To the scores, which are all relative to my other chop socky movie reviews. These can not be compared directly to non-chop socky films, since expectations for a punch porn film are much different than for a real movie.

Bruce's Fists of Vengeance, 1984
Script/Story: 5
Acting/Casting: 1
Action: 7
Combat Realism: 7
Humor: NA
Horror: NA
Eye Candy: 5
Fun Factor: 5
Replayability: 5
Overall: 6

Other than the acting and direction and cinematography, this was the best of the first four chop socky movies I reviewed. I realize that that sounds like a sarcastic statement, and in most cases it would be, but this is a chop socky film, and those are therefore not especially important aspects of the presentation. Sadly enough.

Otherwise, it wasn't a bad film. There was a decent plot with logical character motivations, the characters behaved in ways humans might actually behave, and the fight scenes, while not as plentiful as in some other chop socky films, were all pretty good. Better yet, they stared people who could actually fight, at least well enough to fake it on camera.

The acting though, was simply atrocious. Literally the worst I have ever seen, although it did successfully cross the "so bad it's funny" line quite a few times. The main bad guy, a young white guy who looked like one of John Travolta's guido friends in Saturday Night Fever, was astonishingly, painfully bad in his scenery-chewing excesses. Every time he spoke more than two lines he ended up scowling so hard the cords in his neck stood out, and I literally LOLed at any number of his scenes.

There was also a faux-romance between a very short martial arts master good guy and a much taller, semi-hot female martial artist, and their oil and water chemistry was a wonder to behold. Watching them walk together through the public parks of Manila (the whole film was shot in the Philippines, largely in public places because hey, it's free to film there) reminded me of a bad episode of Blind Date, and their three onscreen kisses were like a hostage situation, with the tiny little martial arts guy simply seizing the girl by the back of her neck and mashing his lips into hers. I couldn't say which one was less comfortable with their part, but neither looked very happy to be there.

I seldom pay much attention to the acting in chop socky films, since no one expects martial artists to be able to act, but it was especially dreadful in this movie. The protracted, dramatic death scene of one good guy, while the other good guy holds him and relentlessly asks "Where's the book?" would have been the worst acting in any film but this one.

Honestly, if all movies were like this, Steven Segal and his one facial expression (which hovers somewhere between gas pain and "where did I leave my car keys?") would own a shelf of academy awards.

Production Values

Not good, but not horrible. The dubbing was awful, as was the English voice talent, and there were numerous places where the film stock went darker or lighter, or showed red and orange spots, but it was mostly in focus, and the martial arts sound effects were more or less in synch.

The real problems in this area were with the original film, since the direction and photography were horrendous. As bad as the acting. There must be half a dozen scenes where we spend at least 10 or 20 seconds looking at empty stairways after someone walks up or down them, and as many other shots of cars driving up to buildings, people walking through doors and out of sight, people dialing telephones, and so on. The film making is breathtaking in its incompetence.

They even do some fast forward and slow motion scenes in the later fights, but none of these are good ideas. Several shots of characters doing the requisite "whip nunchakus around head and over shoulders and under arms for ten seconds while opponent watches in mute horror" were obviously sped up, and in the final fight scene there are a couple of moves shown from two angles, the first at full speed, the replay in slow motion.  Unfortunately, the slow motion second angle only makes more obvious how completely all of the punches and kicks are actually missing the target; I'm talking WWE style.  But hey, at least they tried.

Story

As the title demonstrates, this is yet another 70s martial arts film seeking to live off the name of Bruce Lee. So we've got two main good guy characters, both of whom wear Bruce Lee style hair (as do several of the bad guys), while lacking any trace of his personal charisma. They can both fight well enough, and do all sorts of high kicks competently, but damn they can't act. And the bad guys are even worse.

Anyway, one Chinese guy is a martial arts instructor in Manila. His friend comes to visit him and compete in some sort of martial arts tournament, and the friend brings along a secret book, written by Bruce Lee and detailing his fighting secrets. Guy #1 has studied it for a decade, and is now a super fighter thanks to it. He shares it with his friend, some white crime boss martial artist bad guy finds out about the book, and they spend the rest of the film trying to get it from the good guys.

Eventually guy #1 gets shot dead, the bad guys get the book, and Bruce, good guy #2, heads off to the bad guy's palatial estate with his fists of vengeance. Hence the title, I guess.

There are plenty of ridiculous plot issues along the way, of course, but you almost expect those. My favorite was then guy #1 was attacked in his hotel 3 or 4 times, beating up mobs of bad guys each time. He even let them into his room twice, after they knocked politely, the second time leaving the room full of unconscious bad guys, who were conveniently all gone when he returned. Maid service?

The bad guys finally send someone with a gun, who uses his weapon to kidnap good guy #1 and take him to the bad guy's estate. They tie him up there and leave him alone so he can do flexible contortionist stuff to escape the ropes, and he does, knocks a few guards out, and goes... right back to his hotel room, where he falls asleep.  Better yet, the bad guys follow him there, show up a bit later, and after they knock and he lets them in, again, he starts to beat up the boss and then gets shot, setting up the worst "gasping last words" scene in the history of cinema.

Tip for the day; when the bad guys have already attacked you at your hotel half a dozen times, and kidnapped you at gunpoint, don't go right back to the same hotel and the same room once you escape them, and certainly don't answer the door and let them in when they come knocking later that night.

Martial Arts

The only reason this one got a decent score, and while the combat is never great, all of the principle actors in this one are pretty good fighters. If they were as good at fighting as they were bad at acting, we wouldn't miss the real Bruce Lee, but they're at least pretty decent, and the fight scenes are staged with acceptable moves.

The fighting is far too polite; no one ever does any breaks or joint locks or pressure points or aims for any really vulnerable spots like the eyes, but they hit pretty hard and they are very good at kicking. Good guy #2 has some excellent kicks; his crescent kick especially is like lightning, and while his driving side kick, ala Bruce Lee, isn't up to snuff, he isn't horrible at it, and he's quite light and quick on his feet and has good hand speed. Good guy #1 is better, all around, and none of the bad guys embarrass themselves either.

You'd think that was standard in these films, but it's really not. Quite often it's blatantly obvious that the lead can't fight for crap, or at least not as well as the bad guys he's beating up, and worse are those movies where the head bad guy, usually an evil white dude, can't fight at all, and yet we've got to pretend he's super scary and powerful.  The evil white guy can at least fight in this one, and it makes for a fairly-even final battle, though there's never any doubt who will win, given the type of film this is.

I wouldn't go so far as to say you could learn martial arts moves or techniques watching this movie, but sitting through it isn't painful, or a complete waste of time. I actually found myself wanting to try a few of the moves and combos they do, though all of them would be much more useful against a heavy bag, or a shadow, than a real person. 

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