Fist of Fear, Touch of Death

I saw part of this movie, before, where I used to work. It looked phony. Like a curious moron, I got the dvd at borders. What a mistake! That martial artist, Aaron Banks is so full of sh*t with his theories on Bruce Lee dying from Dim Mak, the touch of death. They didn't have me fooled for one second when they made it look like he conversed with Bruce Lee. I could tell those were clips from his show, Longstreet, dubbed over. This movie also sucked because of their portraying Bruce as a child(from his earlier films)and made his voice sound like a total wussy. His father didn't even look like that in reality! I wasted about $8 in Borders gift cards on this piece of junk. On the lighter side, it would make great satire material for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 type show! I would call it "Kung Fui Theater"(Kung Phooey).

When you look at the cover of this dvd there's a giant pic of Lee on it.

So you'll think this is going to be a great martial arts flick, but its not.

You don't even see him fighting!!!! They talk about a great karate championship, but the only thing you see is the finale and they don't do karate they are BOXING! Everything here is a lie, they even try to let you think that Lee's great grandfather was a famous samurai...this movie has nothing to do with martial arts, avoid it at all costs! if you see it in a store, hide the box so no one can buy it, this is total crap!!!!

In the hype for a big karate championship bout between Louis Neglia and John "Cyclone" Flood at Madison Square Garden, a TV Anchorman named Adolph Caesar tries to tie the match into the controversy stirred up with regards to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Bruce Lee and whether or not this karate match-up will crown his successor.

I gave this a rating of 4, one point each for the ways in which this succeeded in entertaining me. Point # 1 was awarded for the karate championship match itself which was exciting if a little too short-lived. Point # 2 was for the archival footage featuring Bruce Lee which was cool to see even if it was horrendously dubbed. Point # 3 was for the footage taken from the "Samurai" film which amused me with its utter lack of convincing effects combined with some otherwise intense and gory fight scenes. Point # 4 was for this film's sheer audaciousness as it preposterously tries to tie itself and a straightforward karate match at Madison Square Garden to the enduring legacy left behind by Bruce Lee succeeding in making me laugh and shake my head in utter amazement at this ludicrous presentation unfolded before my eyes.

Caution, never buy a movie as cheap as $5.99 or else you're going to be scammed! I saw this movie sitting in a bin with other rediculous B-Movie genres but what caught my attention obviously was Bruce Lee. I read the commentary, it didn't explain much about Bruce except only about some martial arts event in New York's Madison Square Garden? At first I was confused, was this an actual event where Bruce appeared, it sounded like it did. Plus the movie mentions real live clips of Bruce in action. Bruce in action at Madison Square Garden? I've never seen this before ever, this I got to see! This sounded too good to be true, and sadly I was devastatingly fooled. I watched this movie(actually with DVD I breezed through in minutes) and to my surprise no Bruce, no real footage, nada, nothing. The film, according to my martial arts knowledge, contains a bunch of has beens, never was, or complete unknown practitioners and fighters. Without a doubt the biggest crock film ever in an attempt to profit off of Lee and whoever put this garbage together should be locked up!

... then movies like this would never have been made.

If you've ever seen a Bruce Li/Le/Lai/ or Dragon Lee movie, then you should know what Bruce-ploitation is all about. "Fist of Fear, Touch of Death" takes Bruce-ploitation several steps further, and to a new low. The basic plot of the movie is apparently centered around a martial arts bout to determine Bruce Lee's successor.

Most of the movie follows interviews with Bruce Lee, dubbed and spliced with Aaron Banks and Adolph Caesar. Fictional scenes of his family depict Bruce Lee as a martial arts-obsessed teenager ("Mother, I can kill a man with my bare hands - you don't understand me!", yet later calling someone else crazy...), randomly spliced with scenes from an old chopsocky movie supposedly depicting Bruce Lee's great-grandfather as "19th century China's greatest samurai" - can't have been too hard, I don't think there were many. These scenes take up most of the movie - I nearly forgot about the whole determining Bruce Lee's successor thing, and when they finished, I was so happy thinking that the movie was over, only to realize there were another twenty minutes. Damn. It seems as though the writers (if any) forgot what the basic plot was about and went off on same bizarre rant about Bruce Lee's heritage (the one they made up, not his real heritage).

This movie does not have cult-status in any way, nor does it give the cheesy-laughs you'd expect from a regular chopsocky movie. The only thing it manages to do is insult Bruce Lee and his legacy (even Fred Williamson says the same thing in this sad excuse for a movie). Avoid at all costs.

1/10