The Tattoo Connection

If you are a fan of the 70's martial art movie genre? The final fight scene as well as others are worth the time. The irritating drawback, shocked that I am writing the following: to much T and A. You could do a lot worse. No where close to being Black Belt Jones 2.

Having had the rare opportunity to see it in the Mandarin/Chinese language , I can give a review that is more fair than some others. "Tattoo Connection," or "Hong Kong Connection" in certain regions, is a wildly entertaining, colorful and stylish Chinese import, that happens to star a martial arts legend who belongs to the West. Sometimes billed as "Black Belt Jones 2," this film has no connection to that earlier movie, which had a very different, and much lighter tone. Jim Kelly, who is basically the embodiment of everything that was considered cool in the 1970's, stars as Lucas, a CIA agent on a mission to recover a stolen priceless diamond. Lucas is sent to Hong Kong to find the missing jewel, and encounters a criminal organization, and an underworld of violence, espionage and death. The Hong Kong setting is brilliant, as the city is one of the most mysterious and fascinating places in the world, and like Hong Kong, "Tattoo Connection" is filled with color and decadence, as well as eroticism, something rarely found in this genre. Sadly, this film was poorly marketed in the West; this is a patently "Eastern" production,with Eastern sensibilities. So when distributors got their hands on it they apparently tried to Westernize it, by dubbing everyone with totally silly English dubbing with British accented actors. The result of that is a kind of "death blow," stripping the movie of it's intense mood and turning it into silly comedy. It's very apparent that it's a much better movie when you watch it in Mandarin with English subtitles. Unfortunately that version is very rare. A personal favorite of mine, I put it up there with more respected Martial Arts titles such as "Master of the Flying Guillotine" and "Boxer From Shantung," and even "Enter the Dragon." It is a film I can watch repeatedly and never be bored with. The kung fu action is fast and furious, with well choreographed fights that look quite authentic. There is also quite a bit of sex and nudity on screen, but it's all done very well, and doesn't look cheap. A remastered dvd in it's original 2;35 aspect ratio, (and original language) would be most welcome.

A friend of mine picked up this "gem" from one of those $2 DVD bins at the local supermarket. I was somewhat interested in seeing it, after all I did enjoy "Enter the Dragon" and wanted to see some more of Jim Kelly and Bolo Yeung. This flick falls short of the mark, but I can't quite put my finger on why. The dubbing is bad, the camera work is poor, and the script is extremely predictable (all of these things I expect from a cheesy kung fu movie), but there seems to be something missing from this piece of celluloid. It may be that between the ass beatings, utterly pointless nudity, and wah-a-chicka music there's not much substance.

The plot is that there's a diamond heist in Hong Kong by a gang (they all have the same tattoo, hence the title). Lucas (Jim Kelly) is called in by the insurance company to track down the diamond. Lucas seems to keep finding that his leads are killed off before he can get all the information that he needs. The other aspect of the story revolves around one of the gang members and his internal struggle with his loyalty to his boss and escaping the gangster life with his girlfriend.

Still the whole thing seemed to be thrown together kind of haphazardly. There are some good lines, decent kung fu action, and naked girls, but it still seems to lack something. The times between the action are really boring.

E yu tou hei sha xing (1978)

** (out of 4)

Criminal mastermind Lu (Sing Chen) and his goons steal a priceless diamond. The insurance company behind it sends former CIA agent Lucas (Jim Kelly) to investigate and to get back the stolen property.

There's really not too much plot going on here as the main draw was of course the action scenes and fights. This Hong Kong movie was also released as THE TATTOO CONNECTION as well as BLACK BELT JONES 2 even though it has no real connection to that movie except for Kelly being in both of them.

If you're looking for high art then you're certainly not going to find it here. Technically speaking the film isn't all that pretty to look at but at the same time people really aren't going to be watching this for its looks. If you're a fan of the kung fu movies from this era then you're bound to enjoy the fights here as the majority of them are well-staged and there's no question that they help keep the running time moving along.

Kelly is obviously the main draw here and he gets several nice fight scenes throughout. While he wasn't a great actor he was at least good enough at his job to keep the viewer glued to what was going on. One wishes that the story itself had been a little better but THE TATTOO CONNECTION is certainly worth watching.

Jim Kelly is awesome Kung Fu martial artist, he is fast and can move like the wind, and is cut like a ninja to boot. He is one Badassmofo!! In this film he is hired by an insurance company to find a stolen diamond. One of the persons he has to go up against is Bolo Yeung, who worked with Jim in Enter the Dragon. The movie is dubbed and cheesy but I loved anyway cause the first time I saw it I was a kid. There is jumpsuit/tracksuits with the flared bell bottoms galore in this one too, just so you won't be disappointed!! All of it was filmed in Hong Kong, with tons of familiar Hong Kong actors.