Fists of Bruce Lee

Plot: Late 70's Hong Kong: ailing gang boss Master Lo (Chan Wai-Lau) wants to beef up the security system of his mansion after an attempted break-in. The current security system consists of some precariously hung garden tools (such as a "magnificent flying rake" and a sledgehammer), so he wisely decides to upgrade to an electronic system. On receiving a mysterious coded telegram, enter detective Bruce Li; who takes the job undercover as an electronics expert. On his arrival in Hong Kong, Bruce is jumped by a welcoming committee (led by Ngai Ping-Ngo) but manages to liase with his connection at a hotel bar. On arrival at the mansion he meets the gang: effete toady Po Chee Chang, hellcat daughter Lam Mei-Ling, and not-in-the-film-nearly-long-enough bodyguard Lo Lieh. While Bruce messes around with the alarm installation and flirts with Mei-Ling, the plot gets murkier: two rival gangs are after a list of names in Master Lo's possession, which somehow add up to a street value of £3 billion (which in those days was a lot of money). After a series of double-double-double crosses which will leave your head spinning, and which includes a great enemies being taken down one at a time sequence, it all boils down to Bruce vs Lo Lieh in a fight to the death. Well, almost, but the full ending is too complicated to convey in written language.


Production: directed by Hu Chung Tao for Lucky Star, this is low budget but with a good cast of known faces (Lee Keung, Hau Pak Wai, Wong Chi-Sang, Wong Fei-Lung to name a few) and some clear effort to make it a bit more colourful. The credits sequence features Bruce in a GoD tracksuit sparring blindfold to The Average White Band's 'Picking up the pieces'. We later get snippets of 'Live and Let Die', wah-funk, and rather cheekily, 'Enter the Dragon'. Locations are average but with some funky interiors: check out the hexagonal bar billiards table Lo Lieh is playing on, even he looks confused. There is a bit of novelty with a night fight at a funfair, and the usual array of shocking 70's fashions: some of the shirt collars could be used as emergency runways. There is great use of European baddies, especially the blonde Robert Kerver (the Russian kicker from Snuff Bottle Connection) who is dubbed with a Chinese accent and dresses like Napoleon Dynamite - Geek Fu! Some dialogue highlights: "I don't like sunlight, and I don't like you", "My father was a Shaolin expert, I learned Kung Fu in the womb". And the "Hotel Fortuna" is hilariously mispronounced as the "Hotel For Tuna", which is nice given the plummet in world fish stocks...

But is it Bruce? For the most part of the film Bruce Li does not try to copy Bruce Lee's signature tics and moves; rather he is pretty laid back in his acting. For the fights: the earlier stuff is simple punch and block with some signature Bruce Lee facial expressions , with the night fight at the playground reminding me of the alley scene in Way of the Dragon with the colourful array of multi-ethnic villains.
There is even a fight that could almost be classed as shapes!
It is only in the final fights of the last twenty minutes that he starts to truly 'Bruceploit': sudden head flicks with mean stares, yelps with every strike, windmilling overhand punches and brutal sidekicks. We even get a slow-motion leap and stamp on a prone opponent, and a cut cheek (but no tasting of the blood). The fight against Napoleon Dynamite is good, with blondie resorting to hidden weaponry; and this all leads up to the showdown with Lo Lieh. Lo is suprememly badass here, with a steel hand and another trick up his sleeves.



Overall: 3 out of 5, the continual plot twists will drive you nuts, but the fights keep it going until the last half hour which is well worth a look. Version watched was a UK PAL fullscreen, 96 mins, dubbed; a widescreen version is (as always) worth it to get the most out of the fights.

Challenge of the Tiger

Plot: CIA playboys/agents Bruce and Richard Harrison (the thinking man's white ninja) track down a Mafia gang - apparently consisting of three employees - who have cadged a drug that will render the world infertile (a sort of anti-viagra). After brief match of slow-motion topless tennis, a punch-up with a bull at the bullfights, and a visit to the token martial arts school island where the processing plant for the drug is 'hidden', our heroes beat up all the gangsters and get the drug formula back. Astonishingly, there is a third group involved - Chinese agents Hwang Jang Lee and Bolo Yeung - which immediately means all fanboys must see this.

Dialogue: Jaw-dropping. Harrison is no 'new man', to say the least: in a patio scene, he and Bruce are served tea by a female agent: Bruce: "Smells nice". Richard: "So does she...". Just one lowpoint of scripting, they come so thick and fast it's hard to keep up. "I'll have a Coke" "Sorry we're out of Coke". (pause) "OK, I'll have a beer". One of the oddest parts of the film doesn't involve dialogue: the writer crowbars in an expo at the Macua yacht club, where real-life celebs Jack Klugman (Quincy) and Jane Seymour are swanning around. Bruce actually lines up to shake Quincy's hand!!

Similarity to real Bruce: must try harder. You could easily distinguish between the two due to (a) Le's Johnny Ramone barnet, and (b) the utter facial mismatch. He does a few token Brucie bounce steps between moves, but he may as well be copying Bruce Forsyth. Bruce Le has arguably the best-spelled rip off of Bruce Lee's surname; after all it's missing one out of the two e's. However he loses a point for not rhyming with 'Lee', like 'Bruce Li'.

Fights: Generally pretty disappointing, the 'one v many' stuff is poorly staged and has neither the variety nor technical excellence of, say, Way of the Dragon; nor the imaginative use of the environment that Jackie Chan excels at. Two absurd fights stand out: Bruce's fight againt a bull at the bullfights, where instead of simply making good his escape over the barrier when he has the chance he wrestles the 'bull's' (i.e. model's) horns and then unleashes some sidekicks on our bovine friend. Later Richard Harrison, who has been badly beaten offscreen (probably due to budget cuts) turns up at martial-arts-school-processing-plant-island punch drunk, and proceeds to beat up black-belts with thumps and shin-kicks.

There are, however, three good fights: a sadly short Hwang vs Bolo match, which should have been a highlight but didn't explore "superkicker vs muscle guy". Bruce's final three fights are all one-on-one's and get progressively better until his finale against Hwang, who, as ever is the man to watch. This climaxes in the worst on screen car crash explosion ever, with an impact which would only raise mild glances in a town-centre car park.

Title relevance to plot:Tenuous. There's undoubtedly a Challenge, but it is neither set not undertaken by a Tiger.

Overall: 2 kicks out of 5, some good camp fun and decent fights if you get that far.

Bruceploitation movie of the week: Iron Dragon Strikes Back

You can't beat a slice of Brucesploitation, namely those films so 'inspired' by Bruce Lee that they feature stars with a passing resemblance, and as many of Lee's mannerisms, as possible. The most blatant have stars with homonomic names, the most well known being Bruce Le, Bruce Long, Bruce Ly, and the star of this brutal little actioner, Bruce Li (who scores points for the closest homonym).

Sub-genres: Modern day (well, 1979), Brucesploitation

Plot: A group of chums on a diving trip encounter some bars of gold on the sea bed near an island. These transpire to be from Vietnam (you can tell because it says 'Vietnam' on them in English). The chums, possibly influenced by 'A simple plan' (despite it not being written for another 25 years) decide to wait and see if pirates come back for it; and if not they will spend it. Of course, the greediest of the group simply returns later and blags it all for himself, and his chums find themselves to be hunted men once the real gangsters realise the gold has gone.

There are some great plot curveballs: at one point you think an old Kung Fu film has been spliced in, but it turns out to be a working movie set. And one of the fights appears to be a random mugging with no plot impact!

Title relevance to plot: Zero. Who Iron Dragon is, or whether he is striking back at all, is never revealed.

Ludicrous dialogue: Superb, with many sit-down scenes where the cast provide a Q & A for anyone who missed something (such as family members who have ambled in and decided to watch the film with you). Favourite part: the TV news announcement at the start reveals that the pirates have been smuggling gold using the codename 'auntie' to refer to the gold. Despite the fact that the code has been rumbled, we see various shady phone calls take place with 'Where's auntie'? being the main question. Very secret squirrel!

Fights: High-energy, brutal and 'everything including the kitchen sink': as well as some well-executed combos and weapons work there are desparate scraps where each and every blunt object to hand is used. Bruce concentrates on kicks; some good pressing kicks to block followed by a swift turning kick/reverse turning kick combo is a typical combo. At points the fights look quite traditional ('courtesy kung fu') but a good pace is kep throughout. The other members of the gang rely on as many dirty tricks as they can muster against the barrage of lead pipes, machetes' butterfly knives etc.. And there's a really nasty downward kick to despatch the main baddies head at the end!

Overall: 3.5 kicks out of 5, the plot never drags for too long and the high-energy rate of the action makes up for the weak 'suspense' that the plot tries to invoke.