The Clones of Bruce Lee

THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE is perhaps the ultimate Bruceploitation film, featuring no less than three Bruce Lee imitators (and two of those are the hard-working Dragon Lee and Bruce Le). It starts off with the depiction of the death of the real Bruce Lee, only to have his body claimed by a mad scientist (Jon Benn, who starred in CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER and WAY OF THE DRAGON) who proceeds to replicate three clones from it.

This action-packed tale then follows each clone as he engages in training routines before being sent off on special missions, typically performing assassinations and the like. Eventually they turn on each other. The whole thing was brought to you courtesy of infamous exploitation director Dick Randall, whose CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER is a mini masterpiece of its type. THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE isn't, but it's still a must for trash fans.

There's no denying the slapdash nature of this film, which was shot in Thailand and the Philippines. While the plot is more involved than your regular kung fu outing, the fight scenes feel very laboured and predictable; the Bruce Lee imitators spend too much time copying Bruce Lee instead of showing much in the way of real skill themselves. I feel they did better work elsewhere. Still, on the other hand, the viewer does get treated to Bolo Yeung (DOUBLE IMPACT), gratuitous nudity, training scenes set to stolen ROCKY music, and a general air of ineptness and anything-goes cult appeal.

(1980) Clones of Bruce Lee DUBBED MARTIAL ARTS

It has often been said that the Bruce Lee name continued to be exploited long after he had died, and this movie is evidence to that which regards a scientist taking a small sample of blood from Bruce Lee's arm for the intentions of creating clones of the martial arts star- hence the name. And since this facility was being financed by the SBI not the FBI mind you, which stands for the "Special Branch of Investigators' , the real intentions for the cloning was to do some good with it by sending each of the Bruce Lee clones to do some good with it, such as to going after a well renown movie producer, who was dealing with gold smuggling, and a doctor in Thailand dealing with narcotics. Notice the credits called each of the characters chosen to play the clones of Bruce Lee all have some relation tot he Bruce Lee name which are Dragon Lee, Bruce Le with "E" missing, Bruce Lai and finally Bruce Thai.

Some people have considered this lesser known film to be the worst Chinese movie ever made and I wholeheartedly agree. Why is to easy to find Chinese movies online? Anyway, Bruce Lee was such a massive icon there was actually an entire genre devoted to imitating him. Let's just say imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery in this case. This movie features a guy who, well makes clones of Bruce Lee. We get a lot of pointless scenes showing them fighting.

The movie's plot just seems to be all over the place. About halfway through, they go to a beach where naked women are. I guess if I was more of a pervert, I'd enjoy this more. They fight this villain who wants to, you guessed it, take over the world ("of course!"). He turns people into metal to use as soldiers. It's as stupid as it sounds, but at least it's not worse. *1/2

This movie is actually so bad. (Direction, acting, effects, even the fighting) that it has reached some sort of cult status over here. You should check it out. It's funny as hell.

Here's yet another in the fairly lengthy list of Bruceploitation flicks to emerge after the great mans untimely demise.

Well, first things first, you just have to hand it to the makers of this – what a bloody ridiculous (i.e super cool!) plot! There is just one slight problem from the start however……the three clones of the late martial arts star actually bear bugger all resemblance to him! (nor to each other even more alarmingly!!!) Still, let us not nit pick over such erm….inconsequential factors; rather let us instead revel in the never ending series of chop-socky fights, cool seventies fashions (including humongous sunglasses and medallions) and indeed the presence of perennial B-movie faves Bruce Le, Dragon Lee and Bolo Yueng.

Also of note there are some admittedly hilarious scenes on offer including an entirely gratuitous sequence featuring a group of naked girls on a beach, and in another set of scenes, a bunch of chubby bronze warriors who just can't seem to catch on that chomping on certain poisonous plants isn't conducive to one's good health(!!!)

Despite the above high points, it does have to be said that the film is actually rather mundane in it's execution however and that the numerous fights (which account for the majority of the films running time) do actually become somewhat tiresome after a while. Nonetheless, as I previously said, credit where credit's due – for sheer stupidity of plot, this is something of a classic!