Fist of Fear, Touch of Death

What a hoot! No one could watch this without falling off the chair laughing! There are scenes of one guy supposedly plucking out eyeballs! Talk about huge amount of ridiculous stereotypes with confusion between one fighter and Harry Belafonte by the hotel.

There are scenes from lots of old kung fu type movies as well as an early Bruce Lee movie. There are also some terribly dubbed Bruce Lee interviews with poor voice acting.

There is no plot, just a poorly threaded 'broadcast' by an actor who wouldn't even put his real name on the part! (Or too unimaginative to come up with a name for the part! You have to laugh while watching this one or you are taking life all together too serious!

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.

Unfortunately, this film neither features real martial arts, nor is it a classic. It hardly even features Bruce Lee, except for some old footage that has been re-dubbed to make it look like Lee actually agreed to this film being made. I hope somebody got sued for this one.

This could have been a good documentary about the "1979 Karate Championship" but most of the footage from the karate matches is obviously staged, and has little to do with Chinese martial arts. Some interesting "facts" were revealed by this film however. For instance, prior to watching "Fist of Fear", I had no idea that Lee's great grandfather was the greatest Chinese samurai warrior.

There are a few funny moments in the film (the Bill Louie Kato scene, or when Fred Williamson is introduced for example) but if you have any respect for Bruce Lee or film-making in general, I would highly recommend avoiding this film.

• Lex

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).

I think this is meant to be a farce. But it isnt. It is just rotting horse manure masquerading as a movie. The DVD cover makes you think that Bruce Lee stars in this movie and there are actual Bruce Lee fight scenes. There's nothing of the sort. Somebody should sue the guys who brought this out. It is blatantly false advertising. Is Bruce Lee's estate listening?