"You saw him in EXIT THE DRAGON, ENTER THE TIGER. Now he's back and stalking his prey!" reads the tagline on the box for ENTER THE PANTHER. No better way to whet a fan's appetite than mentioning another Bruce Li classic. Sadly, this film comes nowhere near the entertaining levels of the aforementioned film. In fact, this may go down in my book as one of Li's worst films.
The film opens with the discovery of gold in a small town's mining industry. Now, as we all know, money is the root of all evil so no sooner than the gold is discovered are a pair of nefarious fellows poisoning the mine's owner and forging a contract giving them the property rights. After about 25 minutes of exposition, Li finally shows up as Yu Lung, a kung fu expert who arrives to help out his uncle at his martial arts school. Naturally, he becomes embedded in the whole controversy because the man who was poisoned is somehow related to his uncle. Insert kicks to the head here.
Sorry if that plot synopsis is a bit confusing, but then again so is the film. I pride myself on being able to decipher even the most confusing film narratives, but this one takes the cake. I could not make heads or tails of what was going on plot wise. The story is all over the place. The villainous characters are trying to cover up their crime, but at the same time trying to kidnap a local girl. Trying to discern anyone's familial relationship is task as well seeing as every male character is referred to as "Uncle."
All of this storyline confusion would have been excusable if the film had some decent fight scenes. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The fights are way too brief and clumsily choreographed (making me suspect this was made earlier then the accredited 1976 date). It is not up to the level of Li's other 76 flicks and Bruce looks significantly younger. Worst of all is the end fight scene. Bruce is able to handle groups of 5 or more lackeys with ease, but when it comes to the main bad guy, he gets his ass handed to him...REPEATEDLY! Bruce rips off his shirt in a fit of rage and charges the bad guy, only to get beat down. He gets up again and gets beat down again. This happens four or five times. Li only gains the upper hand after throwing dirt into the villain's eyes! Hey, isn't that what the bad guy's are supposed to do? The fact that the film suffers from probably the worst pan and scan job ever doesn't help much either, especially in the fight scenes.
On a positive note, the film features some great locations (or at least what you can see of them). Lush green hillsides and winding dirt roads give the movie an extra bit of ambiance that it definitely needs. The filmmakers also cribbed some amazing music for Yu Lung's theme. It is a very Southern (as in America) banjo piece with whistling over it that seems far more at place in something like THE STING rather than ENTER THE PANTHER. All in all, however, ENTER THE PANTHER is a major disappointment that I would recommend for Bruce Li completists only.
Reviewed by William