0 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:
STORY OF THE DRAGON IS KUNG FU MANIA!Sunday, March 14, 2004
This is a GREAT movie. Yeah it's old and the picture is full of lines and everything but so what? I don't really care. This is better than RUSH HOUR. Jackie Chan is no match for Bruce Lee. Everyone knows that. Bruce Lee fans will enjoy this movie. I know I did.
1 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Give it a chance, people!Thursday, January 15, 2004
I agree 100 percent with DARKGENIUS!
I think people are too hard on Bruce Li and his movies.
I've been collecting Kung Fu movies since the 80's.
(I even paid $80 several years ago for an Encylopedia of Kung Fu movies. Yes, encyclopedia's for this genre do exist!!)
"Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu" is one of my all-time top
ten favorites!
One of the main reasons I love this film so much is that
the dialouge is so bad, IT'S GOOD! It's classic 70's!
One example, is when the "San Francisco Kid"(white guy)first comes in with the chinese guy(who always played a "traitor" in several Bruce Lee films), says, "Ha, ha, ha! Don't worry. Ha, ha. I'll make them sorry they stared this! Ha, ha, ha."
They made him sound like "Butthead"(from Beavis & Butthead!)
It's ...classic. There's nothing else like this genre!
Lastly, I would also like to point out that the fight scenes
are excellent(none of the ... wire-work that's rampant now-a-days)! And the story is not half bad either.
4 out of 5 people found the following review helpful:
One of Bruce Li's most impressive filmsFriday, October 24, 2003
I love this movie, but my praise will have to wait until I make sure a few important facts are established for those out there unfamiliar with Bruceploitation films. First and foremost, Bruce Lee does not appear in this picture, nor does it have the first thing to do with the real Bruce Lee; the star of the film is Ho Chung Tao (aka Li Shao Lung), better known as Bruce Li. I wasn't that impressed with Li in the first couple of films I saw, but I have now come to understand why he is regarded by and large as the best of the Bruce Lee clones (and I might point out he never really embraced the concept of being renamed after his idol). It is unfair to even compare him to Bruce Lee because Li is a pretty darn good martial arts star in his own right. With this movie, he has won me over completely. Another important fact about this film concerns the title: these Bruceploitation films of the mid- to late-70s are notorious for having different titles. This 1976 film is probably best known as Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu, although you may very well see it called Bruce Lee's Secret or Story of the Dragon; additional but less common titles include Bruce Li's Jeet Kune Do, A Dragon Story, and He's a Legend, He's a Hero. You really have to be careful when buying Bruceploitation films such as this because each movie bears multiple titles.
As for the movie itself, the plot is a very familiar one. Li plays "Bob" Lee, a young Chinese man working in San Francisco; he and his friend are bullied by a trio of thugs, and Bob's decision to teach the guys a little respect for the Chinese lands him and his buddy out of work. For some reason, the scraggly American guys Bob put a licking on exercise some control over Chinatown, making it very difficult for our hero to find a new job. When he does get a job working on the docks, the roughnecks show up along with some of their friends to beat everybody there up. Bob finally has to do his thing again, after which his coworkers convince him to open his own school and teach them kung fu. If you've seen The Chinese Connection (or just about any other martial arts film), you know this means trouble with the schools already in existence (all of which are, of course, rife with bad guys). Well, as you can well imagine, the conflict escalates. Two things make this particular film a little different, though. For one, Bob is defeated at one point by what I assume was supposed to be some type of Japanese karate expert, forcing him to rethink his strategy and thereby come up with his own personalized form of kung fu. This provides a window in which a tiny bit of the essence of kung fu is explained to the audience. Second, in the final conflict, Bob has to deal with an unusual weapon, which makes the predictable climax a little more interesting.
A good many Bruceploitation fans don't seem to care for Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu, but I loved it. As I said, the plot is pretty similar to that of many a martial arts film, but this story works for me, particularly with the emphasis Bob places on disproving the idea that the Chinese are cowards; everyone who gets in his way is made to respect the Chinese. Some who know more about kung fu than I do (and I basically know nothing about it) aren't that impressed with the fight scenes featured in the movie, but I thought they were outstanding. Bruce Li impressed me more here than in any other of his movies I have seen so far. The action is fast and furious, particularly the one fight between Bob and the Japanese assassin sent to kill him. The final battle scenes were especially good, as Bob had to single-handedly go through several heavy layers of bad guys in order to reach the man he was really after.
Formulaic it may be, but Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu is one of my favorite Bruceploitation films, and Bruce Li impressed the heck out of me with his fighting skills in this one. It can be hard for a fan of the real Bruce Lee to embrace the string of Bruceploitation films that were churned out in the years after his death, and many a Lee fan will not watch any of them. As long as they do nothing to tarnish the image of Lee, however, I can't get enough of them, and Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu is one of the best ones out there.
STORY OF THE DRAGONTuesday, October 21, 2003
Classic kung fu movie! Bruce Lee stars in this action-packed cheesy 1970's kung fu movie featuring hilarious dubbing and exciting kung fu. Based on a true story, Bruce comes to San Francisco and and starts a kung fu school. He quickly makes enemies from other schools and after escaping death, Bruce realises that his traditional kung fu moves are not that effective against American street fighting so he creates his own style, Jee Kune Do and combats his enemies in spectacular battles. Bruce plays Bob. Or at least I think it's Bob. He is refered to as Bruce once. I reccomend Story of the Dragon if you like great action movies.