When your movie starts off with a bunch of guys in colored jammies and two dudes in their black undies, I question “where exactly is this going?” Fortunately there’s some nice proper ass kicking and the rest of the film goes on rather swimmingly. This Bruce Lee guy really has some moves, I wonder why I haven’t seen him in more stuff?
There’s this kick-ass Shaolin Monk dude. He also kicks faces. And arms. And chests. And kind of a disturbing number of groins. But that’s just how he rolls, man. There’s 60s racisms. Not Cool. There’s boat ghettos. Not Cool. There’s also this New Zealand Asshat guy. Totally. Not Cool. We learn all this on the journey to a slapfight contest on evil island, and Well Holy Shit! Then Everybody WAS kung – fu fighting! I now understand those lyrics. Thank you, movie. I am now more enlightened than before I started watching it. But a Fucking attack pigeon? Not. Cool.
Overall a decent enough of a kung fu movie. I can’t say I’m a fan of the genre. Not a hater of them either. Can appreciate the mass casualty bamboo slap events that happen between the captivating and sometimes perplexing plot points that usually make up the bulk of the film. This one in particular does have some nice shots and camera-work, decent enough incorporation of flashback sequences to show each KickyPunchy-guy’s motivations. And John Saxon as a kung fu master? Maybe not the tops, but he seems to do an at least acceptable job with it. Not like it’s fake-playing the piano or some shit where you don’t see a medium shot with the fingers on the keys, there is still some skill involved. And then there’s this Bruce Lee guy. So good at some points he’s just showin’ off. Good for him, he kicks ass both forward AND backwards. So it looks like...oh, well, at least he did. there. for a little bit. Damn. Pretty unfortunate actually, to think, if he had lived longer we could have gotten some better martial arts people than just that one not-kung-fu dude from Austria or wherever the hell Jean Claude Van Dammit is from.
