Rating:

Aka: TOWER OF DEATH
Stars: Tong Lung (Kim Tai Chung), Hwang Jang Lee, Roy Horan, Lee Hai Sheng
Director: Ng See Yuen

1980, Hong Kong, Golden Harvest

 

A kung fu expert named Chin Ku (Hwang Jang Lee) dies suddenly. His best friend Billy Lo (Bruce Lee/Tong Lung) tries to find out why he died and flies down to Japan to talk to his daughter and pay his respects to Ku. Ku's burial is disrupted by a helicopter which steals his coffin, trying to prevent the incident Billy gets killed. When Billy's brother hears about the incident he also flies to Japan. This leads him to Lewis' feared castle that supposedly no one leaves alive. He finds traces that lead him to "The Tower of Death".

 

The fights are pretty good but the acting is goofy.

It was filmed in Hong Kong, Japan and Korea and has some nice temples from the areas.

This was presented as a Bruce Lee movie but it ain’t. I was actually fooled thinking this was a Bruce flick as I bought it years ago when I'd just started to collect kung fu movies. What it has of Bruce is a lot scenes and clips from other movies. And they are no rare clips exactly, you can clearly see from which movies they are.

Tong Lung (named after Bruce's character in "Way of the Dragon") is the guy who plays Bruce Lee's character and is filmed from angles where you cant see (if you’ve never seen the real Bruce) that it ain’t Bruce.

Tong Lung does Lee’s Jeet Kune Do pretty good at times (especially at the beginning) but makes mostly his own stuff combined with Bruce Lee stances and faces.

There were also some scenes from Lee’s actual death and some footage from his childhood movies.

 

Hwang Jang Lee is fast and good but he doesn't do much except for the beginning and the end.

Tiger Yang (Yang Cheng Wu) as "Wildman" looks funny in leopard cloths and makes a strange face (like he’s shitting in his pants or something).

Hwang's real life student Roy Horan plays Lewis, a man who eats raw meat and drinks animal blood for breakfast. He acts so badly that he's funny. Roy was almost killed in one scene when he was supposed to get hanged (looks real!).

Yuen Biao has a cameo as a monk, and made the stunts together with Chan Lung and Mars.

The Yuen brothers made the fight choreography and Yuen Shun Yi cameos as a monk doing a form, also appearing in fight scenes here and there.

Casanova Wong cameos also, playing a Korean Taekwondo expert and gets a chance to show off his kicks.

Lee Hai Sheng plays a Shaolin monk but isn't to good, looks goofy.

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