Rating:

Aka: FISTS OF FURY

Stars: Bruce Lee, Maria Yi, James Tien, Lam Ching Ying, Han Ying Chieh

Director: Lo Wei

Fight Choreography: Han Ying Chieh

1971, Hong Kong, Golden Harvest

Cheng Chao An (Bruce Lee) arrives at Thailand looking for work. He stays with some relatives and starts working with them and other Chinese migrants in a local ice factory. But when two workers find drugs inside the ice, strange things start to happen and the two workers disappear from the factory. When his cousin, Hsu Chien, disappears after paying a visit to the boss, Chao An has no other choice than to investigate the manner.

 

This was Bruce's first kung fu movie and it made him an overnight star. The movie broke box office records only after three weeks of its release taking $3,2 million in 97 cinemas in Hong Kong.

During the first week of shooting, the hot-tempered director, Wu Chai Wsaing, was arguing with the actors all the time so Raymond Chow (the producer) hired Lo Wei to direct the movie instead. But Lo Wei loved to gamble, and as the movie was going to be post-dubbed he had loudspeakers on the set during filming so he could follow the racetrack.

And although Bruce now had more control over the script and fight scenes it was not all good. Bruce twisted an ankle during a fall and while in the hospital he caught a flu. Bruce had earlier back pains and now the pains exceeded and he had to take injections after each shot. As he couldn't eat the local meat he ended up loosing ten pounds and was sick during the rest of the filming. He also argued a lot with the fight choreographer (the one who played "the big boss" in the movie), Han Ying Chieh.

Bruce also injured his finger with a glass and had to wear a bandage for the major part of the film. If you look clearly you can see that the size of the bandage changes as the movie proceeds. He also pulled a muscle in one leg near the end. He had to get cut in the leg in the movie so you couldn't notice his injure.

As they were shooting Golden Harvest was going bankruptcy and Raymond Chow made a deal with Cathay Pictures and got a little finance so he could end the movie.

 

This movie was made with a tiny budget and still is a great entertaining and bloody movie. Bruce shines with charisma and although this is his worst movie concerning his martial arts abilities he's still great, and this is a great film dealing with migrants that are badly treated by the locals!

The other actors fight using the Wang Yu "arm swinging" type of style which isn't beautiful but acceptable. But like in all of his other movies, the only thing you really care about is Bruce Lee himself.

End-line: Watching the badly dubbed 5 minutes shorter UK version and the new uncut Cantonese language widescreen DVD version is just a totally different experience. It's a great movie and it really deserved the awesome remastering by the great Hong Kong Legends. They just rule the Hong Kong DVD market, there's no way you could compare them with others, they are simply put the best!

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