Red-Barracuda After Bruce Lee died in 1973 and as a way of exploiting his international fame, there seems to have been several south-east Asian films released with his name emblazoned in their titles. The Spirit of Bruce Lee (1973) and The Image of Bruce Lee (1978) being a couple of infamous examples, the films themselves had nothing to do with Lee whatsoever and were merely cashing in on his name. The Real Bruce Lee is yet another in this ilk, except that it justifies the use of the Bruce Lee name in its title by actually featuring him and being about him. Sort of.It compromises of three sections. Rare footage from the first four Lee screen appearances, a short documentary section and finally a look at the Bruce Lee imitators. The only part that was vaguely interesting was the documentary part and that only lasted ten minutes tops. The rest of it just compromises of very lengthy clips from those old Lee films and newer copycat features featuring Dragon Lee and Bruce Li. Sometimes it is bad enough watching cheap old chopsocky movies in their full versions but to watch extended , long sections but minus any context is almost unbearable. This film is only for the most committed Lee aficionados but even they might struggle with this one.

Darkling_Zeist The Real Bruce Lee? well, not unless you are really forgiving and decidedly myopic...More like the three not-quite-Bruce Lee's!: Bruce Li, Dragon Lee and some scratchy archival footage of the great one. Ardent fans of 'Enter the Dragon' may want to look elsewhere for their authentic Bruce kicks; but if, like me, you have a yen for crass, cash-in Brucesploitation you will certainly find much kinetic lunacy to enjoy here. Glorious old school Kung Fu, with nary a plot to impede all the relentlessly clunky, chop sock action. Personally, I can't get enough of this micro-genre, and spurious titles aside, Dragon & Li were always watchable pugilists, and this (Ham)-Fists of fury is no exception.

gbenson20 Got the 9 movie pack with Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba at the local Wal-Mart for $5 and how can you wrong? Looks like the company that released it cleaned up the quality somewhat from what I have seen other reviewers say about bad copies. But what was funny was they put the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen to make it appear as though it is a widescreen version but for the footage of the Bruce Lee movies he made when he was a kid, it was a full screen copy so most of the actors heads were cut off. Nice. So this "documentary" was pure crap. The bad production values aside, the editing was truly abysmal. First thing the narrator says is that they took time and care to make sure the facts were correct ( or really they just pieced some junk together and put Bruce Lee's name on it.) Then he states that they have authentic film of... nothing the sound is cut and no explanation. Oh well. So the 4 films of Lee when he was a kid is about 10 minutes of footage from each film. That's fine, but the narrator states in "Carnival" that they will show Lee doing some kung fu moves as a teen. Except for as he is about to do any of this they cut away to the next movie "Orphan Sam". So then they go into his Bio and basically skip over anything interesting. They said that Lee opened up his martial arts school and called it the "Bruce Lee Martial Arts Academy" which of course he didn't. In the background the wall reads "Jeek Kune Do". When I've only ever heard it called "Jeet Kune Do". Which is even more funny when the immortal Bruce Li footage shows him in the same exact room kicking the crap out of old out of shape extras, and he seriously misses some of his kicks and punches by 4 feet and the extras go flying across the room. So after this, with no explanation, they jump to "Bruce Lee" dressed up as Kato. 6 guys run into a building, two seconds later they run out and 1 guy has a bag with him. Lee jumps out in front of all 6 and they jump cut to them all on a rooftop and Lee is kicking the crap out of all 6. No idea what that was all about? Me neither, and the narrator gives us no reason either. My guess was that Lee would leave the set of the Green Hornet in his Kato costume and beat up guys that robbed banks in broad daylight using no weapons? They give us more footage of Bruce Li and say that no one can replace Bruce Lee, but Li is when of the best known imitators out there. So they show Li kicking some losers butts for awhile and basically rip on him for trying to be the next Bruce Lee. They gave us "the newest sensation" (or you'll never see this guy again in any movie) Dragon Lee. And that the producer found this man and Dragon Lee will be the next Bruce Lee and an international superstar. What follows is basically a rip off version of Chinese Connection. Anyway for $5 if you can grab this it is well worth the laughs. Plus the Fist of Fury is in pretty good condition and the Sonny Chiba "Street Fighter" movies are 70's Karate classics.

Schlockmeister This movie has all the looks of a quickie movie that was made to capitalize on the death of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong in 1973. I am sure there were many , many movies like this made back then. Luckily for us, this one survives and is dubbed in English. The high points of this 2 hour film which is really a half-hour documentary about Bruce, followed by a full-length Kung Fu feature supposedly called " The Ultimate Lee" and is claimed to be the next scheduled movie was to have done ( yeah, right...). The first half-hour is where this feature shines as we see selected clips from Bruce's first four films made while he was a youngster in China. We see clips from "The Little Dragon", "The Bad Boy", "Carnival" and "Orphan Sam". Included is the only scene Bruce ever did with his father. We see scenes of Bruce behind the camera and casual. We also see scenes of Bruce's funeral. This is all very good and the collector would love to get his hands on footage like this. I will offer a caveat though when seeking this documentary out. Beware of inferior dubs. There is a video copy of this being sold that has Bruce on the cover with no shirt and with the pattern of a rising sun Japanese flag behind him ( strangely enough...), this is an inferior copy that looks like it was copied by a handheld camera with the movie being shown on a flapping sheet. The picture is out of focus a lot of the time and is very frustrating to watch, especially the rarities when you would like to see clearly. But if you can find the clear version, it is worth seeing for the Bruce Lee fan.