Year: 1982

AKA: The Ninja Strikes Back, Bruce Le Fights Back

Starring: Bruce Le, Hwang Jang Lee, Wang Sze (Bolo Yeung), Harold "Oddjob" Sakata, Casanova Wong, Chick Norris

Directed by: Bruce Le and Joseph Kong

Running time: 90 minutes

This movie is rated cool for martial arts mayhem, action packed story, and naked chicks! When the movie is written and co-directed by the guy who gave us The Clones of Bruce Lee you know you are in for a treat. But when the other co-director turns out to be Bruce Le, well damn! Not only is Bruce the star and co-director he is also the martial arts director. How does he do it? Plus the flick is packed with huge big name stars like Hwang Jang Lee, Bolo Yeung, and Harold Sakata aka Oddjob from James Bond fame. Not to mention some woman named Chick Norris, I don't who she played.

With such a complicated plot full of twists and turns and lots of kooky characters, I could write for pages on the story, so I'll give a brief summary. Bruce plays a crook who after serving jail time turns over a new leaf. His old boss kidnaps the ambassador's daughter. Bruce joins forces with the cops to get the girl back. Of course there is more than that, much much more. I'm gonna give you a list of reasons to watch this movie. Or maybe you'll see them as reasons not to watch the movie...

Keith's reason's to watch this movie

• Exotic locations such as Rome, the Coliseum, Paris, Macau, and a porno studio!
• Harold Sakata plays this ninja guy who has a gold hand and wears a bowler. Wrong movie dude! And he even throws the hat. I think he just wore the hat, so he would be recognized as "that guy who throws the hat from that James Bond movie". The funniest part is whenever they show him James Bond music plays in the background. The gold hand is used to kill people who get in his way, but Bruce kung fu chops the hand off in a bloddy mess. Cool.
• Ninjas! In the movie the ninja's wear the classic black outfit and mask and they can disappear and then re-appear. The jungle fight with Bruce vs the Ninja is kinda cool. They keep disappearing and re-appearing and Bruce keeps whupping on them upon "re-entry".
• The strong compelling story!
• They need info from the this guy who is in a room about to git in on with his chick. Outside he had two bodyguards who look like Wilford Brimley and the Skipper from Gilligan's Island. This guy must not have too much cash if that's the best protection he can afford.
• Drama and lots of it. Bruce's former friend Ron(Hwang Jang Lee) turns against him. Bruce's girlfriend catches a bullet in the head that was meant for Bruce. Bruce returns to Macau and visits his father to learn that he's dead and his sister has been kidnapped.
• This guy who helped out Bruce gets his head chopped off by a ninja. I guess he won't be returning to headquarters...he won't be the head of a major corporation...that's not a way to get a head in life...okay I'll give it a rest.
• Funky fresh soundtrack that includes the number one smash hit Disco Magic and stuff ripped off from James Bond and I think Enter the Dragon.
• The end battle of Bruce vs Ron. If you have seen "Romeo Must Die" you know of the scene where it shows a x-ray type shot of bones breaking as Jet delivers the blows. Well they use the same idea here, but it doesn't have quite the same effect. Bruce catches Ron's leg as he kick and snaps it. Over top of that we see some cartoony looking leg bones that break and Bruce snaps it. Then is a x-ray type shot of Ron's ribs breaking as Bruce delivers a blow. The last shot is an interior shot of Ron's heart beating. Then Bruce punches him up, Ron dies or something.
• Lots of topless chicks!
• Chick Norris, the name is kinda cool, but I'm sure that's the first and last time anyone has tried to cash in off Chuck Norris. I'm not sure who actually Chick Norris plays though. It's either the kidnapped girl or this ugly cop. The cop has this huge pile of hair that looks like a wig and has very red lipstick. She looks more like a cheap whore than a cop.
• The credits are lookin' cool with some weird type animation.

Good stuff, huh? Other than Clones of Bruce Lee this is my second favorite Bruce Le movie. At the end after Bruce finishes Ron, battered and exhausted he passes out and that's it. What happened to the Boss? The guy that kidnapped the daughter(twice), killed the ambassador, turned against Bruce? I guess he got away and lived to do more bad guy stuff. Dammit, how unsatisfying.

"Reviewed" by Keith.