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(1980) Clones of Bruce Lee DUBBED MARTIAL ARTS

It has often been said that the Bruce Lee name continued to be exploited long after he had died, and this movie is evidence to that which regards a scientist taking a small sample of blood from Bruce Lee's arm for the intentions of creating clones of the martial arts star- hence the name. And since this facility was being financed by the SBI not the FBI mind you, which stands for the "Special Branch of Investigators' , the real intentions for the cloning was to do some good with it by sending each of the Bruce Lee clones to do some good with it, such as to going after a well renown movie producer, who was dealing with gold smuggling, and a doctor in Thailand dealing with narcotics. Notice the credits called each of the characters chosen to play the clones of Bruce Lee all have some relation tot he Bruce Lee name which are Dragon Lee, Bruce Le with "E" missing, Bruce Lai and finally Bruce Thai.

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.

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.

This movie is actually so bad. (Direction, acting, effects, even the fighting) that it has reached some sort of cult status over here. You should check it out. It's funny as hell.

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.