Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger

This film is pretty good out of many Bruce Lee death plot that plagued the 70's kung-fu film market. Bruce Lee (not the real one) is worried about the mob, so his student "the tiger" who looks like Bruce visits him. Bruce is dead as we see stock footage of his real life funeral, as the Tiger figures out who killed him. There's some real good fight sequence in this film, especially the one at the end where the tiger fights the baron, a mean dude who fights with a top hat on, and it never falls off in fight sequence. Title theme from Issac Hayes music from the film THREE TOUGH GUYS is the main theme! (i wonder if the producers got permission to use it?). If you are looking for quality, this isn't it. But a quick way to kill time, this is your film. The dubbing in this film is first class as Dimention pictures hired Chinese-American dubbing, instead of the usual loud british-chinese dubbing. You can hear American actor James Hong in several voices in this film.

Not convinced that Bruce Lee died by accident, his good friend "David Lee" (Bruce Li) sets out to investigate the real cause of death. His first clue comes from Bruce Lee's mistress and Hong Kong film star "Suzy Yung" (Chao Hsauo-Chun) who has some possible incriminating evidence against a major crime figure known as "the Baron" (Li Chang). But when "the Tiger" (the other name David Lee is known by) begins to get too close to the truth, the Baron becomes intent upon stopping him at all costs and comes after both Suzy Yung and David's girlfriend "Susie" (Kong Sam-Yi) to make his point. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that the death of Bruce Lee left a very large void in martial arts movies which several different film studios tried to fill--and Bruce Li happened to be one of the actors chosen in that regard. Unfortunately, unlike his famous predecessor, he didn't have the acting ability to really appeal to world-wide audiences and his films suffered as a result. And this particular movie is indicative of that fact as it pales in comparison to any and all of Bruce Lee's films. That being said, I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

This is just another example of someone trying to make a quick buck off of the death of a legend. This film basically is about a supposed disciple of Bruce Lee named David hunting for the people who allegedly murdered his mentor (for the record, his official cause of death was listed as a cerebral edema). However, all this film does is exploit the death of Bruce Lee and all the theories surrounding the sudden death of perhaps the greatest ambassador for the martial arts. Why couldn't they just let the man rest in peace? Sure he died at a young age, but there probably was nothing sinister about it. However, the main problem I have with it is the fact that they tried to pass off a "Bruce Lee" wannabee off as the genuine article. This made this film more of a rip off than it already was. I hope that the person who made this garbage feels real good about the way he tarnished a true legend of the screen.

People need to get over themselves regarding this prime piece of Bruceploitation. It's the mid 70's and Bruce Lee's films are still packing out cinemas 2-3 yrs after release. In that golden age of exploitation cinema it would only be a matter of time before a film would be made based on finding Lee's "Killer(s)". For a low budget Taiwanese flick it comes over as good action /mystery film that showcases it's up-coming lead actor; Bruce Li. Dimension Films did a good job in adapting the original (Bruce Lee - The Star of Stars) by having a good dub-cast deliver the lines in English and augmenting the action with some great library music tracks. People forget that these films were made to make money not to be reverential "tributes". The recent discovery of Bruce and Linda Lee's "Drugs" letters suggest the film makers where more knowing than the average fan(atic) realised. The late Roger Corman would have been proud to have produced a title like Exit the Dragon-Enter the Tiger as it was quite a money-maker in it's day. Hats off to those involved, especially the great Bruce LI as The Tiger!

Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger (1976)

** (out of 4)

David Lee (Bruce Li) goes to visit Bruce Lee on the set of ENTER THE DRAGON when Lee tells him about some strange phone calls. Later that evening David learns that his friend is dead so he sets out to find out who murdered him.

When Bruce Lee died there were countless conspiracy theories as to what really happened. Very few people believed the official report simple because it was hard to believe that someone as young and healthy like Lee could die that way. The death of Lee also caused an entire sub-genre of the Martial Arts flick, which some call leeploitation. This film here isn't nearly as horrible as some make it out to be but you can see how fans or family of the real Bruce Lee might be extremely offended by it. The exploitation level here is pretty strong including them using real funeral footage to show Lee's death here.

Some of the conspiracy theories out there are mildly interesting but this cheap Hong Kong movie doesn't try to tell a good story. In fact, there's very little actual plot here outside of someone killed Lee and it's up to the friend to find out who. None of it ever makes too much sense and I'd argue that the producers weren't really interested in telling a real conspiracy theory. Instead this here is just an excuse to exploit Lee's name but we certainly know this wasn't the only one.

For the most part I found the film slightly entertaining but it certainly helped that it didn't overstay it's welcome as the running time is rather short and the film has a fairly good flow to it. On a technical level the movie is quite bad with some silly performances, laughable dramatic scenes and some incredibly awful editing. The editing here is beyond bad and especially during the final fight sequence. The main attraction to this genre is watching the kung fu and I will admit that the fight scenes here were entertaining. They're certainly not in the same level as a real Bruce Lee movie but they're fun. Li, one of the biggest imitators, is good here as well.

EXIT THE DRAGON, ENTER THE TIGER isn't a film to take too serious. Even the offensive exploitation of Lee probably shouldn't be taken overly serious but if you're a fan of the genre there are certainly much worse out there.