The Dragon Lives Again

Honey where are the hinges?

Do you want to watch Bruce Lee (played by not himself) fight Dracula, Clint Eastwood, and James Bond? Well either way I’m going to talk about the movie that provides just that.

Cards on the table, I discovered this movie due to someone linking the wikipedia page for it on account of how unhinged a plot synopsis of it reads, which made me want to watch it. I ended up watching the English dub of the movie specifically, which was not great at lip synching. But with how the rest of the movie is that added to the experience in a way.

The premise of the movie is that Bruce Lee is in the underworld after his death. The people of the underworld are terrorized by a criminal gang led by ‘the Exorcist,’ who plans to usurp the king. Seemingly second in command of the crew is ‘the Godfather,’ who has Clint Eastwood and James Bond as personal enforcers. Rounding out the ranks are Zatoichi the blind swordsman, Dracula who commands an army of zombies, and Emmanuelle, the titular character of a series of groundbreaking erotic movies.

Side note, but while the character of ‘the Godfather’ definitely draws from the movie of the same name, I find it important to note that he is likely supposed to be Michael Corleone rather than Vito Corleone. Which is good because I feel joining an evil league of evil would be out of character for Vito but not Michael. This concludes the Godfather characterization digression.

Bruce Lee has some allies of his own in this film, like an old doctor and his daughter who is the clear love interest. Also there’s Popeye, as well as Kwai Chang Caine from the TV series Kung Fu and Fang Kang from the movie the One Armed Swordsman.

Wikipedia has a list of supposed off-screen opponents that Bruce Lee fought in this movie, but I didn’t catch any reference to them in the dub. Which is disappointing because that list of opponents includes Jay Gatsby (who I imagine would be called the Great Gatsby if he did appear), Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and the Wicked Witch of the West. It would have been fun to see those fights.

Of course there’s more to a movie than just the list of characters in it. Like how horny it is, because this movie is horny. The king of the underworld’s two concubines have quite a few scenes of them talking while bathing with no attempt from the movie to be tasteful about it, later they play rock papers scissor to decide who gets to impersonate Bruce Lee’s new love interest to try and seduce him. They know what they want, and it’s Bruce Lee.

Meanwhile part of the evil gang’s plan involves Emmanuelle fucking the king into having a heart attack. I am not giving a facetious summary that’s literally her role in the plot under the orders of the Exorcist, she nearly succeeds too. Dracula is also taken out by Bruce Lee’s third leg, as in a literal third leg that erupts from his crotch to kick Dracula in the face.

There isn’t much substance to the plot aside from the bits of absurdity though, and the fights aren’t the peak of martial arts cinema or anything. Bruce Lee shutting down the gambling house sticks in my memory not for any quality as a plot beat, but for the fact that it took two sentences to make everyone in the underworld stop gambling apparently.

This also means it’s a little difficult to talk about the movie beyond summarizing the plot and going ‘this is absurd.’ Basically, watch it if you’re the kind of person who loves unhinged things of debatable at best quality, or just watching bad movies.

To wrap things up, it’s time for a poll on one of the biggest questions looking at the wikipedia article for this movie brings to mind.