Mang quan gui shou

One's impression while watching this film is fairly mixed: there were many parts that made it funnier than the typical Kung Fu film (intentionally so) which kept me interested in the film. Furthermore, the acting is not as bad as typical of its' genre, and I found some of the characters especially expressive and entertaining.

However, the fault of the film is that it falls victim to many of the errors of its' genre: the quality being grainy and questionable, the simplicity of the plot and having shocking simplicity in the archetypes of good & evil, and furthermore, being overall rather corny.

But if you can stand for a typical Kung Fu B movie, this is not so bad; I found it entertaining and its' martial arts were not very shabby, either. And furthermore, the film did not fall victim to any ridiculous subplot or love-story, nor was it ruined by an overwhelming personality clogging up the story, which can easily kill other films. For what they have, a decent film. If you see it for what it is, it is not hard to watch and enjoy it. Decent for anybody who has an attachment to the genre.

Novice fighter, Bruce Li is suckered by two bogus Kung fu teachers until he is montaged into a next-level, lightning-swift power-fighter of awesome magnitude by affable Kung Fu vagabond (Yuen Siu-tien). Alongside sleek, powerhouse pugilist Dragon Lee, the no less mighty martial artist Bruce Li remains one of my most beloved Bruce Lee copyists!!! I sincerely feel these actors energetically mimic Bruce's iconic style out of a profound love and reverence for the great man. Others express a dimmer view of Brucesploitation, but they probably prattle on turgidly about mobile phone apps, wormy artisan cheese and overpriced 4K Blu-rays, so, phook 'em! Bruce Li rocks hard, dude, as does his lively street-tough Kung Fu action/comedy extravaganza, Blind Fist of Bruce Li! Douse the grey cells in one's preferred intoxicant, greasily stuff one's cakehole with yummy plastic cheese and marvel at all enjoyably scrappy chop-comedy-socky shenanigans herein! While these films occasionally have all the aesthetic refinement of an over-fermented herring, the pedantic, frequently surrealistic dubbing are, for me, all part of the micro-genre's goofily pugnacious charm. I must admit to having been wholly absorbed by the righteously revenge-fuelled, fists-of-frenzy climax.

"In Kung Fu, you have to be fast, or you'll die!!!" I think a young Yngwie Malmsteen took this maxim a little too much to heart!"

Probably the biggest asset to the film is Bruce Li and Siu Tien Yuen who plays The Blind Master. I really enjoy his comedic additions to the films. A number of pretty Chinese girls in this movie, a cut above the normal. A number of familiar faces in the cast that one will recognize from other movies of the era.

Typical elements: Unusual training methods, high flying leaps and bounds, some weapons work. Magic type fighting with blinding powders. The final death of the villian is an amazingly choreographed fight scene involving a long scarf and the blind man as well as the hero weaving around the baddie. Hey, I said it was amazing, not good!

And it is always interesting to hear the quantities of money being discussed. "You owe us $10,000!" Sort of like hearing "1 Million Dollars" in an Austin Powers' movie.

'Blind Fist of Bruce' is a good, watchable martial arts film. Ho Tsung Tao portrays a once wealthy bank manager who's robbed of everything he ever had by a gang of martial arts extortionists. He seeks the help of an elderly and blind martial arts master (Charasmatically played by Yuen Siu Tien). The twist is that the leader of the extortionists, Tiger, was once a pupil of the martial arts master. Years before, Tiger blinded his kung fu teacher after he exiled him from the school. This film contains a few mediocre scenes, but the good fight scenes and decent acting make up for it. Director Kam Bo could have put a liitle more detail into the film (Maybe he could have used fake tears on Soo Ching when she mourns Miss Hong's death). Still, this movie is pretty good and it's a lot better than most of Ho Tsung Tao's early work as Bruce Li in the early 70's.

There was a Quiz at the end of the DVD I got of this film. It was rather funny to find a 70s movie on a DVD with an interactive quiz on it. If you got a question about the movie right, the next screen had a still of one of the characters from the movie smiling. If you got it wrong, they showed a bad guy wagging his finger at you, or something. That alone was worth the three bucks I laid out at the yard sale for this somewhat watchable venture into Artsploitation. The Female Ninja in this movie was one of the other nice features, she seems skilled at acrobatics, without actually having any stage presence or confidence with the arts.