000; Banégas Citation2006; Cutolo Citation2010.
11 The term Beté indicates a group of languages spoken in central-western Côte d’Ivoire, belonging to the larger group of Kru languages, spoken more widely in the region.
12 The term Mande indicates a group of languages spoken by a large population (30 to 40 million) spread across several West African countries, including Côte d’Ivoire.
13 Dyula is one of the languages that composes the Mande language group mentioned above.
14 The Ziguéhis were organized in groups, loosely connected to specific areas of the city. Some of the best know groups, across the different generations of youngsters that joined the movement between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, were the Maples, the Black Power and the Black Tiger in Treichville, the Mafia, the Farem, the Boston, the Texas and the Sicile in Marcory, and the New Black and the Ninja in Abobo. The names of the groups were largely drawn from film and music references, including Hollywood movies, African American music, and kung fu films.
15 Several people I talked to, described these aggressors as foreigners or rural migrants, recently arrived to the capital, and lacking the physical and moral stature of the Ziguéhis (as demonstrated by their use of knives and guns during the fights).
16 The population of Côte d’Ivoire include almost 60 different ethnic groups, generally subdivided in four major groups: the Mande (which include the already mentioned Dyula), the Krou (which include the already mentioned Beté), the Akan and the Gour.
17 These quotes are a rough transcription of the audio recordings of the discussion that followed the screening of the documentary film Les enfants d’Hophouet (Polo, 2016) at the Goethe Institute of Abidjan, on December 10, 2015. I thank Henrike Grohs and the staff of the Goethe Institute at the time for granting access to the records.
18 It is possible to watch an example of this dance in a video of John Pololo uploaded on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_AToNjNqa0 (accessed on October 30th 2020).
19 The multiparty system was introduced in Côte d’Ivoire by the Houphouët -Boigny’s regime in 1990.
20 An early example of the fictional rehabilitation of the Ziguéhi movement is Eliane de Latour’s film Bronx-Barbès (2000). More recently, as a result of the process of rediscovery of the collective memories connected to this phenomenon a number of short videos and public events about the Ziguéhis have been produced. The most notable among them are the event ‘Ziguehi Series: Une réflexion sur la rôle des Ziguéhis dans la culture urbain d’Abidjan’, organized by the Goethe Institute of Abidjan, in December 2015, and the participation of the Ziguéhi and film director Kipré Jean Omer aka Sahin Polo to the TEDx Abidjan Salon ‘#L’envolée des Lucioles’, held in Abidjan on September 10, 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-awWbedQRqQ).
21 From Kipré Jean Omer aka Sahin Polo’s talk at the TEDx Abidjan Salon ‘#L’envolée des Lucioles’, held in Abidjan on September 10, 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-awWbedQRqQ).