Bruce’s Fingers (1976)

Posted in Reviews by - November 05, 2017
Bruce’s Fingers (1976)

This histrionic Bruce Lee tribute centres on his deadly finger technique (did Bruce Lee have a deadly finger technique?). The root of this idea seems to stem from that brief moment in Fist of Fury during the Bob Baker fight when Lee waves his hands around in slow motion. Here, this notion has manifested itself into an entire plot device centred around a highly sought-after secret kung fu finger book, which drug-dealing criminal Lo Lieh wants to get his kung fu fingers on. Bruce Le plays Bruce Lee’s student, called Bruce Wong – a spunky Bruce Lee clone in sunglasses – who returns from America to look for the secret kung fu finger book. The perennially cool Michael Chan plays an Interpol agent, who also winds up fighting the criminals who are looking for the secret kung fu finger book. The film’s international version is ill-served by the dubbing, which restricts most of the dialogue to repeating the words “secret kung fu finger book”. It’s great to see Nora Miao in a contemporary setting, and let’s hope she got a decent pay-check for her grossly underdeveloped role. Aside from being kidnapped, she mostly lounges around looking incredibly glamorous, like she has just dropped in after making a shampoo commercial. The film is so cheap, located mostly in abandoned properties and with guerrilla filmmaking on the streets of Hong Kong. The film does at least share some direct connections to the real Bruce Lee, with one of his Wing Chun teachers, Wong Shun-leung, playing a supporting role as a kung fu sifu, and Lee’s friend and co-star Bolo Yeung, who clearly had a few hours to spare to take part in a quick fight scene at the end. It’s crass, obviously, but some of the choreography is actually quite neat.

AKA: Bruce’s Deadly Fingers.

This post was written by
Editor and creator of Kung Fu Movie Guide and the host of the Kung Fu Movie Guide Podcast. I live behind a laptop in London, UK.

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