BRUCE AND THE SHAOLIN BRONZEMEN
- Year: 1982
- AKA: King Boxer 2
- Starring: Bruce Le, Lita Vasquez, Chang Lee, Cheung Lik, Ruby Anna, Cloyd Robinson, Nona Herrera, Vivian Velasco and, in a very special role, Ernie Ortega
- Directed by: Joseph Kong
From the "creative" force behind the classic CLONES OF BRUCE LEE comes BRUCE AND THE SHAOLIN BRONZEMEN, a film that can hardly be considered Bruce Le's shining moment. While filled with fights and all other brands of weirdness, the film is definitely on the bottom end of the Bruceploitation scale.
Bruce Le stars as Wong Lung, a young man who heads to the city to find his Uncle Santos. In
his possession, Wong Lung has 1/2 of a coin that when paired with the half held by Santos, it
reveals the secret burial place of an equally secret treasure. Of course, time honored tradition
states that if you have access to a buried treasure then someone out there wants to kill you to
get a hold of it. Here the villain comes in the female form of Miss Sophie, an alluring crime
queen who will stop at nothing to get the treasure. She unleashes a wide variety of adversaries
to take out Wong Lung, ranging from a big fat chick to her own Bronzemen to a gang of midgets. Yes, a gang of midgets. Of course, Wong Lung is so refined in his martial arts techniques that he defeats them all. Naturally, Miss Sophie enacts Plan B (kidnap Bruce's cousin; hey, at least it wasn't the same old girlfriend routine). But Bruce springs her easily with the help of Mia, one of Miss Sophie's sympathetic employees who actually holds the other half of the coin. Yeah, I didn't get it either. Anyway, the trio find the treasure buried at a race horse track but the box is empty. Miss Sophie is pissed, so she sends her midgets to kill Wong & co. They partially succeed by killing Bruce's cousin and Mia. Seems Wong was too busy fighting a hired assassin to protect them. Of course, seeing his only female friends dead really pisses him off, so Wong Lung heads to the baddies HQ to get revenge. The treasure is never mentioned again. The End.
Damn, you know for a movie with some many fights and stuff, it sure did suck. You would think
that a film featuring such diverse elements as midgets, Bronzemen and hot women would rule, but it never really rises above anything but boring. Lensed in the Philippines, this film looks like it cost all of a $1.37 to make. I mean this thing is cheap! The Bronzemen look like the exact same ones from Joseph Kong's earlier CLONES OF BRUCE LEE. He probably kept them in storage and just dusted them off for this one. If anything, there is one good fight scene towards the end between Bruce Le and Cheung Lik. Cheung Lik is a hired killer who pops up from time to time telling Bruce that they will have to fight soon. When that moment comes, it is pretty decent until the end of their fight. Bruce just says, "Our fighting technique is the same. There is no need to fight." Cheung Lik nods in agreement and the fight is over. What? You know you ain't gonna get paid if you don't finish the job, right?
The plot is beyond comprehension, but I think I figured it out. It seems I cared more about the
treasure than the folks in the film. I mean, we never find out what it is! All of these people
must be fighting for something. The dubbing on the film is incredibly strange as well. Bruce Le
is dubbed by some Spanish guy, I kid you not! He ends up sounding like a drunk Antonio Banderas. I guess it is a nice change of pace from those stuffy British guys. Still, that is not enough to make this film enjoyable.
NOTE: Several sources list this film as being an alternate title for TREASURE OF BRUCE LE. It is
not the same film.
Reviewed by William.
SUPPLEMENT: Enter the Game of the Shaolin Bronzemen a fansite fanPAGE of sorts for BRUCE AND THE SHAOLIN BRONZEMEN.
