| Plot: A martial arts movie star refuses to join the local mob and they make it tough for him and his dumb-as-a-post girlfriend. A confusing plot, shitty editing, and blah fight sequences ensue. Review: I've never been much of a Bruce Lee fan to be honest. Enter the Dragon, which is his best movie, is a film I can only handle in small doses. Nothing against him, it just isn't "my bag." However, once I saw this piece of shit, even I, a person who's not a fan wanted to put a hurting on the people behind this movie for Bruce, so you can imagine how pissed off hardcore fans would be after seeing this movie. You'd think that by this harsh opening I hated it from the very beginning, but in fact I held out hope until the "climax" (or lack thereof) of the movie. I had hope from the slick opening credit sequence and Colleen Camp's ample bosoms looking me right in the eyes, but it all went so horribly wrong. Where do I begin? The story starts off with a pasted scene of Bruce fighting Chuck Norris from another movie. After that, it's revealed that they were just practicing for a movie. What the hell? This is only the tip of the iceberg, as there are many more moments in this film that take Bruce's original concept and tosses it out the window. The original (and much better) story was that Bruce is recruited into the Korean mob by having his family held hostage. They then want Bruce to fight his way through a palace to get a treasure. While it wasn't very complex, it was the man's vision. The movie crew have completely and utterly butchered his idea. The plot itself is just plain dumb. Mobsters want to recruit a movie star for...um, what? I don't know, 'cause they never fucking told us! In fact, nothing in the movie makes sense. Our "hero" is injured and needs plastic surgery to get a brand new face so people won't recognize him, but instead he ends up looking just like he did before the accident...except he has a beard. Wow, a beard, now no one will be able to recognize him! He sneaks around the gangster's headquarters various times, beats up a few of the guards, and leaves. Rinse and repeat. Nothing makes any damn sense, and this has to be one of the most simplistic plots ever. There's no motive behind any of the actions, just a schlock-fest to loosely tie the movie to the footage with Bruce Lee in it. Speaking of footage, the editing is terrible. In the middle of a fight, all the Bruce footage we see is him shifting his eyes or him halfway across the room. You know what else they do to make us believe some unmemorable actor is Bruce? Why we stick some fucking gigantic '70s sunglasses on him, that's how! The guy wears those sunglasses throughout the entire movie, even during fights. I guess he thinks they're his lucky pair or something. There is some of the original footage from Game of Death in here with Bruce himself, but even that footage is edited. That is going too far. That footage was the man's last and it had to be at least twenty minutes at the most, and they still cut it. The voices aren't the same, characters are cut out of the scene, and it doesn't even fucking correspond with the time of day. Fake Bruce (or as we'll call him "Pseudo-Bruce") is going to confront the boss of the gang at a restaurant and it's night time, and the original footage is spliced in and it's fucking daytime and it's in a pagoda. Do they think the audience is that stupid not to notice something so obvious? Wanna know how they explain Pseudo-Bruce getting into the yellow jumpsuit worn by Bruce in the original footage? The gang after him has a group of biker lackeys that (surprise) use a yellow jumpsuit as a uniform. Then Pseudo-Bruce takes one of their bikes and uniforms. He only took the uniform to tie together the footage. Such sloppiness, even for the late '70s. By now you're no doubt saying, "Jim, it's a martial arts movie...who cares if nothing makes sense and it sucks?" Well, it doesn't even pass that aspect. I'll admit, Pseudo-Bruce tries to fight like the real Bruce, but it just doesn't work. He doesn't sound or really fight like him. The fight scenes are dull and is it just me or is he doing the exact same kick over and over again? Also the fight sequences are far apart and in short supply. Yawn. And what do we have to fill the time between each fight with, you ask? Why Pseudo-Bruce yakking with someone about absolutely nothing or a pointless plot device. Cough. Acting-wise, everyone sucks. No, I don't need to go indepth about it, they just plain suck. Everyone says their lines like they're slowly reading the back of a cereal box. The only real dialogue there is are the conversations between Pseudo-Bruce and Colleen Camp. All the chats are about is him telling her to not get involved. He said don't get involved, does he really need to tell you for a fifth time, you bimbo? The only thing that kept me interested in Colleen Camp's character were her occasional showings of cleavage. Then again, if I wanted that, I could just watch her in Clue, which is a superior film. The gangsters suck as well. The only gangsters that don't have "please decapitate me as soon as possible" written all over them were the guy with a blade in his cane (who puts up a pitiful fight) and Carl Miller: a professional fighter shown in the movie for no reason whatsoever. I normally don't talk about shitty movies this much, but in this case I'll make an exception. There is nothing good I can say about this movie other than the fact I'll never have to see it again. If there was such a thing as cinematic grave-robbing, this would be it. I really do hope there's an afterlife, that way Bruce Lee can send a supernatural fist in the makers of this movie's face in for even considering making this farce. Fans of Bruce shouldn't bother with this movie, nor any martial arts fan in general. To bottom line this movie, you only need to read this quote, "You lose, Carl Miller!" 'Nuff said. |
| Rating:1/2 IT'S SHIT! |
| Review by Jim |
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