Bruceploitation comin' at ya!

Won't the real Bruce Lee please stand up, please stand up?

This is my 150. blog post and The Last Movieblog recently broke 80,000 pageviews. So I think it's time to do a reader request. While I'm by far not an expert on the subject, I love the old Bruceploitation kung fu movies. You know, the ones made after the death of the real Bruce Lee to cash in on his fame. The exploitation producers worked this out by hiring lookalike kung fu stars. 

James Ho Chung-Tao became Bruce Li, Huang Kin-Lung became Bruce Le and the Korean Guh Ryong became Dragon Lee. In addition there were actors such as Bruce Lea, Bruce Lei, and Bruce Leung. Fun fact about Bruce Le: he was imprisoned in China for fraud. Whether it was about imitating a kung fu movie legend without a license, the story doesn't tell.

Some of these films rank among the cheesiest and unintentionally funniest things I've ever seen. Yet usually they follow a pretty straight formula. As it happens, the films I've seen don't really rob Bruce's grave, in that neither the titles nor the actions on screen refer to Lee and his legacy. Rather, they are just cheesy cheap kung fu movies which happen to have a guy that sort of looks like Bruce Lee as their lead.

Golden Dragon Silver Snake a.k.a. Dragoneer the Indomitable (Ilso Ingwon, Hong Kong/South Korea 1979)
Directors: Godfrey Ho, Kim Si-Hyun

It's good to start with a film that pretty much presents your basic bad kung fu movie. It's story is the age-old, time-tested fable of a stranger coming to a town plagued by violent robbers, and setting things straight and bringing order – with his fists! Pure western mythos, this time in the East. Also, to save expenses the film also has several scenes attached that don't make much sense. They are simply leftover outtakes from another movie. Co-director Godfrey Ho in particular mastered this cheapest of movie arts.

This stars Dragon Lee as an eager young man who is bad at his work at a restaurant and berated for it. But then he begins to learn kung fu from a lowly rickshaw driver. When his home village is raided by bandits, and his brother killed, he wants to fight back on the invaders. His efforts don't go unnoticed in other villagers who start to raise a rebellion themselves.

As is often the case in cheesy martial arts movies, it's very hard to determine, which place in time is this supposed to take place. Mostly everything looks almost medieval, yet there are radios, watches and such in this movie, perhaps unintentionally. But the most fun to be had with this is towards the end when a dropping giant wicker basket traps Dragon underneath that. He punches first trough left and right and then kicks himself free by blowing off the front. One would've imagined there was an easier way to get away from under a basket.



In the movie, people disappear and appear randomly at different places, sometimes to do battle on top of a mountain. The dubbing is absolutely hilarious, as you can see from the above clip. There's also lots of goofy Hong Kong humour, where people are hit with frying pans, eggs and such are used as weapons. The film speeds up at times to have a Benny Hill-like emphasis on the comedy as well.

But all in all, it's sort of enjoyable, even though very generic. The fights are coreographed quite well and Dragon Lee seems to be in that corner of Bruce clones that actually knows some stunts and moves. Not even a fraction like his predecessor and the master of martial arts cinema Lee, but something nevertheless.

★★★

Return of the Tiger (Da juan tao, Taiwan 1979)
Director: Jimmy Shaw

If not village-raiding bandits, Bruce Lee clones are battling organized crime and drug trafficers, as in this Bruce Li vehicle.  Or rather, Li's Chang Wong gets caught in the middle of a gang war between the Triads and Bud Spencer-lookalike drug kingpin George Cross (Paul L. Smith).

Cross owns both the martial arts gym Chang Wong visits, as well as a nightclub that dares play the biggest disco hits of the era without paying any copyright fees. Chang is asked to assassinate the man, but Chang Wong won't agree due to the price being too low (!). A double cross or two later sees Chang fighting side by side with Cross, before the antagonistic pair finishes each other off.

It's not much of a spoiler to tell he dies – but how! (Hilariously)

Yes, the bad guy IS the same guy who played the hilariously suspectful janitor in Pieces, Paul L. Smith. But those that like more mainstream stuff may also recognize him as the torturer in Midnight Express, Bluto from Robert Altman's Popeye, or The Archduke from Maverick. Actually I was quite surprised the guy turned out to have such a long list of merits. He's a huge, burly guy, but his fighting is nothing short of ludicrous.

Smith throws chinese people around like they're bean bags, and his punches miss the target's face by a mile. Li's fighting isn't much better and his wire stunts are so unbelievable that they raise a good chuckle or two during the movie. At least one fight against thugs on motorcycles is actually good. The film also has a kick ass woman martial artist, Angela Mao, who is utilized way too little during the movie, even though she opens it by showing the boys how to fight.



All in all, the film feels a bit like a wasted opportunity, although it has okayish fighting, disco music, some outrageous clothing, outlandish stunts and general stupidity. Or maybe it is just that these need to be watched with friends and beer.

★★ 1/2

Challenge of the Tiger (Philippines / Hong Kong / Italy 1980)
Director: Bruce Le

Another kind of film Bruceploitation films loved to emulate was the James Bond espionage adventures. They were the most popular movies in the world at the time, and Bruce Lee himself had finished his career with a corking pseudo-Bond kung fu flick, Enter the Dragon. The problem, of course was, that the producers could afford just one exotic location where to shoot, no guns or gadgets or suits, and often not even a that charismatic lead actor. But what is cheap and works good in exploitation, is boobs-presenting young girls and Chinese henchmen to take kicks to their faces, so this Dick Randall-produced film is swarming with both of them.

A science-professor creates a substance that can kill human sperm totally and thus sterilize people, but he and his assistant are immediately murdered after. Since it seems that terrorists have their hands on the formula, intelligence officers send in two of their best men: Kung fu expert Huang Lung (Bruce Le) and his sidekick, the millionaire playboy Richard Cann (Richard Harrison), who lives in a mansion occupied solely by topless women.

The bumbling agents do not achieve much in the way of finding the missing formula. Cann goes on fooling around with women, whereas Huang tries to cock-block him whenever possible, and now and then fights some attacking thugs. In fact, since there's a scene on a beach where Le's erect penis bulges in his swimming suit while watching Cann's antics, perhaps he's much more into his "side-kick" Richard than he lets on.

He likes 'em hairy.

Besides the racy sex scenes the most memorable part of the film is the scene where Le fights thugs at a bull-fighting arena, after which the bad guys release the toro on him. As the bull throws Le around it hilariously switches between a doll (close to Le) and a live animal (far away from Le).

Based on my experience, I'd deam Le to be the worst Bruce clone. He's a horrible fighter, actor, uncharismatic and a bad director to boot. This is as sleazy as this sort of films come and borders on softcore pornography. So it's not a total waste of time, and has it's funny scenes too.

★★ 1/2

Iron Dragon Strikes Back a.k.a. The Gold Connection (Hui feng hao huang jin da feng bao, Hong Kong 1979)
Director: Kuei Chih-Hung

One of Bruce Li's last movies (before retirement), this kung fu thriller already show the "star" getting tired of imitating his hero. The stunts and the fights are inexplicably bad. But since the oddball script is also totally insane, and the director a hapless talent-free copy machine, the end result is something unforgettable.

Bruce and his friends are friendly fishermen. One day they happen to fish out a mysterious casket from the Hong Kong harbour. Inside are gold bricks, worth millions. Bruce's poor friends are overwhelmed with joy, but the stoic Bruce himself rightfully concerned that this find will come for them. Indeed, the gold has belonged to the Triads, and once they find out who has been spending their hard-earned drug money, they send the most lethal assassin they have to off Bruce's friends one by one and ending with the kung fu practitioner himself.



Bruce's fights in this are very poorly choreographed, and huge sound effects try to hide the fact that he's doing his kicks veeerrry slow, and still doesn't go anywhere near his opponent's face. Li could surely do them better, but never funnier. His friends are a gang of total morons who have no concept of taking things coolly. Since the director didn't have the money to get girls to show their boobs in this film, much time is lingered on a Playboy centrefold one character eagerly ogles. This is the cheapest sexploitation can get.

The violence of the Triads is sadistic and brutal, yet the viewer can't work up much sympathy as one  dumb-ass supporting character after another gets slaughtered. Much of the film is built around the mystery of who could the assassin be. Kuei spits in the face of audience expectations of making a big number of an incredibly mundane background character being the killer in reality.

That reveal brings itself the biggest belly-laugh scenes exploitation cinema has ever seen, since the end fight between Bruce and the assassin ends in a memorably overwhelming final blow, and directly afterwards comes a hilariously bittersweet gut-punch, and ends the film. It seems that the whole ordeal was supposed to be a tragedy in the vein of Fists of Fury which show that ass-kicking ways will only get one so far when dealing with totally ruthless organizations. But this message comes far behind the tears-run-across-face laughing watching this film causes in an audience. I love this thing to bits!

★ or ★★★★★

WENG WENG!

Some of the oddest exploitation films of all time have been made in the Philippines. The director Eddie Nicart made some of the most memorable of these. The success of the James Bond movies created a stream of exploitation spy movies all around the world. But none can really match Nicart's work with his biggest star, Weng Weng (born Ernesto de la Cruz, 1957).

I am not that interested in movie stars. Really, the only time a star should be interesting is when he (/she) is that damn good (which is not really that often) or when he (or she) has risen to stardom beating different obstacles. Thus, I'm fascinated with odd-looking lead actors. Even though they usually have bigger charisma than good-looking leads, none can really match the story of the world's shortest lead, Weng Weng. He was only 80 cm (2 ft. 9') tall, which makes him the world's shortest lead before the likes of Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffmann. But Weng Weng was also much more than that - he was a martial arist, a sneaky spy, a tough cowboy with few words, and a disco-dancing babe magnet.

Image from Bargain Bin Reviews.

Really, everything you need to know about Weng Weng is in the brilliant song by the Chuds above. But I'll go a little deeper with the three Weng Weng films I've managed to see (they are not all that easy to find).

For Y'ur Height Only (1981)

In the same year as 50-something Roger Moore tried to reboot his jokey James Bond with a bit more serious adventure (For Your Eyes Only), Nicart produced a spoof that borrows the same title to exaggerate everything cartoony the Bond series was known for. Yet Weng Weng's Agent 00 is not a one liner-spurning joke character. In fact, he might be the most merciless spy ever displayed in movies! The body count is much larger than you could imagine for a film like this.

The filipino crime organizations are having a hard time with Agent 00. He frequently destroys their operations and diposes of their men. But the mysterious leader of the organization, Mr. Giant, has a master plan - to kidnap the scientist Dr. Kohler who has been working on a new kind of a weapon. With the doctor's N-bomb, Giant could take over the entire world - unless 00 can stop him.

The plot itself has no real importance for the film. Nicart has merely spliced together various set-pieces and scenes where Agent 00 gets away from increasingly tricky situations. The downside of being so short is that villains can easily spot you just walking down the street. The upside is that their most vunerable body parts - the knees and the balls - are easily in your reach. 00 is highly trained in various martial arts. He gets to utilize a (short) katana sword at one point. But Weng Weng's most used asset is his markmanship skills. He never misses a shot, even if the gun is so big as to throw him a few feet back by gunshot impact. His most astonishing skill is to slide all over the floor and shoot the bad guys at the same time. That particular trick never gets old, and gets even funnier if you consider that there is probably an extra throwing Weng Weng every time such a shot is filmed.

The English dubbing in this (as well as in other Weng Weng films too) is pretty great too. In the documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed the translator even admitted of making up the dialogue as he went along. Thus we get such gems as the exposition the sinister Mr. Kaiser gives to his men:
"The forces of good are our sworn enemy, and I repeat, they must be exterminated. And I mean lethally!"

Or the exchange between Weng Weng and one of the 00-girls in the film:
"You're such a little guy, though. Very petite, like a potato."
"Ah, let's go."

Weng Weng is quite the ladies' man in his movies. He's a man of few words, but has cool disco-dancing skills. A running joke in Agent 00 films is that he constantly gets into a chase scene in a hotel and ends up in a room where a naked girl is sleeping. Weng Weng can't ever leave her alone without sneaking a small kiss, the cheeky devil. But as to why in a hotel, the whole film looks as if it had been shot in the biggest tourist traps in Manila. Considering how dangerous the other parts of the Philippines were at that time, it was probably a wise move.

Image by Badmovies.org

A big part in any classic spy film are the gadgets and Weng Weng has the best there are at his exposal. He utilizes a radio-controllable flying hat, X-ray specs that show people without clothing and a jetpack. At the final showdown with Mr. Giant, he does have to use his wits and fists. Yet on the same island seems to also be an almost endless supply of identical henchmen, 00 disposes with lethal accuracy. The slaughter goes on and on and on.

Needless to say, this is one of my favorite films of all time.

★★★★★

D' Wild Wild Weng (1982)

Seemingly a western, D' Wild Wild Weng sees Weng Weng's character Weng and his tall friend Gordon (Max Laurel) wander around the prairies, righting wrongs like the basic western archetypes they are. They arrive in a small village that has been taken over by a group of ruthless mexican bandits, who go on brutally conquering every village in their path. Weng falls for a village girl, but as she and her father get kidnappedby ninjas and has to be rescued.

The film's hilarity begins with the fact that it's impossible to pin down where or when exactly does the story take place. The clothing and the set-up seem to belong in a western, yet there are Asian villages built from bamboo, mexican bandits, medieval monks, samurai and ninjas all running around the place. At one point Weng Weng also gets a jeep and in the end, a machine gun. So it's basically a film that could've been written by a 6-year-old. And all the better for it.

Surprisingly, Weng isn't actually the most memorable character in the film. That honor goes to the comic sidekick Lupo the Mute (Max Alvarado). He has suffered a trauma of having his family killed and his own tongue cut off. Yet although he can't speak, he really isn't a mute. He constantly gives out yelps, howls and whining as a reaction to EVERY SINGLE DISCUSSION. As he makes hopeless gestures and stupid faces, at the same time we can clearly see his tongue in his mouth. Nicart focuses on this character so much so that it all becomes increasingly hilarious. Lupo is like Chewbacca as played by a guy without a costume. Yet he also gets a big musical number in the film.

Even though the film mostly treats Weng Weng like any movie superstar playing in a western, there are plenty of brilliantly braindead exploitation traits in here, too. For instance, to add to all the other lunacy going on, the indians in the prairies are actually pygmies. The tribe of midgets has war paint on their faces and feathers on their bandanas.

The film is also as brutal as FYHO, as dozens and dozens of identical bandits get slaughtered by Weng's gatling gun and the warring indians. The end scene has to be seen to be believed with all its explosions and whatnot. The whole film is one of the best films ever made to watch with friends while getting increasingly drunk.

★ or ★★★★★

The Impossible Kid (1982)

The final film in the Agent 00 trilogy (a film called Agent 00 (1981) was apparently the second according to IMDb) goes out with a whimper rather than a bang. There are brilliant scenes here and there, but Nicart has seriously toned down his luscious exploitation storytelling. Also, from the name onwards the film is profiled by the odd decision of treating Agent 00 like an infant here and there. This is most visible when he escapes from a 20-story hotel by using a bedsheet as a parachute. he falls into a pool where a obese man picks him up and starts cuddling him: "Aren't you a pretty boy!" Yet Weng Weng is no child and witnesses this by kissing naked women here and there and of course bagging the female lead in the end. However, this is all done very innocently, unlike in FYHO, where there were serious sexual undertones and Weng Weng even took off his shirt.

The film benefits of having a real Bond-like song instead of just ripping the real ones off by producing similar tunes. It's notable that the song calls Weng Weng by his actor name, not by his character name of Agent 00. The agency he works for is here identified as being Interpol, and its Manila branch. 00 is on pursuit of a notorious smuggler called Mr. X this time around. X, who takes his costume advices from the Ku Klux Klan, has a sinister pedant of holding the entire Philippines for ransom. With what isn't exactly clear as he doesn't actually have an N-bomb. Weng Weng goes around trying to find out the true identity of X. This search leads to some surreal scenes, like when very evil-seeming Don Simeon (Romy Diaz) throws a cobra at him and then claims he couldn't possibly be the villain.

So, the logic in the film isn't that much better than with the previous films, but the wonderfully mad set-pieces are all too rare. There's 00's jump across a huge gorge on his mini-motorcycle that would make Homer Simpson proud. Weng Weng also gets to show off his martial arts skills in a great gym fight scene where he takes out five big men and a woman with his slick kung fu style.

Image from 10kbullets.com.

But all in all, Weng isn't as merciless towards villains as he used to be anymore. There isn't that many kills, Weng preferring to arrest them according to protocol. But by the end he does blow up a boat holding a great number of bad guys.

★★★

Sadly, the end credits promise another Agent 00 adventure, License Expired, which was never made. Weng Weng died in 1992 aged 34. He had heart problems related to his primordial dwarfism. He will be sorely missed and each of his films are hugely appreciated at least by me.

Weng Weng Weng Weng 2 ft. 9'/ He'll kick you in the nutsack from behind