Thursday, March 27, 2008

Bruce Lee Films

By gender and age, I've been genetically and culturally determined to like Bruce Lee movies. Can't help it - genes and breeding make me want to see talented beat-downs with absurd sound-effects.

Sadly, Lee died after making 1 American movie, the iconic "Enter the Dragon" (which is must seeing for anybody who wants to understand Kung Fu references afterward; it's the martial arts cognate to Planet of the Apes). If you don't understand why a movie/story hero needs to go to a distant island to compete in a tournament in front of a disfigured mastermind (e.g. Mortal Kombat, or The Quest (1996), or Balls of Fury, or this awesome Onion article, and many others [has someone made a list?]) see the movie. Also it allows you to understand spoof that makes the majority of Kentucky Fried Movie.

OK, all that said, I've been searching Netflix for other Bruce Lee films. Sadly, it appears that any non-American movie he made doesn't match the quality of EtD. I rented Fists of Fury (note, there's a whole weirdness about Chinese titles - which were largely interchangeable - and how they were translated, as it is with this film, but whatever) and it's pretty bad.

How bad? Well see this listed "goof" on the IMDB page. I'm not making this goof up, and it's probably the best goof I've ever read: Tang shan da xiong (1971) - Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: When the guard dogs leap at Cheng, they are obviously thrown.
'Obviously thrown'? Oy.

Backpost finished 2009-11-30.

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