Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu

The man martial-arts filmmakers could never let go! How many Bruce Lee "wannabes" have there been? This time around Bruce LI explodes onto the screen portraying, who else, BRUCE (not Lee, nor Li, just Bruce)! Sure there have been many to copy the frenetic and amazing Bruce Lee - few have succeeded, many have failed. In "Bruce Lee's Secret" (as it was titled when I saw it), at least the director(s) had the sense to make it about the fighting; the more involved, the better! Bruce Li is a waiter in San Francisco, minding his own business, when, out of nowhere, American kung fu thugs want to make trouble for Li and friends. Who cares - watch this one for the plentiful martial arts action. If you are a fan of the bad dubbing found in most of these films, you will get a 'kick' out of the insanely poor vocal choices. Lots of action, lots of fun - just enjoy!

This review is for BRUCE'S DEADLY KUNG FU aka BRUCE LEE'S SECRET. This is the one where he is a waiter at the beginning of the movies, 3 guys at a table hassle him and another employee, he pours lots of pepper on thier chicken, and a fight breaks out.

The movie is cheesy, the fight scenes mediocre, and the acting is poor. Add in many annoying characters such as the woman who owns the restaurant, the children of the shipyard owner, a very whiney kid, and buffoonish rivals and the film just drags on.

If you are looking for a biopic this is not it. No accurate information about Bruce Lee. It is basically a play on his name to sell a bad movie.

Hey, I've seen my share of kung-fu garbage, and this film is something I wasted a good boring Monday night on. Expectingly nothing but garbage, I just popped in the tape and thought I'd just let it run. To tell the truth, it's surprisingly decent. Bruce Li is no Bruce Lee, but he's certainly the best of the imitators, and this film is one of his better moments.

Another of those bad-yet-enjoyable films. Worthwhile if you're a kung-fu / Bruce Lee fan though.

7 / 10

As with a lot of the Chinese fung fu movies from this era, this film goes under many different names. To add to the confusion, there were two different movies, from the same year, both starring Bruce Li, and both focusing on an autobiographical story of Bruce Lee. Because of this confusion, about half the reviews for this title are reviews of one movie, while the other half are reviews for an entirely different film. In fact, it's so confusing that even imdb has melded the two films together, so that a separate page for the OTHER movie doesn't even exist. I am not making this up. It's difficult to explain this but, here it is; if you saw a movie where Bruce is a waiter who serves a dish loaded with pepper, to a group of abusive morons in a restaurant, and there is a screaming, whining little kid who wants to be a Kung Fu fighter, than you have seen "A Dragon Story." If you saw a more straight forward biography of Bruce Lee, that documents his life by showing him going from a waiter to an actor to an action star, than you were one of the lucky ones to have seen "Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story." Lucky because that one is the superior film. The former movie is just sub-standard, generic fare that doesn't attempt to tell anything about Bruce Lee. Rather it just presents a character who happens to live in San Francisco and just happens to be a waiter, who after a power struggle with a rival gang, opens his own school. Basically little more than a showcase of some (admittedly spectacular) fight sequences. Of course this is important, but for viewers who want a decent story to accompany the action, this one is strictly generic and forgettable stuff. And that screaming little kid has way too much screen time, and is very irritating and corny. Like a lot of other people here, I was searching for the other movie, the one that features Latin martial artist Charles "La Pantera" Bonet, from "Black Dragon's Revenge" and "Death Promise." When I see this movie I will return and create a separate review for it. As a fan of Bronx native, and first Latino Kung fu star, Charles Bonet, I am looking to see all of his films. He's in the OTHER "Story of the Dragon." I hope this clears up some confusion.

This movie contains some of the best fight scenes I have ever seen. The plot is typical, but it contains twists that differ from many of the Kung Fu movies from the era. This movie is packed with fighting, and has a great range of martial arts techniques. The soundtrack is unbelievable, although impossible to find nowadays. The English translation is way above par for the era.

The DVD I purchased contained no credits, or any sort of menu at all. The editing is very shaky at times, but I'm sure the equipment in those days was very difficult to use. It appears that this movie could have been filmed anywhere, as there are only a select few scenes that actually show famous places in San Fransisco.

This movie is a must see for any martial arts fan.