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Fists of Fury
Hong Kong, 1971
[Wei Lo]
Bruce Lee, James Tien, Yin-Chieh Han, Maria Yi, Tony Liu
Action / Thriller
10th November
2006
Watched mostly for it�s relevance as an early Bruce Lee vehicle, Fists of Fury is one of those martial arts movies which has aged very badly and is now little more than a big dollop of unintentional humour and some so-so violence. Other than Lee the only fighter worth mentioning is big boss Yin-Chieh Han, the rest being merely bruisers and knifemen. While some of the bigger battles are reasonably well-choreographed there is very little here to hold the attention for anyone other than a Bruce Lee completist, and he has much finer work on show elsewhere.

The plot has hilarity stamped right through it like a stick of rock. Lee�s character Cheng Chao-an is brought to the big city by his uncle to live with his 412 cousins in a one room shack, and to work with them during the day at an - I kid you not - ice factory. Things start off poorly for Cheng and go downhill from there. Some of his cousins are co-opted into the local drug ring, which is using the ice factory as cover, but when they refuse they are brutally murdered and chopped into bits. The rest of the family um and ah over their disappearance for a bit and casually stroll one by one down to the owners house to find out what might have happened. They are offed as well until the rest of the ice factory workers finally get an inkling that they didn�t just go to the next town over and rebel. When the strikebreakers arrive all hell breaks loose and the workers get a pasting, till Bruce Lee�s necklace is damaged and he goes nuts.

Oh yes, I forgot to say. Cheng had taken a vow of non-violence (though he breaks it repeatedly throughout the early part of the movie) which is symbolized by his effeminate necklace. Once it is smashed he is immediately free to seek vengeance on the men who have beaten and killed most of the people he knows, and he starts to kick a lot of people in the face. After murdering about 15 people and severely injuring another 50 or so, he finally makes it to the corrupt crime boss' lavish house, avenging his murdered brethren (I bet his uncle is regretting that non-violence pact he insisted on) and rescuing his maid in the process.

Almost everything in this movie screams laziness, from the appalling 19th century-grade cinema stock to the ridiculous dialogue which appears to have been made up on the spot. The ice factory workers seem to have taken a leaf out of their American car-worker compatriots book and get miffed at the slightest provocation. Any excuse not to work, from a raised voice to an unjustified promotion, has them downing tools, and in that regard the Thatcherite strikebreakers often come off as the more sympathetic characters. I cheered when his cousins were killed, usually by some serious knifing, and Lee�s inability to show the correct emotion made it all the sweeter. This is one for drinking and fast-forwarding.
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