La grande rapina

The movie begins with an announcement from the Exposition News Network informing the audience of the Vietnamese refugee ship and the smuggled gold. The concept of smuggled gold still eludes me. If it is your gold then good for you. If it is stolen then bad for you. What is smuggled gold and why is it a bad thing in this movie?

Bruce Li wants to get married but his girl makes him chose between her and martial arts. I did not expect to see her again after that scene. Hon Kwok-Choi does some scuba diving to get the smuggled gold. Bruce Li prefers the gold be left underwater. Hon Kwok-Choi fools them all and has the gold. The Exposition News Network has another announcement but the story has lost all sense anyway. Worse, at twenty minutes in there is no clear cut villain. Plus there was only one fight. Actually the plot is quite simple and did not require any exposition. The gold belongs to the bad guys and they want it back so Bruce and his gang are in the deep.

The fights are good enough considering the restraints imposed by the movie. It is contemporary action so the fights have to be street- level real. This makes creativity too much of an effort plus the fights really do not advance the plot at all. The only way to make one fight different than the next is in the choice of weapons and set. The movie is also notable for the fact that Bruce Li does not copy Bruce Lee's moves and sounds as he has done in many previous movies. My copy is a VHS converted to a digital file with the expected poor resolution. It is dubbed in English by the A team of voice over folks and they did a good job.

I can mildly recommend this movie only for fans of the genre and rate it just average.

Released in Hong Kong as The Gold Connection, this is an interesting Noir about three friends discovering a gold crate during a diving. The gold belong to a Triad gang... Effectively directed by HK Horror helmer Kuei Chi Hung, the movie is a surprisingly good entry for Bruce Li/Ho Tsung Tao who plays a martial art films coreographer. The always good Hon Kwok Choi plays the imprudent hero's friend who leads the Triad to find out who took the gold. The great Ko Fei is the Triad assassin and he has an incredible fight against Bruce Li that ends with a terrific neck-crushing kick that I saw just in this and in The Expendables (the kick Jet Li uses to kill Gary Daniels), so I wonder if that Expendables moment is stolen from this Hong Kong movie. All in all an involving Martial Arts Noir with a very pessimistic ending. HK legend Walter Cho Tat Wah has a cameo as a Wuxiapian (Swordplay) actor on the set where Bruce Li works as coreographer. Don't be fooled by the idiotic english title Iron Dragon strikes back: no Iron Dragon here, just a top-notch action thriller with a fine camerawork, dazzling action and a bitter mediation about friendship and about the consequences of living in a dark society where the myth of easy money leads to death.

Have you seen Bruce Li/Ho Chung Tao in a movie of reasonable calibre? To make an educated guess, I'd say probably not. However, this vehicle is arguably Li's best effort in a tainted career. Ironically, this is one of the only films where he doesn't ape Lee's mannerisms - although this stars Little Dragon Li, it cannot be considered Bruceploitation.

Li and his friends find a box of gold whilst on a diving adventure, and the events thereafter leaves them fighting for their very survival in this, one of few contemporary films by any of the Bruce Lee imitators.

Once one recovers from the dubious fashion sense of our leads, and the typically poor dubbing/soundtrack, it is possible to appreciate this effort. A very gritty film, it manages to maintain an extremely heavy (and somewhat bleak) atmosphere right from the off. There is little of the "humour" which plagued late-70's Hong Kong action films, and indeed, the realism (of one torture scene in particular) may well leave the viewer reeling. The fight choreography is good, but the "real-world" nature of the fights leaves very little room for spectacular stuff.

Overall, this film is a surprisingly enjoyable effort, and a chance to watch Li as his own character, rather than as a plethora of Bruce Lee characteristics.

Bruce Li stars as a kung fu teacher who is hunted by mobsters, when he and his friends discover gold smuggled in from Vietnam by said mobsters. Bruce Li finds himself and his girlfriend a target and through out it becomes obvious that Bruce Li can't trust anyone as everyone seems to be a potential assassin, in what is a downbeat and hands down Bruce Li's best effort. In terms of film-making quality, the level of action choreography and indeed scripting, Iron Dragon is head and shoulders above all other Bruceploitation flicks and the highlight of Bruce Li's career. The martial arts action is well done, the suspense is crafted for maximum impact and this indeed is a great martial arts movie and in its own right a good movie. The bus sequence is in particular, very suspenseful and the climax has a few surprises that one doesn't see coming. Indeed the villains here mean business and Bruce Li isn't imitating Bruce Lee, so much as he is playing a hapless character thrown into a bad situation. Li plays the part charismatically and with a sense of likability and intelligence that makes us care about his character so that we care about what happens to him. Indeed this is on par with a Shaw Brothers kung fu movie and it's well worth seeking out if you can find it.

* * * out of 4-(Good)

The Gold Connection - as it is also known and marketed as, is a great piece of relatively unknown Kung Fu mayhem. I say mayhem because there is no let up once it gets started.

Good plot, good character development and pacing. The violence never lets up with constant confrontation, running battles, left field brutality and a great leading man in Ho Tsung Tao. His character is that of an intelligent and formidable but decent man, finding himself in a situation that will test all of his kung fu skills.

I rate this film highly because it evokes a fair amount of threat and is actually quite bleak in its relentless violence and brutality. The nasties are really nasty and the addition of the professional hired killer is the icing on the cake. The best is saved till the end, making this film a treat for any martial arts movie fan.

It is a shame this film is not better known. I wish there were more like it. The direction, camera work, suspense and constant threat make it a standout from other films of the genre. It is quite an unusual brew and all the better for it.