If you’ve been following our blog for some time you may remember us doing a short analysis of a Bruceploitation phenomena, explosion of Bruce Leelookalikes trying to fill the void left by the death of a real thing, trend that kept rolling and mutating into weird and unexpected direction. But now we finally have some updates on perhaps the biggest research that has been done on the subject.
Michael Worth (Acapulco Heat) beside being an actor and a director is also an author of Brucesploitation Bible and co-host of the Clone Cast– (so he must be recognized as one of the foremost experts on the subject ) has been promising us a documentary feature on the phenomena for at least 6 years and it seems the time is finallynow.
Long- gestating Enter The Clones of Bruce Lee will have it’s premiere at 2023 edition of the Tribeca Filmn Festiva (on June 10th with follow up screenings on the 11th and 17th) as a part of their “Escape from Tribeca” section promoting genre movies. And I must say I’m impressed.
“Get ready to play a game of death … and another … and another. The wild documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce dives into the Bruce Lee exploitation craze.”
So be prepared for some Bruce Le, Bruce Li, Bruce Liang and even some Dragon Lee action too!
“Enter the Clones of Bruce is a feature length documentary that explores the Bruce Lee exploitation craze, otherwise known as Bruceploitation.”
Directed by David Gregory, Enter the Clones of Bruce is Produced by David Gregory, Carl Daft, Frank Djeng, Vivian Wong, Michael Worth. It’s a Severin Films release.
According to the Ultimate BOLO YEUNG page the long- awaiteddocumentaryChinese Hercules- The Bolo Yeung Story will be finished in time for the Enter The Dragon50th anniversary on July, 2023!
After a long delay caused by COVID we are overjoyed to finally get confirmation that the documentary is back on track and on it’s way. You can check the page here for more updates as they come in.
In the other Bolo related newsJean-ClaudeVan Damme is preparing for his big Martial Arts movie swan songWhat’s My Name? and if the sources are to believed he is supposed to re-enact some of the biggest fights from his career like the ones with Bolo, Qissi and Lundgren (Bloodsport, Kickboxer and Universal Soldier).
Will this be enough to entice Mr. Yeung from his retirement for one last dance? I don’t know but I sure hope so. After all they say third time is the charm, and we already had them go at it in Bloodsport and Double Impact before. That would be a really great way to cap off both of their careers.
Unfortunately the comicbook community lost one of all- time greats recently- Neal Adams, legendary artist on everything from Batman (where he co- created Ra’s al Ghul & Man-Bat) to X-Men, famous for his dynamism and photo- realism as well as his fight for artist’s rights (most notably for Superman creator’s Siegel &Shuster).
But there’s a part of his career that’s not spoken about that often and that is his prolific movie poster work in the 70s. There’s been a number of times that after finding an obscure B-movie I thought to myself- that looks like a Neal Adams cover. And sure it was just that.
Through his Continuity Studio he did some of the best poster of the Kung Fu craze era (and also great cover for the Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine) and honestly- sometimes those posters were more impressive than the movies themselves! That’s definitely true for the Bruceploitation one. Beside Martial Arts movies he also did a number of Horror and SF posters that are almost as good.
So here’s our little list of best Neal Adams movie posters with a little bit of trivia thrown in:
05: BLACK DRAGON’S REVENGE (1975)
Released right at the beginning of a Bruceploitation craze Black Dragon’s Revenge aka Death of Bruce Lee(1975) features three rivals factions fighting for a secret manual left over by Bruce Lee ( secret manuals were all the rage back in those days).
Movie features the legendary American Martial Artist “Black Dragon” himself- Ron Van Clief as a detective trying to solve Lee’s murder, Philip Ko (The Boxer’s Omen, The Invincible Armour) and another name we’ll talk about very shortly “La Pantera” Charles Bonet. Hell, it even has a young Yuen Qiu (landlady from Kung Fu Hustle)!
Poster nicely captures both the explosive action and the exotic Hong Kong setting.
04: ENTER THREE DRAGONS (1978)
Enter Three Dragons aka The Dragon on Fire(1978) is a Bruceploitation as it gets. It has not only Godfrey Ho staple Bruce Lai in it- but it has a distinction of being a debut of our favorite Bruce Lee- clone– Dragon Lee who plays his brother. Confusingly Lai is called Dragon Hong in this and Dragon Lee is called Bruce Hong so try to keep that straight.
Even thou the poster is monochromatic it still has a powerful triangular composition that works like a charm!
03:DEATH PROMISE (1977)
Death Promise (1977) was an American response to Hong Kong Martial Art flicks of the day with an interesting “evil landlords” gentrification theme. Despite a lot of silly story beats and the obvious low budget– it’s lead, Charles Bonet is great and charismatic action hero and he definitely should have done more!
Adams captures all the crazy energy and I especially like the combination of blood splattered lettering and a rat wandering in front of it. Great detail!
02: PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE
Phantom Of The Paradise (1974) is one of the more eclectic movies Adams illustrated. Combination of horror, comedy and rock music written and directed by young De Palma and scored by Paul Williams.
Poster also has a distinction of being a collaboration of two comicbook legends being drawn by Adams and painted by underground comic legend Richard Corben (DEN,Mutant World)!
01: WESTWORLD
Without a doubt the most legendary movie Adams worked on (althoughGrizzly has it’s fans too) is Yul Brynner’s Westworld (1973). There’s actually two different versions of this poster but this is my favorite- it shows you all you need to know about the movie.
Bonafide SF classic about amusement park full of cowboy robots (what could go wrong with that) was written/ directed by writer Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park, Twister). It spawned the sequel movie Futureworld (1976) , sequel series Beyond Westworld(1980) and even contemporary HBOreboot series (2016) that’s still ongoing.
We at WM have spoken about the fascinating phenomena of Bruceploitation (李小龙开采)cinema before but it seems that after almost 50years of Bruce Lee ripoffs (and tributes) the trend still have some steam left in it.
Writer/ Director Romeo Candido (Second Jen, Another Life) has a new project called The Dragon Returns.
And as you might presume the plot of the movie involves Bruce Lee who after staging his own death (for some reason) has to save his friend and fellow Martial Artist Chuck Norris from imprisonment. With a plot like that I can’t wait to see what The Dragon Returns looks like! Also, I wonder what Chuck thinks about all of this.
I hope the movie poster looks exactly like this one!
The film will even be one of the 14 project in competition for financial rewards during the 5th International Film Festival in Macao (IFFAM) this December. I know we’ll be rooting for The Dragon Returns for sure.
We’ll update you about this project as more information comes out and if you want to learn more about Bruceploitation you can get a quick history lesson right here.
Ring of Fury, Singapore’s answer to Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury (and Big Boss) originally filmed in 1973 is finally available and can be viewed in full on Youtube!
Movie had a tumultuous release history. It was supposed to be a first real Singapore Martial Art flick but it wasn’t meant to be. It all started when the first time directors Tony Yeow and James Sebastian hired a local Kyokushin Karate trainer Peter Chung who repeatedly refused their offers citing that he doesn’t know anything about acting.
Still they persevered and in the end Chung relented. Armed with a shoestring budget and cast of unknowns they crafted a story of noodle-seller,Fei Pao, who seeks revenge on a group of thugs who murdered his mother (over unpaid protection money).
“We had a fight at the granite quarry in Bukit Timah and there wasn’t even a mattress on the ground. They said, ‘If you fall, you fall.’ And sometimes you might fall on small stones and it was painful.” said the star of the movie Peter Chung .
After things imploded, the unpaid star of the movie Peter Chong kept the only known copy of the film, 35mm print in his fridge wrapped in newspapers for decades hoping for it to be eventually released into the public! Ban was eventually lifted in 1994 (after losing some scenes of sex and violence) but movie would wait another 20+ years to be restored and released but it was finally screened at the Asian Restored Classics of 2017.
And now, even better- it’s finally available worldwide in full on the Asian Film Archive official Youtube channel (updated w/Archive.org). As a giant fan of the genre and especially the early 70s Martial Arts boom I know I will enjoy it, so let’s all give a watch to the Singapour’s fists Kung Fumovie:
Probably the most imposing bad guy in the history of Martial Arts cinema Yang Sze aka Bolo Yeung is finally getting his own documentary and we must say- it’s long overdue. From learning Kung Fu with different masters as a child to his competitive Bodybuilding years (he would go on hold a Mr. Hong Kong title for a whole decade) his story fits the “stranger than fiction” category easily. Not to mention the fact that he freakin’ swam from China to Hong Kong to escape Communism!!! Or the fact that he met Bruce Lee while filming WinstonCigarettescommercial (you just got to love the ’70s).
He stared (mostly as a villain) in over 100 movies raging from Shaw Brothers (The Heroic Ones, The Deadly Duo) to Golden Harvest (Enter The Dragon) to Bruceploitation (Clones of Bruce Lee, Dragon Lee Fights Again) to Van Damme films (Bloodsport, Double Impact) and even Jalal Merhi films (Tiger Claws 1 and 2, TC 2000). He even showed that he could be an awesome good guy/ wise mentor character in films such as Shootfighter1 and 2 (featuring Karate Kid/ Cobra Kai’s Billy Zabka).
Movie is being directed by Aziz Cem and Pavel Nyziak (who Bolo actually collaborated with on his final movie, the Kazakhstani produced The Whole World at Our Feet aka Diamond Cartel) and features exclusive interviews with the likes of Bob Wall, Richard Norton, Cynthia Rothrock, Matthias Hues, Coreena Everson, Cung Le and many, many others.
Since we last touched upon this subject (talking about the Ugandan Kung Fu project Bruce U) couple more Lee related projects popped up:
Danny Chan (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle) is for example starring as Chen Zhen (made famous by Lee in Fist of Fury) in a team- up action comedyKung Fu League as well as reprising his role as young Lee in Donnie Yen’s Ip Man 4.
More significantly The Warrior TV show (for the longest time a stuff of legends) based on the original Bruce Lee’s concept (and executive produced by his daughter Shannon Lee) spearheaded by Justin Lin (Fast and the Furious) is set to premiere on Cinemax in early 2019.
Now, as we all know by know when there’s an official project some unofficial ones can be expected too.
ENTER THE AFGHANI BRUCE LEE!
Abbas Alizada (Abb Li for short) gained prominence as a Bruce Lee imitator on facebook, his photos and videos going viral in 2014. His first attempt of film-making was an Azerbaijanicomedy picture released in 2016 called Brat Lee (Brother Li). Well, now it’s seems his first “major” English- speaking role is finally in the cards.
Armani Burj Khalifa held a press conference for the movie titled HE IS BACK (sounds more like a Schwarzeneggersploitation picture, does it?). Film is to be directed by Chitah Yajnesh Shetty with Abb Li joined by a female lead Alina Lliumzhinov. Movie is being produced by Showtime Cinema & SBM Pvt Ltd in association with Ninjoor Pictures so we know more than a few people are banking on this being a hit. Also it’s a pretty international affair seeing that talent spans America,Thailand, India and China.
If I was being a skeptic I would say that there’s far too many inexperienced people involved in this movie but there are some positives too. Director Chitah Yajnesh Shetty is a legit JKDinstructor under the late Grand Master Richard Bustillo so he knows his martial arts. Kaecha Kampakdee of Ong- Bak 2 and Asian Connection fame is in charge of action choreography and cinematographer is Ross Clarkson (Undisputed III, Ninja II: Shadow of a Tear) so that could easily translate to some solidly shot Martial Arts scenes. Filming begins in January 2019, so we’ll keep you informed how things go.
One thing is for sure- it’s 2018 and Bruceploitation is alive and well.
In the late 70’s, the early days of post- Bruce Lee boom, we were bombarded with all kinds of Kung Fu flicks-from the Shaw Brothers to the to the rise of young Jackie Chan‘s to the budding American Martial Arts flicks but it’s a movie called Death Promise that really sticks out like a sour thumb. I mean to this day I haven’t encountered another a Kung Fu movie like that- a film about the common folk’s rise against their evil landlords. Combining Asian Martial Arts with the harsh social reality of the life in the projects and Charles Bronson or should I say Charles Bonet style complete overkill revenge movie.
In New York City, slum lords are resorting to using nefarious methods to evict tenants or have them leave so they can tear the buildings down for more commercial properties. One such victim is Charley Roman, a karate expert whose electricity and water has been shut off courtesy of the slum lords.
Unfortunately it doesn’t show that the effects of the late-70s New York
financial crisis also include Karate and Kicking Ass!
Obviously someone is dead set on evicting poor souls out of their homes but at this point we have no idea who. Their next play is to set buildings on fire. To that end we have some bad archival footage of fire. They tried to set fire to his building too, even thou the few card-boards they have wouldn’t make much difference. But Bonnet won’t give them any chance, So he jumps in and immediately starts kicking ass. Unfortunately the bearded punk didn’t seem ready for this and he started going into some kind of spasms as soon as Charles Bonet touched him. I wasn’t sure should I laugh out loud of just feel sorry for the guy.
Well, at least the bearded guy survived…
After Bonet dispatches of the arsonist gangs we finally see the evil cabal that’s behind all of this aka The Landlords and for and I must say for an evil cabal they are very diverse group of people from very different backgrounds, everything from the elderly high court judge to the nasty ghetto pimp. I have to wonder just how all these people got together in the first place?
Anyway , Charley’s dad ends up mysteriously dead on the kitchen floor. He seemingly met his demise without any resistance, uncharacteristic for him. All the while Bonet and his black friend (with an awesome name Speedy Leacock) were having fun at the bar.But who could have defeated an old boxer like him so effortlessly? I mean we saw him dispose off some young punks with no trouble earlier in the film. The plot thickens. Bonet finds his father’s body and completely loses his mind– coupled with a ridiculous scream effect!
Now, despite the wishes of his late father his teacher Shibata show him the letter (revealing their enemies) right away, without a second thought. Unfortunately according to Shibata his skills are not up to par, so before any revenging is done- so he sends him away to China (or maybe upstate New York ) to his master Tony Liu(The Way of the Dragon, Fist of Fury) to sharpen up his skills. There’s just one thing, Liu is absolutely not an old man (hell, he is 65 now- 40 years later and that’s still not that old) and grey in his hair is painfully obviously a paint.
Also if you pay any attention the fact that his master- a Japanese Karate practitioner Shibata was taught by a Chinese Kung Fu Man who’s style is definitely not Karate doesn’t seem to bother anyone. But it’s an old American picture, maybe we should just be happy there’s no yellowface involved.
Returning to his home after months of heavy duty training he is right away reunited with Leacock. And with his help he is making a list of people he needs to kill. As we all know you can’t really achieve anything if you don’t make a list fist. They start of by pouring the poison down the string Ninja style, ending a life on elderly Judge in his sleep without anybody noticing a thing before it’s too late. Their next kill is a bit more public, Bonet dispatches of the evil businessmen by punching him to death trough a car window after a lengthy chase! They also get reinforcement, Liu’s other student shows up to help out- looking like a Bruce Lee’s mentally challenged third cousin.
Now, when they get to the pimp, Leacock insist on doing he deed himself. You can get complete picture of situation in those slums and it’s neighborhood when you hear his 12 year old brother had gone OD (must be some relative of Drew Barrymore too).
He seems as shocked by her disproportionately large nipples as the rest of us.
The remaining Landlord, an old man with a cane sends his men on the three of them and tries to run away but gest a shuriken into his hand, then one in his back. Bonet follows him to the roof where he gets cut by a katana in front of his eyes !? It turns out, Shibata is a Yakuza!He was behind the landlords all this time! So, wait, why did he then send his student to sharpen his martial arts prowess so he can more easily defeat him? Must be some Honor code we just can’t understand?
Aaaayyyy blonde dude is so fuckin’ awesome!
The remaining Landlord, old man with a cane got a shuriken into his hand, then his back. Bonet follows him to the roof where he gets cut by a katana in front of his eyes !? It turns out, Shibata is a Yakuza! He was behind the landlords all this time! So, wait, why did he then send his student to sharpen his martial arts prowess so he can more easily defeat him? Must be some Honor code we just can’t understand?
They go into a prolonged fight with Shibata before killing him with his own sword– irony, right? Also he then throws his lifeless body aka something that is obviously not a human being down the building. Also that something seems very, very heavy because someone in great shape like him can barely lift it.
Maybe even a greatest fall in history of the cinema!
Verdict: Unfortunately Death Promise’s Charles Bonnet never got to be the next best thing in Martial Arts movies, even though he did get to act again in his friend’s Roy Van Cleefe’s (another Martial Art legend) Black Dragon Revenge and Way of Black Dragon. And for all the cheesiness of Death Promise I consider that to be shame ’cause the dude was a real life badass and genuinely excellent Martial Artist and different than many tournament fighters back in the day he actually looked good on the camera. At least we finally did get a Latino American Martial Art super- star with Marko Zaror (Savage Dog, Reedemeer, Machete Kills, Undisputed 3) but we had to wait for 2000’s for that.
And now one more time: Death Promise theme!
Trivia: Interestingly in the old days when movies were made on the dime- posters were often masterpieces! Death Promise poster for example was done by the legendary comicbook artist Neil Adams (Batman, Deadman, X-Men). Now in the days of multi- million dollars franchises, we often only get bad Photohop photo- manipulation.
We talked before at length about the crazyand wild world of Bruceploitation cinema. You can even read our tribute here. Now, unexpectedly, genre is making a slight resurgence with Michael Worth (himself a Martial Art actor/ director)’s excellent efforts shining the light on Brucesploitation with a book (Bruceploitation Bible), documentary and even a weekly podcast. This once forgotten genre is finally getting the love it deserves!
Let the real Bruce Lee please stand up!
Now, to make things even more interesting we have news of Ugandan‘s premiere director Nabwana I.G.G.(Who Killed Captain Alex? and The Return of Unkle Benon) making his own spin on the Bruce Lee formula in an upcoming film staring African Kung Fu sensation Mansul Kiiza as the titular Bruce U. This will mark the first time Wakaliwood (Wakaliga, Uganda) Ramon production films in the People’s Republic of China– including the legendary Shaolin Temple and even The Great Wall of China!
Premiere of the movie was even attended by the Chinese ambassador in Uganda- Chu Maoming and Star Times CEO Andy Wang so I wouldn’t be surprised with further China/ Uganda cinematic collaborations!
Ugandan boy and Kung Fu fan Kiwa accidentally gets a chance to learn Kung Fu at China’s Shaolin Temple!
Raymond Chow‘s film company Golden Harvest hit it big in the early 70’s when they discovered a certain up and coming star called Lei Siu Long aka Bruce Lee . Their mega-fruitful collaboration hit it’s stride with Lee and Chow even forming their own partnership/ production house Concord Prouction Inc. (each owning 50%) Way of the Dragon was a product of that collaboration, as was Warner Bros. cooperation- Enter The Dragon. Unfortunately Lee died before the world premiere of Enter The Dragon and Golden Harvest lost it’s biggest star way too soon.
Bruce, Raymond & Wang Yu
Of course Golden Harvest would find continued success in decades to come, skyrocketing the career of Jackie Chan in the 80’s and making popular TMNT films (together with New Line Cinema). But in that strange place between Lee and Chan they continued to produce films to different varies of success.
One of those was Lo Wei‘s Slaughter In San Francisco, there to fulfill Chuck Norris‘s contract, he signed on two films when he made Way of the Dragon. Now, another famous name that had a (three) picture deal was non other than one- off Bond from Australia, George Lazenby!
Now, on Bruce’s insistence Lazenby was signed on a three picture deal. First of the films was to be Shrine of Eternal Bliss aka Stoner, the movie he was ready to make with Lee and Japanese Karatemovie sensation Sonny Chiba but Lee died and Chiba dropped out soon afterword. Warner Bros. co- production money was also gone and with it’s budget severely cut Lazenby was promoted to a star.
Lazenby as the Detective Stoner, investigating a new and deadly drug! I’m still not sure if that’s the best or a worst name for a character.
With all the controversy surrounding it movie was still a minor success in both Hong Kong and Europe and the Golden Harvest collaboration continued. Next up was a unique co-production too, joint effort between Chow’s Golden Harvest and The Movie Company from Lazenby‘s native country of Australia (even thou he was being demoted to a villain) and the film was called: Man from Hong Kong aka Dragon Flies! That was right in the middle of both Hong Kong movie boom and Australian New Wave of films so as expected the result was seriously bizarre mix of Hong Kong action and Aussiecraziness and has to be seen to be believed. Still we will try to help you out and pinpoint some of the most entertaining bits (and there’s a lot of those).
Movie starts with an Aussie journalist visiting Hong Kong– by a glider of all things! I’m just going to assume she came from Australia to Hong Kong by a glider ’cause that’s just perfect. She almost gets arrested by Jimmy Wang Yu ( One-Armed Swordsman, The Chinese Boxer) but he decides to show her what’s so special about special units anyway- in bed!
In the meantime very suspicious (and suspiciously scarred) Sammo Hung (Enter The Dragon, My Lucky Stars, Ip Man2 ) carrying a briefcase in the bus. Hardened Aussie Detectives Gross goes after him and after a bit of a chase at the Ayers Rock (and a bit of a brawl too) manages to arrest him.
Shortly after Wang Yuarrives in Australia to continue with the (you guessed it) Sammo Hung case. That means he will interrogate good ol’ Sammo– and by interrogating I mean beating him into submission. I guess Chinese people don’t believe in human rights. And just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for Sammo a mysterious assassins shots him (to prevent his from testifying I guess).
Wang Yu starts chasing him and after a crazy pursuit they end up in the middle of a Chinese restaurant of all places!!!
We finally see the evil boss of crime and it’s (of course) non other that George Lazenbywith a porno mustache to boot! He went from a Bond to a Bond villain, and it suits him well in fact. Yu contacts the journalist from the beginning of the movie– turns out the glider was borrowed from her boyfriends, she’s a bit of a slut that way. Anyway, she takes him to the high class party where he meets Lazenby face to face.
Did he just accuse Wong Yu that he’s yellow? That’s maybe taking it to far…
And surprisingly he finds information that the main center of the villains is the local Martial Arts Center. So he breaks into in, climbing the but it turns out the center was not so empty as he thought. Massive showdown ensues in Martial Arts Center and continues climbing on another level against a seemingly endless number of attackers.
Of course- despite all his mastery he gets severely beaten and cut , and half dead barely manages to jump onto the first car shows up in front of the center. The Chinese lady co- driver hilariously proclaims “He is a good man, we must help him” even though she never saw him before.
They do the only logical thing and that’s drag him to somebody who can patch him up– it turns out to be the girl’s father- veterinarian! Man, I’m starting to understand why Yu hated everyone and everything on the set.
She really thinks this is cute
While naively returning from the picnic( and the obligatory picnic sex) Lazenby‘s gang attacks their car and his lady dies in a horrible explosion and he vows to get his revenge. Man, that’s a bit excessive, he didn’t even know her two days go!
So he does the only logical thing, borrows the glider from the journalist and uses it to break into his office by climbing down the pipes. He finds the office almost straight away and even though Lazenby is ready he is not ready for the rage of the dragon. He manages to light him on fire and still keeps beating him , man- Wang Yu has no mercy at all! And then he slips a bomb into his mouth!
Just look at that!
The detectives wait for him outside and although grumpy at first laugh with him at the explosion of the whole building floor and all the death that entails! Man, you get this sort of stuff only in the 70’s!
Trivia: The Man from Hong Kong was one of the subjects of highly entertaining documentary on Aussie cinematography: Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! It’s especially interesting seeing some behind the scenes like the power-strugle between the director Brian Trenchard-Smith and main actor Wang Yu who mostly wanted to direct everything himself, and his open disdain for white actresses he filmed love scenes with was definitely a bit unexpected.
Add to that and extremely hyped Quentin Tarantino who obviously enjoyed the movie immensely when he was about 10 years old.
Another fun bit of trivia, the other cop (one with an unruly set of hair) is actually Hugh Keays-Byrne later famous for his performance in Mad Max franchise (as a Toecutter in Mad Max and later as a Immortan Joe in Fury Road).
Also, it’s important to note Umbrella Entertainment did a fine job of re- releasing the movie on BluRay in 2016, remastering it to 1080P HD, so if you ever want to check out the movie in best possible quality, you can order it here.
Worsemovies 