The Dragon Lives Again [李三腳威震地獄門] (1977)
AKA Deadly Hands of Kung Fu
Starring Bruce Leong, Shin Il Lung, Eric Tsang, Alexander Grand, Siu Tien Yeung
Directed By Law Kei
Oh man, do you remember that time when Bruce Lee fought Chuck Norris in the Roman Coliseum? Yeah, that was great! How about when he beat that guy with the claw on his hand in that hallway full of mirrors? Classic stuff! Yes sir, that guy was a true legend. Hey, that reminds me of another one… do you remember that time Bruce Lee went to hell, confessed infidelity, fought James Bond and the Exorcist, made friends with Caine from Kung Fu, and helped Popeye beat a bunch of mummies?
Hi folks. My name is Uncle Jasper and I am a film critic.
Sometime after the death of Christ and before the dawn of the Reagan Empire, some Chinese guys got together and made a movie called The Dragon Lives Again. This remarkable documentary attempts to chronicle the years following Bruce Lee’s death and his adventures in hell during that period. The film goes to great lengths to convey to the viewer the size of Bruce Lee’s gigantic cock, and includes a heartfelt, personal apology to his wife Linda for all the years of banging hundreds of women with said cock.
In The Dragon Lives Again, one sees Bruce Lee exploitation taken to its most decadent and self-indulgent extremes. Bruce Leong, who looks absolutely nothing like Bruce Lee, is actually pretty fun to watch in the lead role despite his lack of martial arts skill. The film itself is all over the place. Adherence to continuity and coherent storytelling obviously was not a priority here. In fact, it makes The Clones of Bruce Lee look like Wuthering Heights. I gave up even trying to find a plot about 20 minutes in and just settled for the raw, visceral impact of the strange imagery.
Regular visitors may remember not too long ago I reviewed a film called My Young Auntie. You may recall I had a serious problem with a particular party scene that was so beyond the realm of cognitive thought that I unfortunately had to pan the entire film. That was 10 minutes. Imagine that shit going on for 90+ and that will pretty much diagnose the gradual decent into madness and sudden loss of basic motor skills that this film spurred… Somewhere after 20 minutes chronic fatigue begins to set in. After 45 you become delirious and prone to hallucination. When it’s over and done with, you find yourself a crooked heap of bone and flesh-jelly.
Think you’ve seen it all? I simply dare you to see this film and make that claim again when you’re finished with it. This happens to be one of the worst directed, acted, edited, written and put together films I have ever seen, yet you cannot take your eyes off of it. In that sense it’s kind of like a three-legged monkey… or at the very least a Dracula-spawned Cobra Kai.
I hope you enjoyed our fake Bruce Lee film festival here at Silver Emulsion. Although you will definitely see more Bruceploitation reviews here in the future, I’ll be back to reviewing just plain old movies that have absolutely nothing to do with Bruce Lee again on Monday.