Big Boss à Bornéo

Hong Kong kung fu film directed by Chi-Yen Yang (producer of Rage of the Tiger and Revolt of the Dragon), starring Bruce Li (the Taiwanese Ho Chung Tao, not Bruce Lee; Exit the Dragon Enter the Tiger).

Wan Li (Bruce Li) is not only an expert in martial arts, but, mens sana in corpore sano, he is also a brilliant anthropologist living in Hong Kong. He receives the visit of Chin Sang (Chin-Kun Li aka Larry Lee, The Mandarin Magician), who offers him to go to a small mysterious island in Papua New Guinea, pointed south of New Ireland near the Woodlark Islands (the French title puts very abusively "in Borneo"), to study the strange habits of its Snake People, a "primitive and ancient" tribe. The inhabitants not only worship a magic Snake Pearl, but have also developed a special martial art based on the snake's techniques.

Wan Li and Chin arrive on the island and are guided by two comical natives (Tau Wan Yue, The Karate Killer, and Siu-Ming To, Mini-Skirt Gang), who give an amusing counterpoint, and they realize that a Great Wizard (Sing Chen, Fury of the Shaolin Master), cruel leader of the vicious Devil Sect, has usurped the throne and wants to force the beautiful princess Ankawa (Dana aka Shu-Yi Chen, Cobra Girl) to marry his idiotic son Simba (Kwai Shan, Drunken Master) in order to rule uncontested on the island.

Shall Wan Li and his friend Chin be able to help the princess and her people to retrieve their liberty? Shall they manage to fight the Great Wizard and his guards (with Bolo Yeung, Enter the Dragon, and Hoi-Sang Lee, He has nothing but Kung Fu), by piercing the secret of the three deadly tricks of the snake technique? Shall they achieve to get rid of the wandering adventurers (Lik Cheung, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, and Alan Ellerton, Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu), who covet the highly valuable healing pearl, guarded by a pit of poisonous snakes? And shall Wan Li finally find the key to fulfill all the "desires of the snake woman", as puts by the title in the original Chinese version?

The plot is unfortunately not quite led and edited in a rigorous and efficient manner, many sequences seeming to have been shot with characters who just happened to be there, a scene even featuring a kung fu fight with a local gorilla, all exoticism being after all the same. Indeed the actors playing the natives don't even try to look like the Papuans, some kinds of weird clothes being sufficient to make the show. Nevertheless there are fighting, accompanied by a music mixing Morricone and Stravinsky, which could interest the amateurs of that kind of martial art. (Viewed in an English 1h24 version with clothed sequences; there is also a Chinese 1h28 version with some of the sequences unclothed.)

A good mixture of traditional old skool kung fu films and a more up to date Bruce Lee style of fighting. Ho Chung Tao shows an impressive array of kicks and strikes and unlike most kung fu films even his friend who travels with him is a very skilled fighter. Opposed to having just one talented actor in the film taking out armies of the dodgiest bad guys ever. There are loads of laugh out loud moments including dialogue and plot but they just add to the film and make the time between fights go easier unlike sitting through a Jackie Chan film which will have half an hour of fantastic stunts and and an hour and a half of awful humour and dodgy plots about being sailors trying to catch pirates (project A). At least this doesn't intend to be funny but ends up being hilarious in all of its low budget glory.

After looking for this Bruceploitation for months, and then accidentally buying it cheap, it was disappointing. I heard about it on a DVD-R site, and it sounded crazy.

But no, what I got was a pretty bad martial arts movie. The kung fu-ing wasn't too bad, but the rest of the movie was pretty awful, and made the movie seem really, really long, much longer then it's 85 minute runtime.

On a positive note, the ape was funny for a couple of seconds (especially when I think they took the only close up of it's face from another movie), and the black guy who pops up half way through was funny because of the one line he said, which singlehandedly made all black people look like complete simpletons.

But it wasn't enough, sadly.

4/10

The movie starts with a quick opening fight with Bruce Li versus a few muggers. Next Larry and Bruce explain where they are going and why. A 747 takes then to the jungles of New Guinea where they trudge along to burn up some film time. The banana gag bombs then at night there is a brief fight as they save a native girl from being sacrificed. Next morning the Devil Sect displays their (lack of) fighting skills. Larry and Bruce bump into another guy who is searching for the pearl. After a brief fight they team up. Next a group a natives attack then flee.

All the fights so far have been basic, brief, distant, hesitant, and totally lack any real power. They continued to be all that for the rest of the movie plus clumsy, off-balance and monotonous too. All the non- fight parts are either exposition (often repeating what is already known or obvious) or actors moving from one spot to another in long and dragged out motion. The guys are split up and fight. Though Bruce is fine he seems to be missing then he returns home on an airplane. What was that all about? He returns weird and dreaming of some "island girl". There is a flashback and a man in a monkey suit is involved.

Bruce had a romantic interlude on the island, was forced to leave, and now he must return – so he returns. As if the fights weren't bad enough they bring in three Western stunt men and Larry Lee gets killed off. IMDb has an 80 minute run time for this movie and the reviewers mention a lot of nudity. Yet the copy I came across had no nudity and the run was 95 minutes. This movie has a reputation as one of the worst if not the very worst martial arts movies ever made – yet I watched it. Yes, it is a deep stinker and I rate it 1 out of 10.

I agree with those who wrote that the movie taken lightly, is hilarious, has some great fight scenes and have to add that in spite of that there are parts that drag on endlessly. Overall I give it a 6 because there aren't many movies I care to watch more than once or twice and this is one.

Now the Bruce Lee vs Bruce Li problem. This movie should not be listed under Bruce Lee's work, the actor in it is Bruce Li - two different people. I have spent a couple hours researching this issue and so far I've concluded that this confusion is unfortunate and takes away from the accomplishments of the real Bruce Lee. When you google photos on either one you get photos of both, incorrectly listed as each other, or at least many of Li's photos are billed as Lee. The resemblance is so close that Li starred in many Lee tribute movies after Lee's death, adding to the confusion.