Os Clones de Bruce Lee

Most of the "Bruceploitation" titles are pretty awful, ("Challenge of the Tiger") while some are genuinely fun, eye popping entertainment, ("Bruce's Deadly Fingers"). Then there is something like THIS,a movie which is just so bizarre that it's hard to believe your eyes. 40 years ago the subject of cloning was pure fantasy, something only seen in movies. Today, with cloning being a reality, this film takes on a whole new meaning, and although it's silly in it's execution, the basic ideas behind it are weird and fascinating. A power-hungry scientist extracts some blood from a recently deceased Bruce Lee, and uses it to produce 3 clones of Lee, that he further dehumanizes by naming them simply 1, 2, and 3. The clones don't have much personality and that makes them creepy. They are trained to be killing machines, as their martial arts skills are honed and shaped to be as good as the Master Lee. Of course this doctor does not have good intentions with his plan, and in the end he sadistically orders the three clones to basically beat each other to death. The only thing that can stop this is the two beautiful nurses who have been there from the beginning, and have developed real emotions towards the guys. And that's easy to understand when the guys are Bruce Le, Dragon Lee and Bruce Lai, three of the most popular of the Bruce lookalikes. Featuring the expected over the top fight sequences, a fantastic retro soundtrack and handsome widescreen photography, and most important, a script that is interesting and very unique. I think these movies have more value now than they did 40 years ago, as historical documents of an era that is sadly gone. Those who are tired of bloated, CGI, Politically Correct Hollywood nonsense, will most likely love this movie.

I saw this film in the early eighties, so my memory of the plot details is pretty hazy. I do recall, however that the clones mentioned in the title not only didn't look very much like Bruce Lee, they didn't look like each other! Also, there was an army of overweight men in diapers who were covered with metallic paint and were supposed to be made out of bronze. Whenever these guys would get kicked or punched a metallic "bong" was heard on the soundtrack to enhance the illusion. The only problem that the effect was ruined by the way their flesh jiggled on impact. I went to a lot of lousy films in those days, but this one got by far the worst audience reaction of all of them(although the place was nearly full!). If they were dumb enough to think a film with a title like this would be good, they deserved to be disappointed. Personally, at the time I thought it was a lot of goofy fun.

THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE is perhaps the ultimate Bruceploitation film, featuring no less than three Bruce Lee imitators (and two of those are the hard-working Dragon Lee and Bruce Le). It starts off with the depiction of the death of the real Bruce Lee, only to have his body claimed by a mad scientist (Jon Benn, who starred in CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER and WAY OF THE DRAGON) who proceeds to replicate three clones from it.

This action-packed tale then follows each clone as he engages in training routines before being sent off on special missions, typically performing assassinations and the like. Eventually they turn on each other. The whole thing was brought to you courtesy of infamous exploitation director Dick Randall, whose CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER is a mini masterpiece of its type. THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE isn't, but it's still a must for trash fans.

There's no denying the slapdash nature of this film, which was shot in Thailand and the Philippines. While the plot is more involved than your regular kung fu outing, the fight scenes feel very laboured and predictable; the Bruce Lee imitators spend too much time copying Bruce Lee instead of showing much in the way of real skill themselves. I feel they did better work elsewhere. Still, on the other hand, the viewer does get treated to Bolo Yeung (DOUBLE IMPACT), gratuitous nudity, training scenes set to stolen ROCKY music, and a general air of ineptness and anything-goes cult appeal.

Here's yet another in the fairly lengthy list of Bruceploitation flicks to emerge after the great mans untimely demise.

Well, first things first, you just have to hand it to the makers of this – what a bloody ridiculous (i.e super cool!) plot! There is just one slight problem from the start however……the three clones of the late martial arts star actually bear bugger all resemblance to him! (nor to each other even more alarmingly!!!) Still, let us not nit pick over such erm….inconsequential factors; rather let us instead revel in the never ending series of chop-socky fights, cool seventies fashions (including humongous sunglasses and medallions) and indeed the presence of perennial B-movie faves Bruce Le, Dragon Lee and Bolo Yueng.

Also of note there are some admittedly hilarious scenes on offer including an entirely gratuitous sequence featuring a group of naked girls on a beach, and in another set of scenes, a bunch of chubby bronze warriors who just can't seem to catch on that chomping on certain poisonous plants isn't conducive to one's good health(!!!)

Despite the above high points, it does have to be said that the film is actually rather mundane in it's execution however and that the numerous fights (which account for the majority of the films running time) do actually become somewhat tiresome after a while. Nonetheless, as I previously said, credit where credit's due – for sheer stupidity of plot, this is something of a classic!

Some name / style exploitation films of the 60s/70s had sexist undertones / audiences,

others had political prejudist ones, etc,

others, like this one, had a pure exploit, in this case of a name,

and so are not excluded even moreso than the worst of the worst,

BUT,

also like some exploit films where they were likely just a bit of fun at the time,

it had aside from the usual, not much worse than a james bond film at the time baddies,

one memorably absurd and unique way of dealing with robot like under a mad scientists's control clones / baddies...

... feed them some weed!

:D

worth it just for that! Lol.

Maybe strap a bucket-bong to their heads and spin them around JC style?

Might've been too obvious? Lol.

Worked though, didn't it? Metallic man went down!

Brave. Compared to many exploit films, on-screen,.. weed makes metallic-man goes down... FEED YOUR MAN WEED... ethics, politics at the time,..

... yep. Brave. Production values are a joke,.. :D ... but brave nevertheless.

A wacky for-kids tibetan film style zoom-in on the metallic-men's faces contorting to the taste / experience of the weed, would've been a nice touch.

:)

worth it just for that. The rest is disposable.