The movie starts off in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. Some thugs are making trouble and Bob's(Bruce) had enough, so he straightens them out. And then it goes nowhere. The whole plot is basically Bob against a rival kung fu school owned by Mr. Grace. Bob beats up some students and gets fired for fighting. The students follow Bob and his friend around preventing the two from finding work. Bob beats up the guys again. Bob and his friend finally get a job, but the thugs show up with a teacher. Carter Wong beats them all up, but later of course they return with another teacher. This time Bob takes care of them. Bob opens his own kung fu school, but Carter Wong doesn't like it because he's teaching the gwailos too. The fight, but come away friends. Mr. Grace hires the Oriental Killer to take care of Bob. Bob loses the fights, but thanks to a flashback he learns from his mistakes. Bob beats the Oriental Killer in a rematch. In the final showdown Bob takes on Mr. Grace's kung fu school and finally Mr. Grace himself.
This has all the elements of a cheesy kung fu flick. It's got bad kung fu, gwailos, bad dubbing, 70's fashions, hilarious dialogue, and even the annoying little kid. The kung fu isn't that exciting, if you're not used to it you may fall asleep. Hwang Jang Lee is by far the most talented fighter, but doesn't get to do much but look funny in his wig. There are lots of wigs running around, mostly Chinese stuntmen "disguised" as Westerners in the fight scenes. One of the bad kung fu instructors is a Chinese guy painted black wearing a lame matted wig. The guy's face paint lightens and darkens depending on the scene. The annoying kid is well annoying, but is somewhat humorous when he's beating guys up with a pair of nunchuks. There were lots of cheesy funny dialogue and here's a few samples.
"He'll kick your stupid heads in!"
"You're just talking crap."
And the absolutely classic line, "You're god damned useless!"
Bruce Li plays Bob, well I think his name is Bob. A few times he's called Bob, but once he's referred to as Bruce. The last two fights, Bob/Bruce really pours on the cheese as starts imitating the real Bruce and doing the Bruce Lee yells and noises. On a whole this isn't but the best Bruce Li movie, nor is it the worst. It a cheesy 70's kung fu movie, that's somewhat fun to watch.
Believe it or not, but I got this movie on DVD and it's shamelessly promoted as a Bruce Lee film starring Bruce Lee! The DVD is from Telefilms International and is supposed to widescreen, but it's not. Also the disc doesn't even have a main menu, but still have 9 chapters. Even the cover is cheesy looking with pictures of Bruce Lee on the cover and back. It even has a Dolby Digital logo on the back, yeah right! The picture quality starts out pretty bad, but then gets better. That's doesn't mean it looked good though. It looks like the DVD was sourced from someone's old VHS copy. At the start there is static lines running around like the tracking needs to be adjusted. That goes away and the movie is watchable. I don't know if they'll be a remastered THX version anytime, so if you wanna watch this the DVD is a cheap way to go.
Another name for this movie is Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu and for the die hard fans there is a entire web page dedicated to this movie. Check out Chris' Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu page. It's got everything you want and don't want such as character info, funny quotes, a detailed viewing guide, and cast and crew information.