{"id":4329,"date":"2024-10-05T19:07:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T19:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4329"},"modified":"2024-10-12T20:37:48","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T20:37:48","slug":"bruce-lee-fights-back-from-the-grave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/05\/bruce-lee-fights-back-from-the-grave\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave <\/strong>(1976)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aquarius Releasing\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 84 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong martial arts violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Doo Yong Lee\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Chee Do Hong\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Wong Kuei Yen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Chang-Bok Ahn\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: August 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Bruce K.L. Lea, Deborah Chaplin, Anthony Bronson, Steve Mak, Jack Houston, Charlie Chow, Philip Kennedy, Jimmy Sato, Su-Cheon Bae, Mun-Ju Kim, Jang Lee Hwang, Sho Kosugi.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: NO STARS!!!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The best thing about this chop-socky mess is the title Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave<\/strong> and it\u2019s a complete lie. The movie has absolutely NOTHING to do with late martial arts legend. There\u2019s nothing supernatural in it either. The opening sequence in which Lee jumps out of his grave after lightning strikes was filmed later for the American release. It was tacked onto this incredibly bad South Korean kung fu flick about a young man seeking vengeance against the men that murdered his brother. The hero is played by an actor identified in the credits as \u201cBruce K.L. Lea\u201d (his real name is Jun Chong). He\u2019s not possessed by Lee. He doesn\u2019t possess Lee\u2019s skills. He doesn\u2019t even resemble Lee. This is Bruceploitation at its very worst.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot itself is a perfectly functional one. It\u2019s driven many martial arts flicks. Usually, it\u2019s a student avenging his master in order to restore honor, but family works too. That brings us to the plot of Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave<\/strong>. In it, a guy named Wong Han (Lea) comes to L.A. at his brother\u2019s request only to discover he\u2019s too late. He\u2019s dead, an apparent suicide brought on by a lawsuit against his karate school that ruined him financially. Wong doesn\u2019t believe it; there\u2019s no way his brother would kill himself. He decides to look into it himself. He heads off in the wilds of L.A. with a box containing his brother\u2019s ashes strapped around his neck.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In a plot development that simply defies logic, the young waitress Susan (Chaplin, Hard to Die) Wong saves from an attempted rape knew his brother and saw something that might be helpful. Of all the parking lots in L.A., he just happens to be in that one at the exact right time. Of all the women in L.A., it\u2019s Susan that he saves. Divine intervention or screenwriter machination, you decide.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Susan tells Wong about the lawsuit and the five men he had a confrontation with shortly before his death. It turns out his brother was involved with a drug ring. That means he was actually murdered. Susan agrees to help Wong find all responsible parties so he can even the score. All the while, they\u2019re followed around by a mysterious figure in a black hat only seen in silhouette. Gee, who it could be? I wonder.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m not dense, na\u00efve or stupid. I know kung fu movies aren\u2019t the highest form of entertainment. Artistic merits aren\u2019t exactly a priority. They exist for one reason only, the fight scenes. The more kung fu, the better. Everything else is secondary (if that) to kung fu fighting. That\u2019s a good place to start in talking about Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave<\/strong>. While plentiful, it\u2019s sloppily choreographed and poorly edited. There are scenes when blows or kicks miss the intended target by inches yet there\u2019s still a sound effect like contact was made. Did the makers really think we wouldn\u2019t spot this? Either way, the fight scenes aren\u2019t even exciting. It\u2019s more like watching a martial arts exhibition at a school gymnasium. Even a brief uncredited appearance by Sho Kosugi (Revenge of the Ninja) as a sword-wielding assassin doesn\u2019t help matters any. This may be the movie\u2019s only point of interest.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Of all the things not to care about in a kung fu movie, the acting is at the bottom of the list. The makers aren\u2019t looking for great thespians, they want good fighters. I think we already covered the second part so let\u2019s talk about the first. The actors we see on the screen are terrible; the actors we don\u2019t see are worse. I\u2019m referring, of course, to the ones providing the bad English dubbing. I think it may only be one guy voicing all the male characters. They all sound exactly alike. Also, every single line of dialogue sounds like a poor imitation of John Wayne. I kept waiting for Wong to call somebody \u201cpilgrim\u201d. Susan, the only significant female character, doesn\u2019t get off any easier. Forget that the dubbed voice isn\u2019t a match. It doesn\u2019t even make sense to dub her lines since she\u2019s American.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t know if the makers of Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave<\/strong> cut stuff out for the American release or simply didn\u2019t film it, but pieces of the story seem to be missing. For example, the guy who bails Wong out of jail after he\u2019s arrested at his brother\u2019s studio tries to hire him to find a missing girl. Wong turns him down and goes off on his own. We never find out who he wants to find or why. Aside from a few brief appearances on the sidelines, we don\u2019t see this guy again. The movie never comes back to this plot thread. That\u2019s sloppy even for a cheap martial arts flick.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s easier to say Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave<\/strong> is badly made and leave it at that. It\u2019s bad filmmaking, plain and simple. I don\u2019t ask for much from cheap kung fu flicks, especially ones in the Bruceploitation canon, just give me a lot of cool fight scenes. It doesn\u2019t even deliver on this level. It\u2019s a failure every which way and then some.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave (1976)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aquarius Releasing\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 84 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong martial arts violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Doo Yong Lee\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Chee Do Hong\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Wong Kuei Yen\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Chang-Bok Ahn\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: August 1979 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Bruce K.L. Lea, Deborah Chaplin, Anthony Bronson, Steve Mak, Jack Houston, Charlie Chow, Philip […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-this-sucks-so-bad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Bruce-Lee-Fights-Back-from-.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4329"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4609,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions\/4609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}