Bruce Li in New Guinea (1978)

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Bruce Li in New Guinea (1978)

A title of confounding falsity, featuring an actor mimicking Bruce Lee and Taiwan doubling for Papua New Guinea, and neither party doing a particularly convincing job.

This Joseph Kong Bruceploitation arrives at the zany dog-end of the genre, and the story is forever clutching at straws.

Kong might well be the sub-genre’s Hitchcock, spinning such classic name-droppers as The Clones of Bruce Lee and Bruce’s Deadly Fingers. Although this film is clearly insane, Kong manages to convince a roster of familiar faces into raiding the Four Seas costume department for all the headbands and leopard print they can find. Great supporting actors …

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Black Belt Jones (1974)

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Black Belt Jones (1974)

Those who question the cinematic influence of Bruce Lee need only refer to what Messrs Clouse, Weintraub and Heller did after the instant success of Enter the Dragon in 1973. The team turn to Bruce Lee’s well-coiffed co-star Jim Kelly – a karate fighter of some merit – to helm this cheap blaxploitation effort, but the results are quite ghastly.

Kelly’s film career is a particularly unfortunate story. Even here he displays enough commendable chopping and sassy sex appeal to make it as a leading man, but his subsequent films following Enter the Dragon are never more than moronic. And here …

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The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

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The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

The first meeting of minds between the Airplane! and Naked Gun team, this rapid fire spoof is 90 minutes of pure parody with the American media the target. The news becomes a laughing stock, sexploitation is made to look silly and commercials are rioted – one about a charity helpline for the dead, another about the importance of zinc oxide. It’s a sequence of skits, hilarious in places, with a glorious centrepiece: a half-hour spoof of Enter the Dragon, titled ‘A Fistful of Yen’. Obviously a labour of love, the parody is simply glorious. The evil ‘Klhan’ uses his disposable …

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The Brave Lion (1974)

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The Brave Lion (1974)

Two Chinese POWs seek freedom and fortune by mixing up the locals at a lumber yard occupied by the Japanese during World War II. But the guards fail to consider the consequences of Barry Wai’s kung fu chops, who doesn’t take kindly to foreign oppression and plans a little uprising of his own. The film ends with 30 minutes of constant fighting which is an arduous process given the film’s distinct lack of imagination, but you would have lost the will to live by then anyway. And never trust a film set during the war where the majority of the …

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The Four Shaolin Challengers (1977)

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The Four Shaolin Challengers (1977)

This is your standard girl meets boy, boy loses girl, girl gets abducted by gold smugglers and forced into prostitution story. The boy summarily unites with his old buddies to rescue the girl and kill all the baddies. The boy in question in Larry Lee, playing someone with a lose connection to Wong Fei-hung, who teams up with fellow challengers Bruce Leung, Wong Yuen-san and Jason Pai who all seem to be having a great time despite the gravity of the situation. The ensemble of familiar faces give the film an endearing quality, but this is pulp kung fu filmmaking …

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Ninja Holocaust (1985)

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Ninja Holocaust (1985)

More than just a fantastic title, this schizophrenic Godfrey Ho basher features some fantastic fight scenes with speedy ninja who explode and vanish into thin air. Add to this some equally relentless shagging and we have one of Ho’s more salacious exploitation films, even if it does feel like a load of random scenes stitched together… which it is. Casanova Wong and his girlfriend are targeted by hotshot ninja when they cross paths with boxing champ Michael Chan and his boss’ plan to secure possession of a priceless necklace, or something.

AKA: City Ninja; Ninja the Protector; 108 Killers.

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Black Belt (2007)

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Black Belt (2007)

Set soon after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, what hints at a political, revisionist war film soon starts to resemble a symbolic study into karate’s ethics and practitioners. As much as this is a martial arts film, it is also a film about martial arts, which makes it fulfilling for quite different reasons. Director Nagasaki adds extra authenticity by casting real karate experts in the lead roles.

The film starts with an opportunistic siege on a dojo by wayward Japanese military police. The police are thwarted on their first attempt by the clinical karate skills of the school’s three prized fighters, …

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The Octagon (1980)

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The Octagon (1980)

Chuck Norris is on fighting form as karate champ Scott James, a sweet talker with psychological issues (his subconscious thoughts are represented by a echoed voiceover which gets really annoying). Mercenaries are being transported to a distant training ranch and taught the outlawed secrets of Ninjitsu, and their scary leader Seikura (Yamashita) just happens to be Scott’s martial brother. What an awkward coincidence. There’s only one way to sort this situation out: with violence, and plenty of it. Amateur performances and clumsy dialogue tend to slow things down, however the final assault with Norris fighting an entire ninja ranch singlehandedly …

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Interview: Richard Norton

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Interview: Richard Norton

Next year, Australian action star Richard Norton will play a villain in the new Mad Max movie. We talk to the former rock and roll bodyguard about Zen Do Kai, turning 61 and being one of Jackie Chan’s favourite gweilos.

There has been a bit of a delay on the set of the new Mad Max movie. An unseasonably wet Australian summer has turned the dry, red sand of outback town Broken Hill into a luscious green landscape. Action star Richard Norton has come to Brisbane while the film’s location naturally adopts a more apocalyptic tone. He’s playing four parts, which …

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Spirits of Bruce Lee (1973)

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Spirits of Bruce Lee (1973)

This has nothing to do with Bruce Lee or, indeed, any of his spirits, except for a more than incidental resemblance to The Big Boss in both its story and setting. Michael Chan looks a bit like Lee as he avenges the death of his brother by tearing up a gang of Thailand baddies on their own turf. He also has a little help from a family of fellow Chinese who rather stupidly decide to stick their noses in. He even manages to woo Sun Chia-lin. It must have something to do with his collection of tight-fitting shirts. Convincing enough, …

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