by Stephen Vagg<\/p>\n
The recent death of Chuck Norris has prompted much reminiscing on social media of the action hero\u2019s filmography, and glossing over his political opinions.<\/p>\n
Being an Australian magazine, we thought we would focus on five links that Chuck had with our country.<\/p>\n
Appearing in the Australian film Zombie Plane (2027 hopefully)<\/p>\n
Norris has a small role in this much delayed Aussie action zombie comedy, the production of which has spawned plenty of industry discussion up in Queensland. We haven\u2019t seen the film yet \u2013 based on the teaser below it could be fantastic, or awful, or both, we really have no idea. It\u2019s taking a big swing, though, which is to its credit \u2013 and the movie already has a place in history featuring Chuck Norris\u2019s final film appearance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Acting opposite Alex O\u2019Loughlin in Hawaii Five-0 (2020)<\/p>\n
Norris guest starred in the episode \u201cA \u02bbohe ia e loa\u02bba aku, he ulua kapapa no ka moana\u201d of the popular crime drama starring Australia\u2019s own Alex O\u2019Loughlin. It was a big ep too \u2013 part one of the two-part finale for the whole show. This was Norris\u2019 last television performance before his death \u2013 so technically, Australia ended both his film and television careers. Norris, appropriately, appears in the scene next to a block of wood.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Acting opposite Rod Taylor in Walker Texas Ranger (1998)<\/p>\n
Paramatta High School old boy Rod Taylor popped up in a few episodes of Chuck\u2019s hugely popular television series, playing the alcoholic father of show regular Alex Cahill (Sheree J. Wilson). Rod was cast on the recommendation of writer Nick Corea, who had worked with the veteran Aussie actor on the short lived TV series The Outlaws. The series was inspired by Chuck\u2019s 1983 epic Lone Wolf McQuade, one of two genuinely terrific movies he made, the other being Code of Silence (1985).<\/p>\n
That Aussie journo character in Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985)<\/p>\n
Chuck Norris was considered a joke for much of his career, not without reason, but for a few years there, he genuinely spoke to the culture \u2013 in particular, the late \u201870s and early \u201880s via on screen depiction of Vietnam veterans. During the 1970s, the typical Vietnam vet we saw in movies was psychotic, crippled and\/or suicidal (Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, The Visitors, Taxi Driver, etc); Norris (who lost a brother in the conflict in real life) played Vietnam vets that were brave, well-adjusted and heroic in films such as Good Guys Wear Black (1978) and the Missing in Action trilogy (1984-88). This did mean something to a lot of veterans, and is often forgotten in tales of Norris\u2019s career. Mission in Action 2 isn\u2019t as well-known as Missing in Action (1984), but for us, is the much better movie, concerning Chuck and his fellow POWs stuck in a prison camp for years after the war is officially over. The script is solid, with decent characters, including an Australian journalist Emerson (played by English actor Christoper Cary) who stumbles upon the camp \u2013 Emerson was possibly inspired by real life swashbuckling Aussie journalists from this period such as John Everingham, whose rescue of his Laotian girlfriend was dramatised in the Michael Landon film Comeback.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Fighting Richard Norton in The Octagon (1980)<\/p>\n
The Octagon is one of Norris\u2019 most beloved movies \u2013 its fans included cocaine baron Pablo Escobar, who had a VHS copy of this and The Godfather, discovered when the army raided his compound (when you think about it, what else would Pablo be watching \u2013 Alan Rudolph movies?). It\u2019s a hugely fun film and part of the entertainment includes an early acting appearance from Australia\u2019s own Richard Norton as one of Norris\u2019 antagonists. Norton had previously appeared as a bodyguard in Abba: The Movie (1977) but The Octagon launched his movie career, which also included roles in the Norris film Forced Vengeance (1982) and series Walker Texas Ranger. Norton died in 2025, incidentally, someone who still hasn\u2019t quite received his due in Australia.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
RIP Chuck. You were a joke but also you weren\u2019t and your films and TV shows brought a lot of pleasure to millions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Stephen Vagg The recent death of Chuck Norris has prompted much reminiscing on social media of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-573465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}