Tschang Fu - Der Todeshammer

Righteous hero Chen Shen (Bruce Li) manfully defends the beleaguered Ching Wu school against evil invader Miyamoto (Lo Lieh) and his vicious cabal of Japanese usurpers in furious Grindhouse Fu gem Fist of Fury Part 2. Once again awed by his quicksilver Kung Fu prowess, I humbly prostrate myself before master fightsmith, Bruce Li's magisterial martial artistry. Not readily can I recall seeing such a supremely agile screen pugilist, displaying his breathtaking command of swiftly articulated, uncommonly steely sinews! One might foolhardily send a lumbering flock of bovine Seagals to thwart him, but Bruce Li would nimbly dispatch them all with just one titanic twitch of an iron clawed knuckle-muscle! A hugely entertaining Fu-fest, Fist of Fury Part II is the kind of exhilarating fight flick you could justifiably hang in the louvre so that future generations of Fu fanatics might marvel at its sublime chop socky splendour. In the dazzling climax we see Bruce Li's depth charge deltoids, fire dragon fists, crackerjack kicks and piledriver punches deliver justice upon the cruel killer Miyamoto.

The Hong Kong film industry was becoming invaded by all the Bruce Lee imitators who came along during the latter half of the 70s. Most of the films that resulted, are instantly forgettable. The above movie is barely tolerable. The story is meant to be about the brother of Chen Chen (Bruce Lee) who is out to avenge his brother's death and to destroy the Japanese at the same time. All I can see, is a load of scenes thrown together with no sense of narrative, plus some rather poor attempts at acting and direction. Bruce Li is one of the better Bruce Lee lookalikes. He tends to lack charisma but his fighting skills are OK. In spite of all the film's shortcomings, the martial arts scenes are digestible - just about.......

This film has it all for Kung-Fu films. Except for a corny start to the film, CC2 holds Bruce Lee's best acting. A story about a student avenging the murderer of his teacher, Bruce has several famous fight sequences as well as a number of scenes where Bruce portrays different characters.

A great "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" ending, this is Bruce's best work!

This continues from where the original movie left off, with the brother of the Bruce Lee character coming in to help save the school Lee had been defending. Though there is at least some connection to the first movie, there is hardly any plot here, with most of the movie consisting of those evil Japanese beating the snot out of the Chinese characters who, except for our hero, are remarkably poor fighters. With our hero being the only capable Chinese fighter, I have to wonder if this appealed to Hong Kong audiences at the time.

If there were some decent fights, this could have been mindless entertainment. Unfortunately, the fights, the sets, the rest of the production values are just like the typical shoddiness found in a typical H.K. movie of the period. Stick to Hong Kong movies from the 80s and 90s.

Bruce Li stars in this sequel as the the brother of the character played by Bruce Lee in the original 1972 movie. However things have gotten worse for the Chinese since Bruce Lee's character died and the Japanese are so mean that they don't let them visit the grave of Lee's character, get killed constantly and worst of all they do it for no particular reason. I must admit that The Chinese Connection II might be at least a passable movie if available in Cantonese with subtitles because the dubbed version certainly doesn't provide enough background or plot to make this is even close to as enjoyable as the original first movie. Bruce Li does have a screen presence, this is a fact he has a quality about him which suggests he might've had more talent then just going into ludicrous dramatics while kicking the crap out of various people. What makes Chinese Connection II so disappointing is that it literally is nothing but endless action sequences with no story to make the action sequences mean anything. Don't get me wrong plot isn't very important, but I for one wanted a reason and motivation for Bruce Li's vengeance as well as why the bad guys did what they did. Unfortunately it's all vague and because of this the action sequences (while well staged) lack the overall edge a normal martial arts flick would have.

*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)