The Image of Bruce Lee

Bruce Li surprised me in this one. Oh, the martial arts are still mediocre, but he's not trying to be Bruce Lee. In fact, Li is a cop in search of plates. He ends up fighting usually against groups of guys. Apparently, the word "backup" wasn't invented until after this movie. You really appreciate Fist of Fury when fights the entire japanese class in the dojo. In IOBL, Bruce Li runs after Bolo in search of luggage and proceeds to fight the entire class. Man, you can see how many "one-on-one" cue attacks there are while extras just stand in the circle. So to sum it up:

Fists of Fury dojo fight: FIERCE and FAST.

Image of Bruce Lee dojo fight: FUNNY!!

It really is fun to see Bruce in a non Bruceploitatic role. I think he must've been hot fighting in that brown leather coat cause he never takes it off in battles. Man, it's durable! The frightening part of this movie is seeing Bolo flirt. Plus, his loud garish suits with killer lapels. The Boss is same boss from Bruce Lee's the Big Boss, but he doesn't add that much to the film. Come to think of it, the funniest part is the balcony scene where some guy does a flying kick at Bruce and the slo-mo effect goes on. Bruce just moves to the side and this hapless dolt of a henchman does the high hurdle over the rail. Also, handcuffs can be a deadly weapon.

There's some gratuitous nudity of Donna...I think that was her name, whatever. They thought including her would be enough to fool the viewer and grab your attention. Well, it worked for me!! Especially the nude swimming. Also, when she tells Bruce Li that he looks like Bruce Lee and asks if he wants to do movies, Li responds with "Not interested!" HAHAHAHA. See, he was "ACTING".

Watch this cool flick for chases, naughty bits, and the balcony fight....and the Bruce Li rope climbing in the yellow tracksuit!!

Version: English dub

In a movie that seemingly has nothing to with Bruce Lee, or his image, Bruce Li plays a cop who goes around beating people up, while trying trying to stop a counterfeit ring. Or something, I somehow managed to miss the important plot points (ok, there weren't any at all...).

There's lots of swearing, and naked ladies, and violence - enough to get an R-rating. Surprisingly, my copy of the movie comes with a family friendly M-rating. I'll admit right now, that I don't why I'm reviewing this - there isn't much to say about it.

Basically, the movie follows Bruce Li as he wanders around beating up bad guys, and follows Bolo Yeung as he wanders around beating up good guys. In fact, Li's character never takes his leather jacket off - either it gives him super-powers, or it is the secret to his kung-fu technique.

Overall, its actually pretty funny, in a cheesy way - 4/10

Dragon (Bruce Li) is a respected police investigator in HongKong. He's frustrated failing to save a jumper. He and his partner are assigned a tough counterfeit ring. Han Tin Lung is the head of the criminal organization. His son Han Chin Wei has used his Japanese friend Kimura (Bolo Yeung) and stolen paper from London to create perfect counterfeit money. Donna is the beautiful daughter of a criminal colleague who arrives with plans of her own.

This is a HongKong Bruceploitation. There is a lot of hand to hand combat and female frontal nudity. It's pure B-movie. The problem is that Bruce Li is a blank and he adds little to the movie. The best parts come from the villain side. I'm fascinated with the Hans and Donna. They could be the Godfather but Bruce Li keeps interjecting himself into the movie. The hand to hand fighting is good at first but after awhile, the choreography is repetitive and it gets boring. This may be better than most Bruceploitations but that's not saying much.

This film can be taken in two ways. First, it is indeed a "Bruce Clone" film, starring Bruce Li, the best of the Bruce Lee imitators. On that level, it can be enjoyed for the usual "swinging arms" chop-sock 'fu film nonsense we loved so well in the late 1970s.

However, oddly enough, the cast and crew seem to be quite aware that their whole effort is blatantly absurd.

Consequently, their are subtle but undeniable elements of self-parody in throughout the film. I will only describe the opening sequence: A man looking like a minor business executive is standing on a roof top, threatening to commit suicide. Bruce Li, dressed in the yellow-and-red gymnastic jump-suit long associated with Bruce Lee through publicity photos for his uncompleted last film (Game of Death) , climbs up five stories and jumps out to grab the exec by the arm. Unfortunately, it's a prosthetic arm. The force of the grab tears off the arm and inadvertently sends the exec five stories to his death. Bruce Li stands there looking at the prosthetic limb with an expression like, "hey, this never happened to the other guy!" Final underscore for this self-parody is when another character looks at Bruce Li and says: "Has anyone ever told you you look like Bruce Lee?" - Well, I'm not!" Bruce Li responds.

This is all pretty much 'in-joke' stuff; to appreciate the humor of this film, one has to have seen all of the real Bruce Lee films, and a good many Bruce-Clone films as well. But I have, so I had a blast.

The print of "The Image of Bruce Lee" that I watched didn't list any credits for either the cast or the crew. After watching the entire movie, I can understand why apparently no one connected to the movie wanted to be identified. It should come as no surprise that despite the title, the lead actor (played by Bruce Li) looks nothing like Bruce Lee. He's pretty bland and forgettable here, despite getting into a ton of fights. Maybe that could have been forgiven had the fights been good, but they are really not. While the fight sequences are choreographed in a way to look somewhat more realistic than usual, they are simply not exciting, and are completely interchangeable with each other. The plot is also nothing special as well, except maybe that it's more convoluted and confusing than usual. The only interest the movie has is showcasing a pre-fame Bolo Yeung in a key role, and that the movie has a surprising amount of nudity... though I feel I should point out that the nudity is presented in a surprisingly unerotic way.