Legacy of Rage

I'm not understanding the fellow reviews of other posters here, seems like the general negative consensus is that Brandon Lee didn't do enough martial arts or with the finesse of his father. Well this isn't a martial arts film, so if you were expecting the successor to Bruce Lee you'll be disappointed. Immediately push Bruce Lee out of your head. This is an overly melodramatic action film from Hong Kong, falls into the genre also known as "Heroic Bloodshed", and in that respect the movie's hokey but simultaneously keeps strong pacing and high entertainment value. This film is from 1986 coinciding with the release of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow, in which is set at the root of the new wave HK gangster genre. For being one of the first of its kind, it doesn't receive sufficient credit. This type of all-out gunplay in HK films doesn't appear until at least a year later. Brandon Lee plays a young waiter about to marry when a jealous/criminal friend purposely shatters his future. Brandon gets framed and sent to jail where he'll waste away for eight years. Luckily with some assistance from those on the outside who know the truth, he manages to escape where he wishes to find his fiancée and take vengeance on the friend who put him away. There are some twists in the story and the bullet-frenzied climax is very well done. The negative aspects about this movie are the shoddy soundtrack and dubbing, although once the plot takes off you forget about both. Lee is very charismatic in his character, and if you become attached to his story this should be a very fun ride. -7/10

Legacy of Rage is directed by Ronny Yu, the genius behind Bride With White Hair. Rage stars Brandon Lee is his only Hong Kong production and Michael Wong, the guy who played the sicko role in Fatal Love, starring beautiful Ellen Chan. Legacy of Rage is normal HK actioner and nothing special. The fight and action scenes are okay as always in these films(well, at least almost always), and at the end fight, they are occasionally brutal, too. But considered what kind of achievements we have seen coming out from Hong Kong, this is very mediocre but still watchable and recommended, of course, to the fans of Lee family. I don't think Michael Wong is so bad actor, as some have said. I think he's okay and has nice eyes. Lee junior is pretty normal here and is not as powerful as in his future roles, but we must remember that this is so early work for him, and he may have had some pressure thinking about his father and his reputation..

After all a decent Oriental actioner with nothing particularly exciting or worth mentioning. Still, a must see for Hong Kong fanatics. 5/10

Before I saw this, I thought Rapid Fire was Brandon Lee's first movie, but I like him more in this one than Rapid Fire. This movie shows that he really had talent. Michael Wong looks so young in this movie, and he's one good looking son of a gun. Regina Kent plays her usual role of bossy brat. Her career ended short like Brandon's.

The movie is dubbed, and it's a so, so job. You can still tell that its a dub because the lip and the word doesn't match.

Simple story, but it works, and is pretty good entertainment even after quarter century. One thing that's original about this movie is that each scene happens in a little bit different settings than you usually see, and each scene is beautiful.

See it for the charisma of Brandon Lee, and unusual settings where thing happens.

7.5/10

Made by D & B Films (no need to thank me), "Long zai jiang hu" was the first movie I saw with Brandon Lee - unlike the other posters, I actually saw it when it came out - and it was ultimately nothing too special, but all of the action stars of the past and present have had to work their way up, and it was certainly better than "Rapid Fire" and "Showdown In Little Tokyo" (which was admittedly entertaining in a cheap way, Tia Carrere's obvious body double and the snuff video scene with that gorgeous blonde notwithstanding).

The action's okay, and the scene where our hero bursts a villain's eye with a garotte still makes me wince 16 years later, but the best bit is when our hero visits a wimpy friend to get some armed help; wimpy friend says "I only have these," and unveils an armoury that would give Charlton Heston wet dreams. Still, you do wonder what would have happened had Brandon lived.

Brandon Lee was offered the lead in this rather routine actioner and was apparently reluctant to accept, not knowing how well he would be received as a successor to his now-legendary father. The response was a positive one. Brandon showed himself to be a good actor, as did co-star Michael Fitzgerald Wong in an early role as a smooth baddie, and Brandon also showed off some impressive martial arts chops. The fight scenes are the main reason to watch this movie at this point. The double-crossed- by-my-best-friend-now-I-have-to-get-revenge plot line has been done to death by now and it was not exactly fresh stuff at the time (1986). This one, like Rapid Fire, shows off Brandon as an 80s action hero who could fight, do stunts and act too. He was evolving into an international action star and had he survived the accident on the set of The Crow, that one role would have made him an A-lister. Brandon Lee made so few movies by the time of his death that every one is a curiosity, although The Crow is the only one that is actually really good. Oh, what might have been.

Be warned that most of the dialogue is in Cantonese, which neither the California raised Brandon nor New York City native Michael could speak. If you read their lips, they were actually speaking English and post- synched into Cantonese by actors who sounded nothing like them. Of course, when a scene requires them to actually speak English, instead of using their own voices, the editors dubbed in English dialogue using yet another actor who had a thick accent and sounded even less like them! You would think the producers would take advantage of having English speaking actors around to dub their own English dialogue, but it is instructive of the high-speed factory approach to film making common in Hong Kong at the time that this was not done. Production units and editors had little contact with one another, and in any case one or the other used whatever talent was on hand at the time rather than looking for opportunities to refine the finished product.