Well you get about a half hour of the real Bruce Lee in this except it's footage from 3 old 1950s Hong Kong dramas from when Bruce was a little kid. You also get to see Bruce's dad in one part and while that's historically important it's also pretty dull footage. Then after this is over we see a couple of kung fu scenes with Bruce Li briefly and then finally it ends up with a Dragon Lee feature which is pretty crappy. So really there's way more fake Bruce Lee than real but maybe if the fake stuff was a bit more exciting I could overlook this audience exploitation but that isn't the case here. AKA THE YOUNG BRUCE LEE and BRUCE LEE: THE LITTLE DRAGON
Working my way through a DVD set of Brucesploitation that I acquired about 10 years ago has been quite the choir!
I guess Bruce Li is known as Bruce Lei in Spanish??
The first Bruce Lee movie after he did all the T.V. stuff in America and the movie that got it all started for Lee's big breakout into superstar/legendary status. While I dig Lee's next film THE CHINESE CONNECTION a tad more this one is still almost the perfect example of the classic kung fu flick. It's got a simple enough plot about drug-dealing scumbags that exploit their workers at an ice factory getting their comeuppance thanks to some masterful chopsockey skills, a bit of blood here and there(though apparently the scene involving a rotating saw taking a body apart was originally a lot gorier but it was cut due to it not being very realistic looking) and they were even nice enough to throw some naked boobs in for added thrills. It's all elevated thanks to Mr. Lee's charisma and athleticism. Even a scene where a guy gets punched through a wall leaving a cartoonish outline of his body doesn't detract from the overall badassness of our heroic star.
To make things as confusing as possible this was originally titled THE BIG BOSS in Hong Kong, FIST OF FURY was the title given to Lee's next movie, THE CHINESE CONNECTION, and THE CHINESE CONNECTION is the title that this movie is known as in Australia.
So Bruce Lee(actually Bruce Li since the real Lee died 3 years earlier) goes around and gets into a bunch of fights to prove how awesome his jeet kune do style of kung fu is. While the movie poster assures us this is "ALL TRUE" I have my doubts about that. This sorta biopic does present us with a super-heroic version of Lee and hits on his accomplishments but it's all pretty goofy and is presented better in that Hollywoodized DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY movie. As much as it pains me to admit that Hollywood has ever done anything better than Hong Kong they at least did get the facts quite a bit more accurate. This cheapy cash-in is OK for a stupid Sunday afternoon watch but is ultimately pretty forgettable in the sea of similar Brucesploitation films from this era. AKA THE DRAGON LIVES(which is also the alias of a different Bruce Lee biopic called HE'S A LEGEND, HE'S A HERO to confuse things even more)
This one has got to be one of the strangest examples of Bruce Lee-sploitation ever. If you described the plot of this movie to your average lame-brain civilian they would probably assume you were on some heavy psychedelics.
OK, so, intermingling reality with fantasy, Bruce Lee(or in this case Bruce Leong doing his best Bruce Lee impression) dies and is sent to this underworld where he becomes friends with Popeye, The Sailor Man and The One-Armed Swordsman, from the kung-fu flick THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN. There's a gang of bad guys consisting of Zatoichi, The Blind Swordsman, Clint Eastwood and James Bond(why all these heroic characters are now evil here I have no idea, but they are). This gang is led by a couple of fellows named The Exorcist, who has an unexplained French accent, and The Godfather. I guess in Hong Kong popular movie titles make for good names. They also pal around with Emanuelle from all those soft-core classics except here she has an English accent for no reason. If this isn't enough idiotic insanity Dracula shows up along with that Cobra Kai gang in the skeletons suits(who I think are supposed to be zombies?) and a bunch of mummies. Everyone does kung fu(usually very badly!) and it all ends with Bruce Lee floating away like a balloon.
You might think this is a movie for children, and I would too, except there's sex scenes and very ample boobs and almost complete nakedness on display. The whole thing reminded me of on of those crazy Turkish superhero films where copyright is no issue and even Spider-Man himself might be a murdering bastard. I was fortunate enough to see an actual film print of this last night in a theater and it surely made me question my sanity. I was also a little sad that I will probably never find another Brucesploitation film that will top this in the bat-shit wacky department. AKA DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU
The title sequence alone might be better than anything Hollywood has ever attempted:
While there are a zillion kung fu movies that deal with a student getting revenge for the murder of their teacher this one is up there with the best. The reason for this, of course, is that it stars, the all-time king of kung fu, Bruce Lee. Originally titled FIST OF FURY back in Hong Kong where it was made, that title was used here in the U.S. for Bruce's first film and this became THE CHINESE CONNECTION. Set sometime before World War II you get Japanese evil doers(like in so many movies like this), an evil Russian strongman(played by Lee's real life bodyguard at the time), a stripper and lots of racism against Chinese folks. Lee is great as a proud man who faces up to his oppressors using nunchakus and his crazy fast fists and flying feet. There's a couple of iconic moments in this film, one being where Lee smashes a "NO DOGS OR CHINESE ALLOWED" sign and the other being the ending(this film isn't afraid to end on what is not exactly a joyous ending that's true to the character in the movie). This really helped cement the legend of Bruce everywhere and make kung fu a huge fad through the 1970's in America. It's a shame he only made four amazing movies before he died and he's yet to really be replaced. I imagine the world may have been a different place if Lee lived or he may have just went on to become a boring mainstream star. Who knows, but I think it would have at least been interesting to see. AKA THE IRON HAND
