Good Guys Wear Black

Good Guys Wear Black is a 1978 American martial arts action film starring Chuck Norris and directed by Ted Post. This was the second film to feature Norris as the star, following Breaker! Breaker! (1977). However, this is the one that Norris considers his "breakthrough". Following years of kung fu film imports from Hong Kong action cinema during the 1970s, most notably Bruce Lee films followed by Bruceploitation flicks, Good Guys Wear Black launched Chuck Norris as the first successful homegrown American martial arts star, having previously been best known for his film debut as a villain in Bruce Lee's Way of the Dragon (1972). Good Guys Wear Black distinguished itself from earlier martial arts films with its distinctly American setting, characters, themes, and politics, a formula which Norris continued with the similarly successful Force of One (1979). The film featured a first screen appearance by Norris' brother Aaron Norris and the final appearance of Lloyd Haynes. Plot In 1973, United States Senator Conrad Morgan (James Franciscus), the chief delegate diplomat in negotiating the terms of the end of the Vietnam War, made a deal in Paris, France with Kuong Yen; a North Vietnamese negotiator. The deal called for Yen to release certain key CIA POWs in exchange for Morgan setting up a death-trap for an elite group of CIA assassins, known as the Black Tigers. The treaty was signed and the Black Tigers were sent into the Vietnam jungle to their unwitting demise, having incorrectly been told that they were on a mission to liberate American POWs. However, the negotiators failed to account for one thing: the commandos' team leader was Major John T. Booker (Chuck Norris). Despite all odds, Booker survives, as do the four men wise enough to have remained in his general vicinity. Five years after returning from Vietnam, Booker, now living in Los Angeles, is working as a political science professor at UCLA, and with a hobby of race-car driving. At UCLA, Booker lectures on how the war should not have happened, and that the U.S. should not have been involved. Sitting in on one of his lectures is a bright female reporter named Margaret (Anne Archer) who has some very specific questions about the botched rescue mission. To their shock, someone is slowly killing all the surviving members of the special forces team.