Tian huang ju xing

People need to get over themselves regarding this prime piece of Bruceploitation. It's the mid 70's and Bruce Lee's films are still packing out cinemas 2-3 yrs after release. In that golden age of exploitation cinema it would only be a matter of time before a film would be made based on finding Lee's "Killer(s)". For a low budget Taiwanese flick it comes over as good action /mystery film that showcases it's up-coming lead actor; Bruce Li. Dimension Films did a good job in adapting the original (Bruce Lee - The Star of Stars) by having a good dub-cast deliver the lines in English and augmenting the action with some great library music tracks. People forget that these films were made to make money not to be reverential "tributes". The recent discovery of Bruce and Linda Lee's "Drugs" letters suggest the film makers where more knowing than the average fan(atic) realised. The late Roger Corman would have been proud to have produced a title like Exit the Dragon-Enter the Tiger as it was quite a money-maker in it's day. Hats off to those involved, especially the great Bruce LI as The Tiger!

This film is pretty good out of many Bruce Lee death plot that plagued the 70's kung-fu film market. Bruce Lee (not the real one) is worried about the mob, so his student "the tiger" who looks like Bruce visits him. Bruce is dead as we see stock footage of his real life funeral, as the Tiger figures out who killed him. There's some real good fight sequence in this film, especially the one at the end where the tiger fights the baron, a mean dude who fights with a top hat on, and it never falls off in fight sequence. Title theme from Issac Hayes music from the film THREE TOUGH GUYS is the main theme! (i wonder if the producers got permission to use it?). If you are looking for quality, this isn't it. But a quick way to kill time, this is your film. The dubbing in this film is first class as Dimention pictures hired Chinese-American dubbing, instead of the usual loud british-chinese dubbing. You can hear American actor James Hong in several voices in this film.

Not convinced that Bruce Lee died by accident, his good friend "David Lee" (Bruce Li) sets out to investigate the real cause of death. His first clue comes from Bruce Lee's mistress and Hong Kong film star "Suzy Yung" (Chao Hsauo-Chun) who has some possible incriminating evidence against a major crime figure known as "the Baron" (Li Chang). But when "the Tiger" (the other name David Lee is known by) begins to get too close to the truth, the Baron becomes intent upon stopping him at all costs and comes after both Suzy Yung and David's girlfriend "Susie" (Kong Sam-Yi) to make his point. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that the death of Bruce Lee left a very large void in martial arts movies which several different film studios tried to fill--and Bruce Li happened to be one of the actors chosen in that regard. Unfortunately, unlike his famous predecessor, he didn't have the acting ability to really appeal to world-wide audiences and his films suffered as a result. And this particular movie is indicative of that fact as it pales in comparison to any and all of Bruce Lee's films. That being said, I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

Exit The Dragon, Enter The Tiger is a highly irreverent kung fu cash-in that shamelessly exploits the mystery surrounding the death of '70s martial arts icon Bruce Lee, using it as the impetus for a far-fetched storyline involving Hong Kong movie stars being blackmailed into becoming international drug mules. Casually mixing fact with fiction, the film stars Bruce Li as Bruce Lee acolyte Tiger, who, devastated by his master's sudden death, decides to investigate rumours of foul play. Teaming up with reporter George, Tiger learns of an incriminating tape-recording made by Lee's mistress that makes him the target of crime boss The Baron. Cue lots of kicking and punching as Tiger dispatches numerous henchmen to finally face The Baron.

Showing actual footage of Bruce Lee's corpse during the opening scenes, and introducing fictional character Suzy Yung as the late star's mistress (presumably to avoid being sued by actress Betty Ting Pei, who was rumoured to be Lee's real-life mistress), ETDETT is undeniably disrespectful to the memory of Lee, but as a fan of trashy exploitation films, I couldn't help but have just a little fun with this tawdry chop socky flick. The acting is atrocious, the story risible, and the '70s decor utterly abysmal (witness the world's tackiest cigarette dispenser!), all of which proves unintentionally amusing, while the martial arts scenes, although somewhat repetitive in style for much of the movie, are at least frequent enough to ensure that the pace never lulls. Towards the end of the film, the standard of the fight scenes improves markedly, with a fun clash between Tiger and a female gymnast in a yellow tracksuit (a nod to Game of Death?) and an impressively staged final battle that takes place on the rocky shore of the South China Sea.

Bruce Li stars in a dual role playing Bruce Lee (before he dies) and one of Lee's best friends who battles those responsible for Bruce Lee's death, for reasons unknown the bad guys kidnap Bruce Lee's mistress Betty Teng Pei and Bruce Li kicks but to avenge the matter and make everything okay. The movie is sort of offensive with the premise, however politics aside the movie is just plain dull. Indeed Bruce Li's fight sequences are often shot so we can't see what he's doing. The story makes no sense and the movie doesn't work on any level, even as exploitation. Indeed Bruce Li looks like Bruce Lee and manages to do some impressive moves (though we can't fully enjoy it, as we can't see what's going on) but the movie is lethargically paced, the action badly shot and of course no momentum develops between the action, so what were left with is a boring kung fu movie with better than average production values but nothing worthwhile to watch.

* Out Of 4-(Bad)