THE CHINESE CONNECTION PART II (1977)

  As we all know Bruce Lee's FIST OF FURY was re-titled THE CHINESE CONNECTION in America which this is a direct sequel to. We get Bruce Li as Lee's brother here taking up the fight against those terribly abusive imperial scumbag Japanese who killed his brother. To make it more confusing it's also known as FIST OF FURY II even though there had already been a movie with Jackie Chan called NEW FIST OF FURY made a year before. We can ignore that one though since this movie does exactly that. As far as Brucesploitation flicks go this is one of the better made ones and from what I recall is better than the official Jackie Chan one. 

 There was a FIST OF FURY III made in 1979 which also starred Bruce Li and is a direct sequel to this.

                                                   Rated X in England!:

THE THREE AVENGERS (1979)

  This kung fu flick is sort of a Brucespolitation movie since it features Bruce Li. He shares the spotlight with Chin Yuet-Sang and an American dude named John(Michael Winston, who was only in this one film) to make up the titular three. The plot deals with Li's Auntie trying to keep her house from being sold and Li and his kung fu school coming to help her with some gangsters. It's pretty typical stuff but has some added nostalgic value for anyone who used to watch this back in the 80s on the local kung fu theater program since it was shown a bunch back then, most newer viewers will probably not be as forgiving with the goofy-ass humour and nonsensical dubbing. There is a ridiculous disco scene reminding us this was shot right after SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER came out in Hong Kong that is pretty amusing. AKA THE LAMA AVENGER and DRAGON ON FIRE

THE REAL BRUCE LEE (1973)

 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??

BLIND FIST OF BRUCE (1979)

 This kung-fu flick reminds me of DRUNKEN MASTER(which came out a year earlier) quite a bit. Mostly because it stars the ol' drunken master himself, Simon Yuen, but in this one instead of being a drunk he's just an old blind ass-kicking master. And in place of Jackie Chan we get Bruce Li as his student. It starts out with Li getting the crap beat out of him numerous times which is kind of unusual to see since he so often plays the invincible Bruce Lee character. But don't worry too much because things turn around and everything works out as expected. The main villain sprays acid in people's eyes, causing blindness, which is kinda unique but not used enough and everything else is pretty standard for the genre including some dumb comedy bits with elephant-style-fu etc.





                                                             Ye old lobby card!:

BRUCE LEE: THE MAN, THE MYTH (1976)

 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)

FUTURE HUNTERS (1986)

 OK, so this movie starts out in the future year of 2025 where it's a cheap-ass ROAD WARRIOR rip-off. After about 15 minutes or so of that the hero(Richard Norton) jumps back in time to the current day of 1986. We meet our new replacement heroes(Linda Carol and Robert Patrick(the T-1000 from TERMINATOR 2 in his first movie role)) and some Nazi villains. Then we travel to Hong Kong and meet up with Bruce Li where the film becomes a kung-fu movie for awhile. From there it's off to the Philippines where there's Mongols that look like they rode out of the 13th century, a village of midgets who look they are from the stone age and finally a tribe of Amazon women who like to feed people to their hungry alligator pets.  Directed by crap-meister Cirio H. Santiago this is clearly not the best-made action movie you could watch but I do love his kitchen-sink/running-the-gamut approach to filmmaking on display here and this might be my favorite(and the easiest to stay awake for) of his movies I've viewed so far.

Shown on TV and with presumably edited out boobs as DEADLY QUEST. Here's a promo:

BRUCE LEE'S DEADLY KUNG FU (1976)

 This kung-fu movie set in San Francisco manages to be completely wacky and totally boring all at the same time which I think is quite a feat to pull of. The story involves Bruce Lee-look-a-like, Bruce Li, playing a guy named Bob who attempts to teach some Chinese kung fu but runs afoul of those evil white-people, and also some dirty Asians, who don't like this idea. It's all loosely based on Bruce Lee's real-life story of setting up a school in the U.S. but I doubt the real Bruce spent all his time having martial-arts battles with gangsters in the streets. I mean guns did exist in the 1970's but apparently this film takes place in some alternate dimension where they were never invented. It's all really dumb, there's a little kung-fu boy who uses nunchucks and it all ends in a big orgy of violent chop sockey. Try any of the other hundred Brucesploitation flicks instead. AKA BRUCE LEE'S SECRET, STORY OF THE DRAGON, A DRAGON STORY and HE'S A LEGEND HE'S A HERO

THE IMAGE OF BRUCE LEE (1978)

 The image of Bruce Lee that I have in my head is pretty bad-ass. The image of Bruce Lee in this movie is that he's a cop trying to bust some jewel thieves or something. Bruce Li is our imitation Bruce here but I don't think he's supposed to be playing the real Bruce since no one ever calls him that except for this one time a chick tells him he looks a lot like Bruce Lee. It starts out with Li trying to save a suicidal guy from jumping off a roof while music from the TAXI DRIVER soundtrack plays. Right off the bat he fails. This is some way to introduce your hero. After this Bolo Yeung is introduced as the heavy(credited here as Yang Szu). Bolo, as always, is awesome in this. I'm still trying to find a movie where Bolo plays a Schwarzeneger-esque action hero but I'm really doubting that exists. In this he's a total criminal/crook/scumbag but there is one scene where a group of fellow evil-doers gang up on him and I think we're supposed to root for him here. This might be the closest I will ever get to fulfilling my dream. Most of this movie is pretty dull but the filmmakers were nice enough to throw in a couple of nudie scenes involving a shower and some skinny-dipping. Recommended for Brucesploitation-completists only. 

RETURN OF THE TIGER (1979)

 If you ever wanted to to see the great Paul L. Smith of PIECES and POPEYE fame smack dab in the middle of a Hong Kong kung fu flick this is the movie for you. You also get Bruce Lee-look-a-like Bruce Li starring as the hero who goes up against some warring mafioso gangs, one of which is led by kingpin Mr. Smith. There's some weird gymnastics-fu training scenes to start it all off, a fat guy named Tom who wears a shirt that says TOM on it in big letters lest he forget who he is and every-time the scene shifts to a local nightclub you get a soundtrack consisting of popular 70's tunes of the day including "Play That Funky Music White Boy" and that kind of thing. There's also an epic battle between Bruce Li and Bluto himself which is worth a look for hardcore kung fu addicts that wanna see something pretty goofy.

BRUCE LEE IN NEW GUINEA (1978)

 This starts out with some funky soul music and then Bruce Lee-imitator Bruce Li beats up some bullies.  From there it's off to some kung fu island adventures.  Apparently everyone in New Guinea does snake-style kung fu and is part of a tribe of snakepeople led by a guy who wears the occasional skull mask and has a pit of poisonous snakes right in the middle of his living room.  The great Bolo Yeung is part of our evil gang.   A very racist depiction of a black man shows up about halfway through the movie and has one very memorable line of "I knows dat dey keeps dat snake pearl hidden dere" before falling into the snake pit like a jackass.  There's also a couple of white guys that suck at kung fu to even out the racism scales a bit.  An ape, or a guy in an ape suit if you wanna be technical, helps out the princess of the snake people with his martial arts and acrobatic skills and lots of people get chop-sockied to death.  This ones just wacky enough to separate itself  from some of the more boring kung fu flicks of the past.  
 I wonder what year they stopped making these Bruce Lee rip-off films and if anyone anywhere was ever fooled into thinking the real Bruce would show up in any of them.  AKA BRUCE LI IN NEW GUINEA, LAST FIST OF FURY and BRUCE LEE IN SNAKE ISLAND

In-a-gada-da-vida-baby!:
   

SOUL BROTHERS OF KUNG FU (1977)

Starting out with music from ROCKY is always a good way to start out your kung fu flick. This one stars Bruce Lee impersonator Bruce Li so you already know it's not gonna be the best thing you've ever seen but with a title like SOUL BROTHERS... you do expect a little blaxploitation action mixed in with your chopsockiness. Since this was made in Hong Kong it's certainly no BLACK BELT JONES but there is one black fellow, played by Carl Scott who appeared in a handful of these fu flicks.  Mr. Li saves our hero from getting his ass-kicked and teaches him how to be a bad mother-fucker. The craziest thing is probably how Scott is dubbed. It sorta sounds like a British fellow doing a horrible impersonation of what he thinks a 70's urban inner-city person sounds like so that's pretty damn humorous but will most likely offend any sensitive political types watching this today.  There's some unexpected nudity and even an attempted rape scene during one fight.  The alternate title of this is THE TIGER STRIKES AGAIN which is pretty fucking dull but a little more accurate to the movie since it drags for a bunch of time.  In fact whenever Mr. Scott isn't on screen, which is a large portion of the middle part of the film, it's mostly your average bland Bruce Li flick  There's also two different versions of this, one where our soul brother lives and one where he gets hung and doesn't.

"you cocky little bastard!":