Bruce Le is mad! He is soooooo mad! And if you are any part Japanese, then chances are he is probably mad at you! Because it is the Japanese's fault he is so scowling mad. Yes, it is FIST OF FURY lite in this Bruce Le epic where the Japanese are not only challenging the local Chinese kung fu school, but also smuggling rifles into the country and being all around mean to the Chinese. It is enough to make you snarl just like Le.
It has taken me close to a year to finish this film. To be honest, the first hour or so is really boring. I would watch five minutes or so every month and then turn it off. It is all pretty standard stuff: good Chinese kung fu school, evil Japanese bastards, etc. Little did I know there was actually some cool stuff in this movie! From roughly 1 hour 8 minutes in until around 1 hour 25 minutes in, this film rocks! This brief 17-minute section starts with Le (angry as usual) showing up at the Japanese headquarters. Seems the Japanese killed his teacher and slaughtered a whole bunch of Le's fellow kung fu comrades hence his irrepressible anger. Le whips everyone's ass (including Bolo) before finding the Japanese commander on his boat. Le then proceeds to whoop his ass as well. Seriously, this 17-minute sequence is great. Le is doing a dead-on Bruce Lee impersonation and the fights are full of energy. Unfortunately, there is approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes of movie that bookends this part.
Seriously, I think that if all Bruce Le movies were a half hour, they would rule. My advice with this one: watch the aforementioned 17-minute fragment and then pretend the rest of the film doesn't exist.
Reviewed by William.