GOLDEN NEEDLES (1974)

 Bruce Lee died in 1973 but thanks to his popularizing the martial arts genre Hollywood kept on trying to capitalize on his success. This film is even directed by Robert Clouse who gave us ENTER THE DRAGON with Lee. Unfortunately, even with all the big star power this has going for it, it's a pretty disappointing overall effort. Joe Don Baker, while convincing as an ass-kicking redneck in WALKING TALL the previous year, is not much of a kung fu master. Jim Kelly totally is a legitimate martial artist but his role is sadly pretty small. Maybe if they had switched roles this would have been more exciting. The other 2 big names, Burgess Meredith and Ann Sothern, also aren't all that interesting here. Basically it's a chase movie concerning a golden statue containing the titular needles that give men magical sexual powers or something like that. If only they had viagra back then they vould have saved a bunch of time. AKA THE CHASE FOR THE GOLDEN NEEDLES

TATTOO CONNECTION (1978)

          

                      "I've been known to be called the black Six Million Dollar Man!"

 As a follow up to one of my favorite blaxploitation flicks, BLACK BELT JONES, under it's alternate title of BLACK BELT JONES 2: THE TATTOO CONNECTION, this is pretty awful. Even not judged as a sequel it's still not all that good. You get a lot of extra-silly dubbing with lines like "Damn your ass" etc. and before Jim Kelly shows up I actually thought I might be watching the wrong movie since it seems like a super low-budget kung-fu flick with a Chinese guy as the hero. Finally though Mr. Kelly does show up along with god's gift to martial-arts cinema, Mr. Bolo Yeung. Of course here, as always, he plays the villain. Strangely that fat dude who always plays the bully-role in just about every kung fu movie he's ever been in, Cheng Fu Hung, here gets to be a good guy for once! Also some acid-rock is thrown in which is awesome but it's also disappointing that there's no awesome funk tunes like in part 1 and finally a dummy gets thrown off a cruise-ship to end it all. Stick with the original for more inspiring chopsockey goodness.



Known in France as HONG KONG CONNECTION:

 

HOT POTATO (1976)

I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be a sequel to the way better BLACK BELT JONES(although there is a different movie titled BLACK BELT JONES 2 also) since Jim Kelly is called Jones here. Unfortunately this movie ups the comedic content and ridiculousness a little too high and also gets rid of the blaxploitation elements that made BBJ so memorable. Complete with stupid cartoony sound effects and carnival music while people are kung-fuing it up, a silly fat guy, elephant kung-fu, bad guys in what look like ninja's crossed with court jester's outfits and really lame jokes it's hard to recommend this to anyone unless you're into dumb action flicks or you're a real hardcore Jim Kelly fanatic and even then you should just stick with ENTER THE DRAGON, THREE THE HARD WAY or the original Jones solo adventure since Kelly doesn't really feel like the star here anyway.

THREE THE HARD WAY (1974)

 Similar to the classic Universal monster movies of years past the idea to team-up your biggest box-office draws was used in a few blaxploitation flicks.  This one gives us Mr. BLACK BELT JONES himself Jim Kelly, Fred "The Hammer" Williamson and Jim Brown.  While it's cool to see all three in one flick I always feel like Brown is the least interesting and unfortunately they make him the main dude that you follow.  But nevertheless you get a wacky plot about a group of neo-nazis trying to get rid of the whole black population in American by putting a chemical in drinking water that somehow only kills blacks, a crazy scene with three hot biker chicks who love torturing men and lots of cars blowing up in mid-air.  One big downside to this one is that towards the end section it all plays out like too much of a typical Hollywood action movie that you've seen a million times.  Still worth checking out even if just for the scene of Jim Kelly single-handedly taking out a whole police squadron using just his kung-fu badness with seemingly no legal repercussions.

BLACK BELT JONES (1974)

With this film ya get an amazing funky soundtrack, urban kung fu action, Scatman Crothers kung fu, Italian Mafiosa stereotypical bad guys also doing kung fu, hippies getting their guitars smashed and god-damned balloon salesmen getting their comeuppance, plus general all around blaxploitation ridiculousness and more wrapped up in one sweet 1970's package. How can you go wrong with this slice of ass whippin', throw you in a garbage truck style of raw cinema? Well you really can't. If you wanna see what kinda films inspired stuff like BLACK DYNAMITE this might be a good place to start. One of the high points of black action films as far as I'm concerned.