Bruce Lee against the Supermen (1975) starring Bruce Li

Aka Superdragon vs Supermen, Call me Dragon, and Meng Long Zheng Dong. I saw this movie must be 30 years ago now, I rented it from The Plains Video and the tape had "Stamp Day for Superman" Back then I knew little about The Green Hornet, Bruce Lee or Brucespoitation. I'd mostly forgotten this film until I was listening to Derrick Ferguson and Percival Constantine on the Superhero Cinephiles podcast - for fans of superhero cinema I cannot recommend it enough. They did Doctor Mordred and mentioned that they had watched it on Tubi. I downloaded the app and scroll through their catalouge and find Bruce Lee against the Supermen. So a bit of back story Bruce Lee first found fame as Kato in the Green Hornet TV series. After that show ended he moved to Hong Kong where he made a handful of films. His last full role was in Enter the Dragon, He died tragically soon after the end of filming but before the release of the film. Enter the Dragon was a major success and his earlier Hong Kong films were released in the west. But there was still hunger for more. Episodes of The Green Hornet were cobbled together as two movies "the Green Hornet" and "Fury o the Dragon" and a few minutes of footage for Bruce's final film "Game of Death" was cobbled together with outtakes from other films, footage of Lee's real funeral and some dodgy doubling. But still people wanted more and Brucespoitation was born and actor who if you squinted might be Bruce Lee were given names like Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee and thrown into martial arts films - basically the first mockbusters. Which brings us to this movie starring Bruce Li. I think this wants to be a Kato film. THe movie opens with bank robbers on the run and tossing the money out the window. A young couple find the money and a masked chauffeur appears and drives them to the station in a black car.

The Chauffeur who we later learn is named Kata (or Carter) then meets with The Green Hornet and they are wearing some red tights

Continuity is not a strong suit of this movie. I should mention the dialogue mentions that this is the Green Hornet at least twice. Later in the movie The Green Hornet looks like this

After getting his tights on to mention that Kata's friend Angela is traveling with her father Professor Ting. Kata goes in plain clothes to visit a friend who doesn't get name and mentions that The Green Hornet is injured. He looked fine in that scene. Professor Ting has made a mcguffin formula that the bad guys want, who just happen to be the bank robbers. Kata and his friend cause so much trouble for the gang that they hire Superman and his students. And there was Kung Fu fighting, their hands were as fast as lightning because of the undercranked camera. While Kata is fighting the supermen, the bad guys kidnap the professor and his daughter who now drive the black car that Kata was driving earlier. The now Asain looking Green Hormet is following the bad guys in a blue car. Ropes and gags appear and disappear from the hostages. Weapons appear from thin air. Look it's a cheesy Green Hornet knockoff film, with some interesting fights but this does not hang together well at all. It's a curiousity and nothing more. You can watch it for free on youtube as part of the Wu Tang Collection

New Pulp TV Series

So after the top 50 New Pulp Movies list a couple posts back, I decided to do a New Pulp TV series list.  I've put them in alphabetical order (more so I don't double up) and not to play favourites.

1.      Adventure Inc

2.      Agent Carter

3.      Agent X

4.      Airwolf

5.      Arrow

6.      Bugs

7.      Burn Notice

8.      Daredevil

9.      Darkwing Duck

10.   Human Target

11.   Intelligence

12.   Jack of All Trades

13.   Jonny Quest

14.   Kim Possible

15.   Knight Rider/Team Knight Rider/Knight Rider 2008

16.   Legend

17.   Leverage

18.   MacGyver/MacGyver 2016

19.   Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

20.   Now and Again

21.   Nowhere Man

22.   Person of Interest

23.   Queen of Swords

24.   Relic Hunter

25.   Sable

26.   Sam Fox Extreme Adventures

27.   Soldier of Fortune Inc/ Special Ops Force

28.   Stingray

29.   Street Hawk

30.   Tales of the Golden Monkey

31.   Terra Nova

32.   The A-Team

33.   The Adventures of Briscoe County Jnr

34.   The Cape

35.   The Deep

36.   The Equalizer

37.   The  Finder

38.   The Green Hornet

39.   The Librarians

40.   The Mummy: The Animated Series

41.   The Persuaders

42.   The Player

43.   The Pretender

44.   The Punisher

45.   The Sentinel

46.   Transporter: The Series

47.   Vengeance Unlimited

48.   Veritas: The Quest

49.   Veronica Mars

50.   Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

"Fang & Sting" by Win Eckert (2010) in THE GREEN HORNET CHRONICLES

Originally posted Thursday, February 3, 2011 10:28:06 PM

All Pulp are very crafty. They give you a free sample and get you hooked. In a recent Moonstone Monday post we are given the complete text of Win Eckert's contribution to The Green Hornet Chronicles which can be read here

Go and read it I'll wait. Back? Okay.

Like all stories in this anthology, Fang and Sting is set in the 1960s Green Hornet TV series (the one starring Van Williams and Bruce Lee) Eckert gives us an exciting tale that would have been a brilliant episode of that show. Not only that but Eckert manages to explain how and why Lenore Case was able to discover that Britt Reid and The Green Hornet are the same person. Win manages to include several other pieces of Hornet Trivia into his tale such as the fact that Mike Axford first appeared in the radio shows Warner Lester Manhunter and Dr Fang and making a reference to The Evil in Pemberley House.

The Green Hornet and Kato roll to investigate the reappearance of the Mysterious Dr Fang who terrorised Detroit in the 1930s. The diabolic Doctor Fang is killing local politicians and implicating The Green Hornet as an accomplice. The fact that Kato is Asian makes the connection quite plausible in some people's eyes. Once again we see The Green Hornet as the master strategist and Kato as his swift right hand.

Eckert is true to the characters as presented in the TV show and makes a exciting tale offering a connection between Dr Fang and another villian. Eckert has indicated that the next Green Hornet Anthology will have a direct sequel to this story.

If the rest of the stories in the anthology are half as good as this story then the anthology is well worth twice the price. I've ordered my copy and as soon as I get it from Pulp Fiction. I'll review it here.

Bruce Lee Lives? by Max Caulfield (1975) Star Books

Okay I'm sucker for some Bruce-spoitation., I previously reviewed Legend of The Fist here on this blog.  I've also enjoyed The Last Dragon and No Retreat, No Surrender (Student trained by the ghost of Bruce Lee vs Jean-Claude Van Damme)

So when I spotted this little gem I had to grab it.  Max Caulfield had previously worked with Linda Lee on her book Bruce Lee: The Man only I knew (which was the basis for the Jason Scott Lee movie Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story).

If you go in expecting to read what could be another Bruce Lee movie, be very disappointed.  The story opens with Caulfield getting a call from a friend George Bitters offering him the chance to write up the notes of an investigative journalist Ivor Wishart.  Wishart had gone to Hong Kong to investigate corruption in the Hong Kong Police.  During the investigation, he begins to hear about Bruce Lee rumours like he was murdered by the CAS (Chinese Asian Syndicate) through a number of obscure martial arts moves like the Death Touch.

Wishart continues his investigation and after an assassination attempt meets up with a lovely Chinese girl Nu San.  Wishart moves in with Nu San and begins a relationship with her. This plot is complicated when Wishart discovers that she is junkie.

As part of the investigation, Wishart meets Jo Foi who is a BNDD (Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) agent.  Foi suggests that perhaps Lee wasn't dead but sick when they flew the coffin to America.  This hint suggests that Lee is working undercover to smash the CAS drug rings in Thailand. 

So it's off to Thailand in the Golden Triangle to see the opium fields, where he meets a Captain in the Thai army who has a familiar voice and bears a passing resemblance to Bruce Lee (as did most of the Brucesploitation actors).  The investigation leads the BNDD to a major drug processing plant and the mystery Captain is in the raid.  There is a brief scene where Wishart watches the Captain in action fighting and Wishart is convinced it's Bruce Lee.  And by brief I mean less than half a page.  (page 135 of 142 page book if you're interested) . 

Wishart is convinced but is unable to confront the Captain.  The book ends with Wishart vowing to return to find out the answer.

As I said there are two scenes in the book with our potential Bruce Lee with lots of rumours and speculations.  There is nothing concrete in this story.  The brief fight scene is so vague as to be useless to convincing anyone this was really Bruce Lee. 

Also the idea of the frame didn't work for me.  Wishart is a journalist but he uses a ghost writer (at one point he even mentions that a ghost writer will be writing up his notes) to write up this story. 
Caulfield writes everything up in third person which is confusing initially as the story is supposedly based on Wishart's recorded notes. 

If you are Bruce Lee fan and find this for a reasonable price grab it -  I love the picture on the cover of the British edition. 

Legend of the Fist; The Return of Chen Zhen (2010) starring Donnie Yen

I have a confession to make I haven't seen Fist of Fury (1972) starring Bruce Lee.  I know, I know it's surprising and it is something I'll have to rectify in the near future.

I had somehow gotten into my head that Lee's Chen Zhen was a real historical figure who fought against the Japanese imperialists but a quick check shows me that I was wrong.  Chen Zhen was a fictional character who has been played my many actors after that including Jet Li and Donny Yen.
Yen first played Chen Zhen in the TV series Fist of Fury.

I saw an ad for Legend of The Fist during SBS Kung Fu Festival and  said I have to watch this.

The movie opens in World War I, where ill equipped  Chinese labourers are caught in the fighting and Chen Zhen is kicking Hun ass in several different ways using a pakour-like style that reminded me of Oliver Queen in Arrow.  When one of Zhen's friends dies, Zhen swaps identities and returns to China.

The film then skips to Shanghai in 1925 whiuch has been divided amongst the other allied nations including Britain and Japan.  Tensions are high and the Japanese are starting their imperial designs.  Chen Zhen ingratiates himself into the Casablanca Club where everyone comes.

When Zhen comes across an attack by the Japanese on a Chinese General, he steals the outfit advertising the movie The Masked Warrior.  The fact that Masked Warrior's outfit looks like Kato's from the Green Hornet probably isn't a coincidence.

 

 

Suddenly, The Masked Warrior is facing the Japanese and being a symbol of the resistance.  Kids are wearing masks and mask graffiti appears around the city. Curiously nothing much is made of this where a movie hero seemingly comes to life (The Cape had a similar conceit did a little of this)

 

The Japanese have a Chinese Patriot Kill List. Interestingly, Zhen is unable to save everyone on the list but and there are some brutal deaths. At the end Chen Zhen faces down the Japanese army brigade as himself with a pair of nunchukas.

 

This is a great film that homages Bruce Lee and well worth seeing.  It is a Chinese film and I saw the subtitled version.