What follows are trailers and clips from “Old School” Martial Arts movies. First up - the penultimate Brucesploitation experience THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE:
This was originally taken from a 16mm TV Spot for Trans-Continental’s U.S. release of Asso Asia’s DRAGON ON FIRE aka THE DRAGON, THE HERO (1979). With the legendary Adolph Ceasar providing the voice over backed by some very familiar music…
Filmark’s MARTIAL MONKS OF SHAOLIN TEMPLE was one of the first Dragon Lee titles that formally introduced me to Wong Cheng Li. Tried to recreate the titles as best I could. Pretty sure that most if not all of the trailers on the Saturn VHS releases were edited down from their original length. Love the overdone reverb on John Culkin’s voice over and of course more “familiar” music…
5-PATTERN DRAGON CLAWS is another awesome pairing of Wong Cheng Li and Dragon Lee from Filmark - originally released by Saturn in the US as simply DRAGON CLAWS (not to be confused with another Wong Cheng Li title DRAGON’S CLAWS) with an ugly title card covering up its’ more illustrious moniker. Unlike the abbreviated trailer on those old videos, here is a more complete version -
Bruce Le’s CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER aka GYMKATA KILLER, an incredible melding of Asian and Euro Exploitation - Former Hercules Brad Harris squares off against Bolo…
Wong Cheng Li and Bolo - Have they ever fought each other onscreen before CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER?
Though they have been in the same film, Godfrey Ho’s cut and paste NINJA TERMINATOR (1985), CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER may well be be the only time they actually met onscreen…
Bruce Le & Wong Cheng Li’s climactic clash from CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER - A less elaborate, but still effective alternative to their encounter in THE NINJA STRIKES BACK:
RAGING MASTER’S TIGER CRANE was a familiar Filmark title on video store shelves back in the day, courtesy of Saturn Productions under the title MASTERS OF TIGER CRANE. Here’s the abbreviated trailer with the original title restored. The font on the title was kind of bland, so I opted to use the logo Filmark used on their promotional materials -
A re-creation of the trailer for THE DRAGON ON FIRE (1978), released theatrically in the U.S. as ENTER THREE DRAGONS by Serafim Karalexis in 1980. The original was out of sync, badly cropped with the film reversed, as well as having badly mixed audio.
Alan Hawkshaw’s “Flashback”, used as the title music for BLACK SAMURAI (1977) (and 1970s toy commercials) can be heard in this trailer, but not in the actual film…
My personal favorite Godfrey Ho film, by a wide margin, is The Dragon, The Hero. IMO, the presence of John Liu and Phillip Ko was the big difference maker, although I feel that Chan Lau actually stole the show as the ‘mad dog’.
Even when he was starring in KF movies in Taiwan and Hong Kong, John Liu lived all the way in Paris, so I imagine that the film, even low-budget, would have to have been worth his time for him to come and be in it. And of course, Phillip Ko was always one of the best performers, and in The Dragon, The Hero, he seemed to be having fun playing the main fighting villain tongue-in-cheek.
My second-favorite Godfrey Ho film is Enter Three Dragons. I even like the bad English dubbing. IMO, it’s a great example of horrible acting and unintentional comedy that really works. Even some of the intentional comedy (especially some involving San Kuai as a minor thug) has its moments. It’s my favorite ‘so bad it’s good’ guilty pleasure movie.
Back around 1981, a Los Angeles TV station ran a KF movie week, which included KF demos in the TV studio during the breaks. Interestingly, Huang Kin-Lung (Bruce Le) made a rare appearance for a demo and interview. Huang’s demo looked pretty good, mostly demonstrating fighting moves on an American martial artist. It looked like Huang slipped a couple times and unintentionally hit his demo partner. During the interview, Huang stated that he originally came from Burma (Myanmar).
John Liu vs. Dragon Lee
Thanks for that. IMO, Chan Lau stole the show in that one. Even though my favorite performers in that particular movie are Phillip Ko Fei and John Liu, Chan Lau brought a surreal craziness into it. I wonder if it was hard for Dragon Lee to keep a straight face while filming that scene.