Tweet
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: June 25th, 2024.
Director: Godfrey Ho/Kim Shi-Hyeon/Chan Chue/Yang Yang
Cast: Dragon Lee, John Liu, Bolo Yeung, Phillip Ko, Carter Wong, Lo Lieh, Bruce Le, Tong Lung, Yen Chung
Year: 1979/1980/1976/1974
Purchase From Amazon
The Game Of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1 – Movie Review:
Severin Films has opted to peel back the layers of one of the strangest cult movie movements in the history of cinema with their release of The Game Of Clones – Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1, another one of the label’s massive boxed set editions, this time dedicated to the strange films made to cash-on on the success and subsequent passing of the one and only Bruce Lee.
For the first part of our coverage, click here.
For the second part of our coverage, click here.
For the third part of our coverage, click here.
Here’s the fourth and final part of our coverage of this titan of a boxed set.
Disc Seven – The Dragon, The Hero / Rage Of The Dragon:
Directed by the infamous Godfrey Ho, king of the cut and paste ninja movie and the scourge of Richard Harrison's career, 1979's The Dragon, The Hero, also known as Dragon On Fire, stars a Taiwanese martial arts actor named John Liu as an government agent named Tu Wu Shen. He makes his way undercover into a gang of antiquities blackmarketeers led by a medically challenged eunuch in a wheelchair named Tien Hao (Chan Lau) who once had his dick bitten off by an angry dog when trying to rape a woman. Anyway, Shen is hoping to stop Hao and his gang from exporting valuable artifacts. Hao's got a side hustle going on as well, in that he puts on contests where anyone who can beat a fighter that he chooses can win a cold, hard twenty dollars in cash.
And this is is how Shen makes his way into the gang. When he gets work of this, he decides he'll enter the contest and not just fight one of Hao's combatants, but all three of them (one of them is, obviously, Bolo Yeung, who is full-on hairy King Kong mode in this movie!) - and of course, he kicks the crap out of all three guys using his genuinely impressive face-kicking skills. After winning the bout, he opts out of the cash prize and instead tells Hao he wants a job. Realizing just how many faces Shen can kick for him, Hao is only too happy to give him a spot with his crew.
Eventually, Shen teams up with a guy named Tang (Tino Wong) to take down a bunch of bad guys lead by a a guy named Ma Ti (Phillip Ko), who uses an hour glass to decide when he should unload a can of whup-ass on people he doesn’t like and who is the bodyguard of Hao. Meanwhile, a guy named Ah Tien (Dragon Lee, who is featured in most of the promo art for the movie but really only has a minor role in this one)a friend of Tang’s, is wandering fighting people in a subplot that never really connects to the main storyline at all. Also, Chiang Kam, the token fat guy from a bunch of late seventies and early eighties Golden Harvest movies, shows up here, all while Hao seems to go more and more insane leading up to a seriously awesome conclusion that you won’t see coming.
While Godfrey Ho has definitely made crazier films than this one, The Dragon, The Hero still offers up random supernatural elements, dick biting, stolen music, insane and inane dialogue, wonderfully horrific dubbing and some genuinely solid action set pieces and martial arts battles. The Bruceploitation elements in this one are definitely dialed down, as Dragon Lee really isn’t in the film all that much and honestly doesn’t serve much of a purpose here, but don’t let that dissuade you as this movie is truly a whole lot of ridiculous fun.
John Liu and Tino Wong are fine as the good guys, with Liu kicking everyone in the face as often as possible and doing a damn fine job of it, but it’s Chan Lau and Phillip Ko as the bad guys who really steal the show here. It’s got Godfrey Ho’s inimitable stamp all over it and it isn’t a movie that you’ll soon forget.
Up next is 1980’s Rage Of The Dragon, also known as Mission For The Dragon, a South Korean production directed by Kim Shi-Hyeon (and, according to the extras, not Godfrey Ho, as is often claimed). The film stars Dragon Lee as Lei Lung, the son of an antiquities dealer who winds up murdered by a masked, villainous, tomb-raiding bandit alongside the father of an angry young man named Wong Kwok (Martin Chui) who loves nothing more than fighting people. Kwok holds Lung responsible for this for reasons that never make much sense, and wants to get revenge. Lung, a martial arts master, just wants to live a peaceful live and hang out with his pal, an annoying guy with a giant wart covering his nose.
Meanwhile, a guy named Master Kwan (Carter Wong) enters the scene hoping to get his hands on one of the pieces that seems to have disappeared during the incident. As time goes on, of course, Lung and Kwok come to realize that Kwan is the one that was behind what happened to their fathers (and not only that, he's sensitive to light - a weakness that can be exploited!), at which point they decide to put aside their differences and team up to take him down once and for all.
With lots of different animal styles on display in this one, Rage Of The Dragon offers martial arts fans quite a bit of variety in the fight scenes, as each of the main characters has his own technique that he uses throughout the film. Yeah, the main plot is fairly predictable and we know right away that Carter Wong isn’t the nice guy he appears to be and that he is, in fact, the man behind all of the bad things that seem to be happening in town, but the movie is paced pretty nicely and features a lot of really well choreographed fight scenes.
Highlighted by the finale in which Dragon Lee wears a vest covered in mirrored tiles and accented by some of the most ridiculous English dubbing you’re ever going to hear (even by the already ridiculous standards of martial arts dubbing, this one is insane!), the movie also works as a showcase for Dragon Lee’s ass kicking abilities. He handles himself really well in each and every one of the fight scenes in this film, and while he’s definitely doing some ‘Bruceing’ here, he brings enough of his own style into the movie to make it stand out a bit.
Disc Eight – The Big Boss Part II / The Black Dragon Vs. The Yellow Tiger:
Note that this eighth disc is a bonus disc exclusive to editions purchased directly from the SEverin Films website.
The Big Boss II, directed by Chan Chue (who was Second Unit Director and played the foreman at the ice house in the original movie) and released in 1976, opens with Cheng Chiu On (Bruce Lee) and The Boss (Han Ying-Chieh) fighting, as they did at the end of the original The Big Boss. From here, Lee mostly disappears and is replaced by Bruce Le. The cops arrive and Cheng is taken to prison for killing The Big Boss. Here, he sits in a cell with a drawing of a man's face on the wall behind him. This face is Cheng's enemy and he wants revenge against him - but he's in jail, so it isn't happening any time soon.
Cheng, however, does get a visit from his cousin, Cheng Chao-Chun (Lo Lieh), who is ok with helping him out and getting revenge against the man who killed their father. From here, the movie mostly revolves around Lo Lieh's character as he heads into a casino and fights a bunch of guys only to score with a hot chick (Thai actress Preeya Rongernaug) and then wind up trying to find some stolen gold. Soon enough, he’s got a job working at a very familiar looking ice factory and he'll have to fight an alligator and deal with a lot of random explosions before getting into a really long but well-choreographed fight with Michael Chan Wai-Man, leading to an interesting and amusing finale where Cheng Chao-Chun fights his way up a building, taking on different opponents on each floor, Game Of Death style. Also, snakes!
This one does make use of what looks like some of the original locations used in the first The Big Boss, as well as some stolen music, and it sort of works as a sequel to The Big Boss in that it sort of continues the story from that movie. How does it shape up? It’s fairly entertaining, especially if you’re a fan of Lo Lieh, who was omnipresent in countless Shaw Brothers films throughout the seventies and eighties. Lo Lieh handles himself well in the fight scenes, using his own style rather than trying to ape Bruce Lee’s moves and swagger. The plot gets a bit convoluted in spots and characters are introduced and then disappear here and there, but overall, it’s a genuine treat to get to see a film that has been damn near impossible to track down for decades (this would appear to be its first ever official home video release, though supposedly it did get a bootleg VHS release years back, one that surprisingly never made it to grey-market DVD-R or other forms of bootleg distribution).
Note to be confused with Big Boss 2, which starred Dragon Lee (and was released the Video Asia release titled Dragon 4-Pack where it was bundled with The Clones Of Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee's Fist of Vengeance and Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu), this one does take a little while to hit its stride but once it does, we get psychedelic sex scene, Hendrix guitar licks, a killer fight in a night club accompanied by a piano player – so it delivers enough random weirdness to work, even if you might find yourself reaching for the fast forward button on your remote during the first half hour or so.
The Black Dragon Vs. The Yellow Tiger, also known as The Growling Tiger, was directed by Yang Yang and released in 1974. A kinda-sorta follow up to Way Of The Dragon, this Taiwanese production stars Tong Lung (who looks more like Sonny Chiba than Bruce Lee!), or Bruce Lung if you prefer, as Tang (Lee's character from Way Of The Dragon). He's run afoul of a chubby gangster type with an affinity for cigars and cocktails, who wants him dead because of what happened in the earlier film.
Our heavy sends out various thugs to track down and eliminate Tang, but they can't find him and instead wind up getting beaten up a lot by his father and his brother. Eventually the gangster guy wises up to the fact that his henchmen suck at this, so he hires a group of assassins, one of whom is an Asian guy with a Hitler moustache, to really give Tang what for. Also a Santo-esque masked wrestler shows up, there’s lots of gratuitous slow-motion, some Playboy Magazine product placement,
As the movie, which is light on plot but heavy on fun fight scenes, moves towards its finish, Tang, not surprisingly at this point, winds up having to make his way up a few flights of stairs to fight people on different levels of a pagoda tower, one of whom may supposed to be Chuck Norris but isn't (it's a white guy with white/red hair and an amazing polyester shirt). This culminates in a final fight with an African American dude (Clint Robinson), The Black Tiger of the title, that.... SPOILERS... Tang wins by using a movie wherein it sure looks like he’s kicking his opponent in the balls.
Featuring a score that makes use of bits from Superfly and Enter The Dragon and completely unrelated to the Ron Van Clief Black Dragon movies, the movie lets Tong Lung do his best Bruce Lee impersonation, something that the actor seems to be doing his best to nail. Expect some yelping and a lot of posturing and finger wagging.
It’s an entertaining enough movie, if a bit by the numbers. The guy who plays the heavy-set villain is a lot of fun to watch here, scowling his way through the movie and getting increasingly angry as his plans wind up getting foiled. Long handles himself well in the fight scenes, he moves fast and with an appreciable fluidity that works pretty well with the character he’s portraying.
The Game Of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1 – Blu-ray Review:
The Dragon, The Hero and Rage Of The Dragon are presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition and both framed in 2.35.1 widescreen, sharing the same 50GB disc. The Dragon, The Hero is taken from an internegative supplied by Transcontinental. Rage Of The Dragon was also scanned from an internegative supplied by Transcontinental. Both of these look pretty nice, showing a bit of minor print damage here and there but nothing distracting enough to take away from the viewing experience. We get really nice color reproduction here in both movies, along with nice skin tones, solid black levels and frequently very impressive detail. There aren’t any problems with noise reduction, edge enhancement or compression issues and the transfers retain a nice, filmic quality throughout. Overall, these look pretty strong.
The bonus films, sharing a 50GB disc, sees both films offered up in AVC encoded 1080p high definition, both once again framed at 2.35.1 widescreen. The Big Boss Part II is in really rough shape, taken from what is the only known 35mm print left in existence (supplied by a ‘private collector’ – Quentin Tarantino, possibly, as he has stated that he owns a print of the movie), and has burned in subs on the bottom of the screen throughout. The Black Dragon Vs. The Yellow Tiger is taken from two separate 35mm American film prints that were taken and cut together to provide the best possible version. Understandably, these two features are in rougher shape than the others in the set, but the fact that we have them on Blu-ray at all should be reason enough for fans to celebrate. Expect a good amount of print damage throughout both movies, lots of specks and scratches and the like, as well as plenty of color fading and emulsion spots. Still, these always look like film, even if they are taken from beaten up old prints, and the transfers show no issues with noise reduction, edge enhancement or compression issues. Keep your expectations in check, as they are a bit rough, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying these two movies as, unless better elements magically show up in the future, this is really the only way you’re going to see them on home video.
All four films on these two discs are presented in English language options with 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono and optional subtitles provided in English only, with the exception of The Big Boss Part II which is presented in Chinese with burned in English and Chinese subtitles. Maybe not so surprisingly, given the elements available, the audio quality on The Dragon, The Hero and Rage Of The Dragon is quite a bit nicer than the audio for the two films on the bonus disc which are, again, taken from less than perfect elements. Audio quality varies a bit between the movies but The Dragon, The Hero and Rage Of The Dragon sound quite good, with only a little bit of sibilance here and there to contend with. The Big Boss Part II and The Black Dragon Vs. The Yellow Tiger have frequent hiss and fairly regular snaps on the soundtrack as well as some sibilance, but this is as good as it’s going to get for now.
Extras are spread out on these two discs as follows:
Disc Seven – The Dragon, The Hero / Rage Of The Dragon:
Director Godfrey Ho and Michael Worth, joined by Frank Djeng provide a commentary for The Dragon, The Hero that covers a lot of ground, including where the shooting of the opening credits sequence, his work at Shaw Brothers with Chang Cheh, coming up with ideas on the fly while making the movie, wanting to cash in on the popularity of the kung fu comedy films that Jackie Chan was making, where some of the ideas for the movie came from, the staging and choreography of the fight scenes, wanting to get as much production value out of the film's budget as possible, the film's release history, working with the film's cinematographer, Ho's experiences working with the different cast members and John Liu's importance to the movie, Ho's own taste in movies, Dragon Lee's wardrobe, pulling ideas from some Bruce Lee movies, Ho's experiences working with American crews versus Hong Kong and Taiwanese crews, why certain scenes are lit the way they are and plenty more.
Godfrey, The Hero is an interview with very amiable Director Godfrey Ho running eighteen minutes. This piece lets Ho talk about his work at Shaw Brothers as he and a crew walk around Clearwater Bay Studios in Hong Kong, how he was a teacher before he was a filmmaker, working with Joseph Lai, how he came to direct The Dragon, The Hero, working with Dragon Lee, focusing on the action more than the story, figuring out a lot of the specifics of the movie on the set, taking what he learned at Shaw Brothers to his independent movie, how a lot of the locations he used for his movies have changed over the years, needing to work fast, how his name wound up on a lot of movies he didn't necessarily formally direct and other details related to his career.
The disc also includes a selection of deleted scenes running twenty-three minutes. There's some neat footage in here, including some alternate opening credits bits, various comedic bits and elements of character development, some training scenes, fight scene footage and more, all presented with that wonderfully awful English dubbing.
A Severin's Kung Fu Theater into with Worth is included, as is a trailer for the film.
Rage Of The Dragon gets a commentary with Worth, with contributions From Chris Poggiali. Worth flies solo for most of the track, covering Godfrey Ho's involvement in the film (or lack thereof), the stable of players that show up in this and other Bruceploitation movies, the quality of the animated titles, thoughts on the fight choreography, some of the more unusual plot twists in the film, details on the different cast and crew members that worked on the film, films that might have influenced this movie such as Yojimbo, the cinematography employed in the film, the state of the Korean film industry when this movie was made, the recycling of footage in the martial arts and Bruceploitation fields and his own experiences meeting Dragon Lee. Around the Sixty-eight minute mark, Poggiali joins Worth and they cover Dragon Lee's films as they were released in the United States, the distribution of this movie, how the movie was marketed and the posters that were created for the campaign, the film's trailer, the martial arts styles used in the movie and working elements of the ninja movie craze into the film.
Kung Fu Theaters is another roundtable with Hunanyan, Kreng, Strong and Michael Worth in which the participants spend eight minutes talking about the different theaters where they were able to see martial arts movies years back and how the theatrical experience shaped their experiences with these movies. There is lots of talk here about various grindhouse theaters, double features, the impact that some of the trailers they saw before the features had and then later experiencing the movies via movie rental stores. It's a fun look back at a bygone era.
And if you guessed we also get a Severin's Kung Fu Theater intro with worth for this movie as well, you'd be right. A trailer is also provided.
Disc Eight – The Big Boss Part II / The Black Dragon Vs. The Yellow Tiger:
Extras for The Big Boss Part II are limited to a Severin's Kung Fu Theater intro with Worth and a trailer for the feature. This is one that really should have had a commentary recorded for it, but given its obscurity it’s understandable why this didn’t happen. The fact that we have it on Blu-ray at all is a minor miracle.
The Black Dragon Vs. The Yellow Tiger gets a commentary from Worth with contributions from Actor Clint Robinson. It's an interesting track with Worth covering the extremely dynamic opening credits, the film's score and use of music, the use of stock footage inserts, how the movie was promoted, the over the top elements of the movie, one and done director Yang Yang, where the movie pulls from Way Of The Dragon, the evolution of the martial arts film, thoughts on the fight scenes and the performances, the film's cinematography, the film's theatrical distribution, how the film has always been cropped on home video before this release, the state of Bruceploitation around the time that this early entry was made and more. About seventy-five minutes into the film, Robinson jumps in and discusses his experiences working on the picture, how he got into martial arts while in college in the sixties, how he got into the movies after participating in martial arts competitions in Taiwan, what it was like on set, where the movie was shot, when the movie was actually shot, working with Tong Lung and Yang Yang, how long it took to shoot his fight scene and why he never worked on other films.
A Severin's Kung Fu Theater intro with Worth and a trailer for the feature are also included.
Accompanying the discs is a fantastic full color softcover book, approximately 98-pages, containing a few different essays. The Bruce Clone Connection by Michael Worth covers how the death of Bruce Lee lead to the influx of the Bruceploitation clones. Exit The Dragon, Enter The Clones by Chris Poggiali covers the American release of these films. Inter Ocean Continental Shore by Jon Casbard goes over how the advent of home video meant that these movies lived on after their theatrical runs. Roger Cross’ Ocean Shores And The Kung Fu Home Video Boom further extrapolates on how these movies were released on VHS. Bruce Li & I 74, again by Worth, covers how Worth’s love and obsession with these movies affected his childhood and what it was like getting to meet and work with some of these actors. Along with these essays, the book also contains credits for the boxed set release and a massive trove of full color reproductions of one-sheet, lobby card, home video covers and related artwork and ephemera.
This book fits inside a hard box that loads from the side. The discs fit inside a nicely designed book of their own that fits inside that same had box. Like all of Severin’s giant boxed sets released over the last few years, it’s a very handsome looking package and the book in particular is a really nice addition to the collection, adding additional context for the movies and the events and people that spawned them.
The Game Of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1 - The Final Word:
Overall, the Severin Films release of The Game Of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1 is a seriously impressive set. Granted, not every transfer is pristine but given that the elements for a lot of this material have been neglected over the decades since they were made, it’s amazing that we have this collection at all, and quite a few of the transfers do indeed look very nice. There’s loads of extras here that do a great job of exploring the ‘who, what, where, why and how’ of the films and the people that made them and the movies themselves are a whole lot of ridiculous fun (with an emphasis on ridiculous!). Highly recommended, and in fact, essential for anyone with an interest in the wonkier side of martial arts.
Click on the images below, or right click and open in a new window, for full sized The Game Of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1 Blu-ray screen caps!
.
