The Tattoo Connection (1978)

The Tattoo Connection (1978)
AKA: Black Belt Jones 2; Black Belt Jones 2: The Tattoo Connection; Conexão Hong Kong
Chinese Title: 鱷魚頭黑煞星
Translation: Crocodile Head, Black Fiend

Starring: Jim Kelly, Dorian Tan Tao-Liang, Chen Sing, Kong Do, Bolo Yeung, Norman Wingrove, Cheung Fu-Hung, Lee Hoi-Gei, Cheng Suk-Ying
Director: Lee Tso-Nam
Action Director: Leung Siu-Lung (Bruce Liang)

This Review is dedicated to the memory of Jim Kelly (May 5, 1946 – June 29, 2013)

It was only natural that I should watch and review a Jim Kelly film following his tragic passing only a week ago. After all, the man was once the gold standard for horrible martial arts films back when I was a fledgling movie reviewer hanging out at Geocities. Indeed, for many years the movie Hot Potato was used as a point of reference for movie scores (i.e. how many times better than Hot Potato was the film in question). It was not a reliable way of judging movies, but it got the job done until I abandoned it in 2006. When my site was resurrected as a Cold Fusion Video affiliate in 2009, I switched over to the 5 Animals rating system, which felt more in line with the subject matter.

Strangely enough, I never actually reviewed a Jim Kelly during my tenure as a movie reviewer with his own ramshackle site/blog/webpage. Our very own Lyz once asked me if I would ever review Hot Potato, considering its use in my ratings system, but by that time, I was living in Brazil and lacked the financial resources to acquire it. Money was tight at the time, and if I were to spend money on an international film purchase, it sure as hell wouldn't be on Hot Potato. I could have reviewed Black Belt Jones a few years back had I not been teaching English still and thus have to wake up early on Saturday morning. To this day, I still haven't watched all of that film. Shame on me, I know.

I initially hadn't thought of watching this film now, but when I started watching obscure Lau Kar-Leung mercenary jobs in memorial to good ol' Pops, I figured I should review a Jim Kelly film, too. To neglect to do so would be very hypocritical of me on my part. Naturally, my choices were fairly limited. There's not a whole lot that I could write about Enter the Dragon that hasn't been written yet yet. Purchasing Black Belt Jones was a possibility, but I figured it would take to long to arrive at the house for me to review and still be relevant for the man's cause. I could find Black Samurai on the internet, but who really wants to watch that? So, I went for the next best (and easily-available choice), The Tattoo Connection.

We open with mob enforcer Dong Ho (Dorian Tan Tao-Liang, aka "The Flashlegs") entering a rival's territory, demanding that they hand over his boss's ex-account, a huge fellow named Fat Dog (Cheung Fu-Hung). Apparently Fat Dog had embezzled some money from Mr. Lu (Cheng Sing of Shaolin Plot) before leaving his employment. The rival gang is unwilling to give Fat Dog up, but after a blistering display of Dong's kicking prowess, they change their minds. We're then treated to a James Bondian credits sequence with some 70s band singing a disco track about diamonds being a girl's best friend. When we meet up with Dong and Fat Dog again, the former is pleading with his boss to spare the latter's life and break his arm instead. Mr. Lu relents.

We then cut to a scruffy-looking Caucasian male getting off a plane in Hong Kong. He gets into a funny-looking limo of sorts and is being taken to a secret place. Said man, George (Norman Wingrove), is a bit nervous to get to his destination as quick as possible, probably due to the contents of the suitcase handcuffed to him. Suddenly, truck pulls up in front of his car and a bunch of Lu's men pour out and start beating George and his colleagues with axes and hammers. They ultimately take the suitcase and get away.

Enter stock footage of San Francisco. There we learn that the suitcase contained a very expensive diamond. The Board of Directors of the company that insured the diamond mention that the stone is worth a good three million dollars, and that if it isn't retrieved in a week, they'll have to pay for it, which might make their company go broke. One of the directors brings in an ex-CIA agent named Lucas (Jim Kelly, who'll spend most of the film being called "Black Man" or "That Black Guy"), who has lots of work experience in the Far East. "I'm like the black Six-Million-Dollar Man," says Lucas when he meets the Board.

Lucas hooks up with George after arriving in Hong Kong. The club they go to on Lucas' first night is the place of employment of a hostess named Louisa (Cheng Suk-Ying, Dreams of Eroticism and Innocent Lust), who happens to be the girlfriend of a man who helped steal cars for the heist. Louisa, who wants the 100-grand reward for information leading to the diamond's retrieval, tells Lucas to talk to her boyfriend. Lucas goes to visit the boyfriend, who takes him out to the lumberyard where he had stashed the cars following the heist. A short fight and car chase ensue, with Lucas making it out alive and the boyfriend...well...not.

After the thug's body is pulled from the harbor, Lucas notices a peculiar eagle tattoo on the dead man's bicep. After checking out all tattoo parlours in town, Lucas finds himself at a Japanese-run tattoo parlour that looks like it caters to the local branch of the Yakuza (should they exist in any form in Hong Kong), not to mention naked women with tattoos on their breasts. The owner of the joint reluctantly points Lucas in the direction of the nightclub that Mr. Lu frequents. Lucas goes and falls for one of the strippers, Nana (Lee Hoi-Gei, Bruce and the Iron Finger), who just happens to Dong Ho's girlfriend (sort of). Nana turns down Lucas's advances on the grounds that a) she doesn't know him and b) he's black. Mr. Lu's men then corner him in an alley outside the club and proceed to get their arses kicked, except for Dong Ho, who's every bit Lucas's equal in the fighting department.

The next day Lucas receives a phone call from Fat Dog, who wants to give Lucas some information in exchange for fifty grand, half of the value of the reward money established by the insurance company. Their first meeting yields no results since Lucas doesn't have the money on him, but they schedule a second meeting the next day. Fat Dog doesn't make it, since a pair of Lu's enforcers (Kong Do and Bolo Yeung) kill him right after his initial encounter with Lucas. Lucas figures out that George is in on heist and is leaking information about Lucas's encounters to Lu at every turn. Before Lucas can pump George for information, Lu has him killed, too.

By this time, Mr. Lu just wants to be rid of Lucas, so he has Nana try to poison him. Lucas is smart enough to see through Nana's sudden flirting and reverses the situation. It doesn't take long for Lucas to find out where Lu is hiding. And then there's Dong Ho, who's not very happy about what Lu is doing to his woman...

The Tattoo Connection is easily the sleaziest film I've seen in a very long time. A Cold Fusion-style total list would yield a breast count of 14, which is almost to say that nearly every woman that shows up in the movie will doff her duds at some point. There isn't much titillation in these scenes, since all but one of the characters getting naked are being exploited in some way or another, such as the scene where an old jeweler is examining a prostitute's assets with his eye loupe. The movie is exceptionally misogynistic in how it treats Lee Hoi-Gei. There's a sequence midway through where she's essentially raped by Chen Sing, following another uncomfortable scene in which Tan Tao-Liang's antihero character slaps her around for being a whore, as if getting raped was her fault. Later on, she tries to kill Jim Kelly by slipping him a super Viagra drug and screwing him to death, only to take the drug herself and start stripping for him (with "funky" music playing in the background, of course). And just to make things even worse, she exits the movie via a rather brutal beating given to her by Chen Sing at the start of the climax.

The movie needed to focus on the action rather than the female exploitation. After an excellent display of Tan Tao-Liang's kicking skills, the action more or less slows down until the last 15 minutes, when Lucas storms Mr. Lu's private ship. There are a few small kerfuffles here and there, but they're never enough to make the film feel less slow that it really is. Former Bruce Lee imitator Bruce Liang handles the choreography, although he tends to make it a little too mannered and structured for a film set in the modern day. That sort of fighting is fine for period pieces, but it's jarring in more modern settings. Tan Tao-Liang actually gets one of his better showcases in his fights and easily the film's highlight.

Jim Kelly apparently choreographed his own fights, which are a lot simpler and Bruce Lee-esque in execution. His kempo skills are actually a nice complement to Tan's kicking, since kempo features some complex handwork that looks good on screen (just watch Jeff Speakman's The Perfect Weapon). His bell-bottoms interfere with some of his kicks, and he doesn't cut loose until the end, but Kelly's fights are more than adequate. Thankfully, we get two fights between him and Dorian Tan, with both skirmishes showing the fighters to be evenly matched. I have to point out that Jim Kelly is almost two heads taller than main villain Chen Sing, so it almost looks like he's kicking around a dwarf (albeit a dwarf who has a mean Tiger Claw technique) at the climax.

Apparently the film fared well enough that a follow-up was considered. Unfortunately, according to some sources, Jim Kelly didn't get along very well with the crew, especially Bruce Liang and Dorian Tan. Kelly apparently had a case of Steven Seagalitis and insisted that his character be more or less invincible in the film's fights. He also didn't like to be hit by the actors, but didn't mind hitting them himself while filming. 'Tis a shame, since Kelly once wrote on MySpace that this film gave him the best showcase for his physical talents. Had they made another film with the same level of choreography, but with more action and less misogyny, it might've surpassed Black Belt Jones and Enter the Dragon as his best work.