"Tower of Death"(1981)d/Ng See Yuen

In 1979,Golden Harvest sifted through rushes Bruce Lee had shot seven years earlier,came up with eleven minutes worth of usable stuff,shot an entirely different movie around said eleven minutes of film,utilizing two Lee imitators(Kim Tai Chung and Tong Lung) and random shots and frames of Lee from his other films(including Lee's actual funeral footage) to piece the whole,confusing mess together and called it "Game of Death".Two years later,veteran Hong Kong director Ng See Yuen(Snake in the Eagle's Shadow)decided it would be a good idea to film a SEQUEL to a movie never made starring a man who had been dead for eight years.The end result is one of the greatest pieces of exploitation ever seen in the history of cinema.

Wong Cheng Li smiles as the back of Kim Tai Chung's head makes its first appearance.
Billy Lo(Bruce Lee,but really Kim Tai Chung) visits his friend Chin Ku(Wong Cheng Li) just in time for a martial challenge by an angry white guy in black sweats.Chin dispatches the kung fu honkey,then Billy tells of a martial challenge HE'D received in a greenhouse from a Korean(Casanova Wong).Both men laugh and part ways.Bobby visits a Shaolin abbot(Roy Chiao) to discuss the problems he's been having with his younger brother Bobby(also Kim Tai Chung),who seems more interested in dirty Chinese penetration drawings than kung fu.Billy leaves his personal kung fu manual and a letter for his sibling,explaining there'll be time for girls later(!).At this point,Bobby hears of Chin Ku's untimely death,then visits Chin's daughter,who's the Asian equivalent of Karen Carpenter,badly lip-synching Chinese easy listening tunes in a bar.She gives Bobby a cigar box full of film when her dressing room is suddenly broken into by a group of machete-wielding masked assassins.The ensuing martial battle piles out into the Hong Kong streets where Lo dispatches all disguised comers and runs off.He then attends Chin's funeral,where a helicopter swoops down and steals Ku's swasti-coffin as Billy is killed with a dart as he tries to stop the casket's theft in mid-air.

"You're just talking crap!""No I'm not,I'm Lee Chien Chung."
After more footage of Bruce Lee's actual funeral,Bobby Lo visits his father to discuss revenge for his brother's death,watching footage from the film Billy had obtained of another white kung fu guy, named Lewis(Roy Horan),and his "palace of death".Bobby deducts Lewis' kung fu "doesn't look that hot" and decides to sniff around the palace for clues.

Lewis wonders,"Bobby Lo? Could he be Billy Lo's younger brother?"
At the Palace of Death,Lewis proves a gracious host,showing Bobby his Lions of Death("They love the taste of freshly killed human meat."),his specially trained Peacocks(!)of Death("Kung-fu fighters should be fierce like a lion and swift like a peacock so I study their styles.")
,and remarks about abbot Hung Kwang's fabled Tower of Death...built UNDERGROUND.Two caped intruders appear,challenging Lewis to a martial duel,losing miserably,and are fed to the Lions of Death.Bobby decides he likes Lewis and stays the night at the Palace of Death.As he is about to play hide the spring roll with a white prostitute,a lion(man in a ten dollar lion costume) crashes through the window,killing the hooker,but not before Bobby dispatches the beast with his martial skills.Elsewhere in the Palace of Death,someone assassinates Lewis by hanging him in his own bed and gutting him like a fresh carp.Bobby suspects Lewis' one handed valet who has disappeared,then makes off for the fabled Tower of Death.
Bobby finds the valet outside the Tower,the two have a martial contest where the valet reveals he's been hiding his other hand up his kung fu jacket sleeve all along.Bobby dispatches the former one handed valet with both of his own hands behind his back and enters the Tower of Death.A well-guarded fortress,the Tower serves up silver-disco jumpsuited henchmen and a Chinese strongman in a leopard print Tarzan suit.Bobby dispatches these adversaries in a martial struggle,before taking the elevator past some impressive papier mache cave walls,ultimately finding out that Chin Ku faked his own death,had Billy Lo murdered,and resides in the lowest level with his swastika-adorned pine box.Bobby dispatches Chin in a twenty-five minute martial battle then leaves.

"Huuuuuuaaaaaaaaah!""Heyyyyyyyyaaaaaaahhhhh!"
This chop socky-soaked Bruce-sploitation epic(also released as "Game of Death II,go figure...) has everything going for it.Banal dialogue badly dubbed by familiar British voice over actors,ridiculous plot,piss-poor attempts to tie the late Bruce Lee into the storyline,homicidal men in lion suits,footage of real lions eating chunks of steak off the hood of a Range Rover,terrifying peacocks...well,you get the idea.If you can get past all of that,one thing this film does offer is splendid martial arts choreography,and the fights are nothing short of spectacular.Kim Tai Chung may not look like Bruce Lee unless his back is to the camera,but he can fight.Wong Cheng Li,Li Hoi San,and Roy Horan all turn in good battles in front of the lens.It doesn't get much better(or worse) than this,and isn't that really what it's all about?
Four out of four B.W.'s