Bruce Strikes Back (1982)

Bruce Strikes Back (1982)
Aka Ninja Strikes Back; Eye of the Dragon; Bruce Le Fights Back
Chinese Title: 凶終
Translation: Fierce End

 

Starring: Bruce Le, Hwang Jang Lee, Chick Norris, Harold Sakata, Casanova Wong, Bolo Yeung, Andre Koob
Director: Bruce Le, Joseph Velasco
Action Director: Bruce Le

I’m curious as to how Brucesploitation front-man Bruce Le (aka Huang Kin-Lung, a Burmese-born Chinese) hooked up with Euro-exploitation producer Dick Randall. Randall is the same guy who unleashed the violent and sleazy slasher movie Pieces onto an unsuspecting public, even having the moxie to compare it to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He also gave us the Christmas-themed slasher Don’t Open til Christmas, one of the more vicious entries in the genre. Together, Le and Randall gave us some of the sleaziest, most salacious martial arts movies ever filmed. Bruce Strikes Back appears to be the last example of this match made in…er…somewhere.

After a pointless opening establishing Bruce Le’s (who plays a guy named “Bruce”) fighting credentials by beating up a bunch of thugs in a gambling den, we learn that he’s a small-time criminal working for some white guy in Italy, who spends the entire movie at the pool with no less than two topless girls around him at any given moment. He has an Italian girlfriend and his partner-in-crime is Wang Fei, played by Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee. During a deal-gone-wrong, Le takes a bullet and is unable to escape, getting brought in by the police instead. Upon his release, Le decides to go straight and leave his past behind him.

Yeah, like that always works.

You see, his former boss is upset that the American ambassador won’t work with him, and decides to kidnap his daughter to help persuade him. He wants Le involved with the job, while Le just wants to marry his girlfriend and spend their days going to nude beaches, rubbing suntan lotion on the backs of her and her busty friend. Can’t say that I blame him. When Le turns down the job, boss man has Wang Fei kick the stuffing out of Le, putting him in the hospital. He’s visited by two cops (Andre Koob and Corliss Randall, whose stage name is “Chick Norris”), who ask him to help them find the those responsible for Sophie’s (the ambassador’s daughter) kidnapping.

Bruce and Andre go to Paris, where they visit porn shoots and whatnot looking for suspects. They also beat people up and try to drown people in urinals in order to get people to spill the beans. In the end, they find out the Sophie has been taken to Macao, where’s she’s being held captive by a gang of ninja, led by Oddjob himself, Harold Sakata (complete with steel-brimmed bowler hat).  Bruce initially tells Andre that it’s the end of the line for him, but a sniper at a nude beach changes Bruce’s fate and makes him determined to bring down his former boss’s entire operation.

I’m pretty sure that outside of the fighting, people are going to most notice how much female skin is on display here. I counted at least eleven breasts on display from six actresses (the two girls at the pool, Bruce’s girlfiend and her friend, Sophie—who spends most of her captivity topless, and some random girl who’s making out with a suspect in Paris), plus a few bare rears. Now, about that random girl in mentioned in parentheses:  from the position of her on the bed and the placement of the camera, I can only surmise that French women circa 1982 had very different standards for intimate hygiene than we in the Western Hemisphere have, or she was wearing the Merkin to End All Merkins. Speaking of merkins, who thought it a good idea to glue one to the small of Bolo Yeung’s back to make him look intimidating? The only kung fu movie I’ve seen so far that’s sleazier than this film is Tatoo Connection, which almost makes me  want to take a shower even thinking about it. At least Bruce Strikes Back doesn’t have the nominal hero berating his girlfriend for getting raped, as if it were her fault she couldn’t beat Chen Sing in a fight.

Speaking of beating people in a fight, let’s talk about the action. First and foremost, let me discuss Bruce Le. Mr. Huang Kin Lung is not a bootmaster, although I kind of think he could’ve been one had he aspired to such title…and were a better action director to boot. His specialty is hung gar and Bruce Lee imitating, on which he holds his own. But his action direction is very same-y and can get old after a few fights. I mean, Bruce Lee fights are infinitely more rewatchable than Le’s, and I was wondering why (especially as I watched Way of the Dragon this week as well). I think there are two factors at play. The first is the camera work.

While the films of his I’ve seen are devoid of shaky cam, quick cuts, and other things that can ruin a fight, the camera is often placed in a way that you can’t see the entire move being performed. It’s far enough from the performers that you can see everything, but it might be positioned so that it’s filming the kicker from behind, so you don’t see enough of the kick itself to appreciate it. The other problem is that his moves are performed too fast. I remember a Donnie Yen interview where he talked about his experience on Drunken Tai Chi, learning that when Yuen Woo-Ping told him to move faster, it wasn’t real world faster, but on-camera faster, where you adjust the speed so the move doesn’t look like a blur, but still comes across as fast. Too many of Le’s moves are performed at real world speed, instead of on-camera speed, and it makes the fights less interesting.

And what about the kicking? Well, we have two superkickers in the cast. Casanova Wong has a cameo as Le’s brother during the Macao sequence, and gets to fight some ninja during a couple of fight scenes. He also fights Bolo Yeung, whom he fends off with some multiple sidekicks, which have some major height, speed and look cool because he never lowers his leg as he does them. He doesn’t quite go all tornado on his opponents, but he brings more vitality to his fights than Le does.

Even better is Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee, who plays the main opponent.  He gets two short fights early on, plus a scene where he executes a stool pigeon by performing his patented triple no-shadow kick. In his first fight, he does a nice bit where he jumps on top of a car, slides across, and kicks a guy on the other side in the face. It’s performed smoothly as if it were one long, skillful movement. Then we get the finale, where he faces of with Le in the Colosseum. Hwang gets the upper hand with his Eagle Claw, necessary to leave scratches all over Bruce Le like his counterpart in Enter the Dragon. Bruce Le then whips out the Bruce Le imitation skills, which allow him to get even out the odds. Hwang then goes buck with the kicks, and we get another exhibition of his no-shadow kick and the bit where he works Le’s face back and forth with a combination of roundhouse/heel kicks without lowering his leg. The fight ends with the goofiest X-Ray vision committed to celluloid, which wouldn’t feel out of place in that episode of Looney Tunes where Bugs Bunny fights that huge boxer.

In the end, the film should satisfy most fans of both Brucesploitation and Legendary Superkicker Hwang Jang Lee. Anyone who ever watched Goldfinger and wondered how Oddjob would fare against the Little Dragon should enjoy their brief skirmish as well. Exploitation fans will get a kick out of all the nudity on display. It’s not art but…it’s not art.