Fists of Bruce Lee
(aka The Fists of Bruce Lee)
1979; directed by Bruce Li (credited as Ho Chung-Tao)

If you think the Bruceploitation flick Fists of Bruce Lee might be a fun DVD to pop in and rip on while having a couple of cold ones, you'd better make another trip to the liquor store to restock your beer supply. At least for this reviewer, even after a few delicious (and strong) Delerium Tremens, sitting through this trash was an exercise in tedium that was one of the most pointless cinematic journeys ever undertaken in Hong Kong Film Net's almost thirteen years of existence.

Directed by and starring Bruce Li (aka Ho Chung-Tao), Fists of Bruce Lee, like many Bruceploitation efforts, has jack-all to do with the Little Dragon besides the title and the fact that Li looks somewhat like Lee in dimly-lit long shots. The story has Li playing some sort of cop or secret agent or spy or whatever who is tasked with infiltrating a crime lord's lair. Sounds a little like Enter the Dragon, doesn't it? Well, of course it does, and that's no coincidence. But do you dear readers really need me to tell you that this so-called movie isn't even fit to hold Bruce Lee's jockstrap?

There's a reason Fists of Bruce Lee is widely available as part of cheap DVD sets or by its' pathetic lonesome self at the bottom of the clearance bin at the local dollar store. The story is bollocks, the fighting is sluggish at best and almost insulting to the viewer at its' worst, and the base movie-making elements have all the style and panache of a bad student film project. Even the people who did the dubbing here sounded totally bored and like they would have rather been doing voiceover work for a crappy Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Really, the only points of interest here are how blatant the soundtrack steals from other sources (most notably the James Bond films), the fact that one of the villains creepily looks like Pee-Wee Herman with a bad blonde wig on, and wondering why the hell Lo Lieh decided to appear in this picture in the first place as the evil henchman. Did the cost of ramen noodles and fish balls shoot through the roof in the late 1970's?

Anyway, those of you out there who are familiar with this site's take on most movies should now that I'm not a film snob in any way. I can enjoy a good slice of cinematic cheese as well as digging on some of the artsy-fartsy stuff. But one thing I really can't forgive with movies is if they're boring. And, man oh manischewitz, watching the proverbial paint drying would be tremendously more exciting than what's thrown on the screen here. As far as Bruceploitation goes, this movie isn't quite as bad as the ultra-low tier stuff like Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave, but it's close enough for me to be fully justified in saying there's really no fathomable or logical reason one should actually devote ninety minutes of your life to watching Fists of Bruce Lee.

RATING: 2.5