"Dynamo" (1978) d/ Hwa I Hung

Yeah, set aside that Game of Death(1979) tracksuit in the one sheet  for a moment (besides, he wears two different JKD tracksuits in this one), as such Brucesploitative imagery might sour you on an otherwise entertaining Ho Tsung Tao(Bruce Li) movie; Ho being the most  recognizable of all the Lee imitators and the one with the largest body of work, having appeared in thirty-eight movies dating back to the Taiwanese production, Death Duel(1972). Despite being peppered with a supporting cast of the usual overmatched suspects (i.e. Ku Feng, Chiang Tao), this one gets by with passable fight choreography provided by Yuen Cheung-Yan, but eyes familiar to the more dynamic stunt work of Jacky Chan, Sammo Hung, or Liu Chia Liang might find these brawls as primitive as a pair of cave bearskin knickers. Still, the odd rapport between Ho and Ku is laugh-worthy enough, and let's not forget about those "Bruce Lee and I"(1976) inserts.

 
"The bottle ends before these Bruce Lee rip-offs ever will...", gurgles Teacher Chow (Ku Feng).
A movie producer named Miss Mary arrives in Hong Kong for Bruce Lee's funeral ("They wouldn't sink so low as to include actual Bruce Lee funeral footage here, would they?", he asked knowingly) and manages to catch cab driver Lee Ting Yee (Bruce Li) putting the hurt on some common street trash, offering him ten grand a month as salary to be the next big action star on the silver screen. She hires a heavy boozer named Chow (Ku Feng) as Lee's Sifu, and he informs his student, "Feel free to attack me any time, because I'll do the same." A strange request, to be sure, but Lee obliges, and suddenly attacks his elder at every juncture. Lee also often dreams of the real Bruce (or Danny Lee doing a pretty bad Bruce Lee imitation from another movie, if you've got eyes), and before long he finds himself in similar shoes to the late kung fu actor.

 
"Sometime when we touch, honesty too much."
The cabbie turned actor's sudden popularity draws the ire of rival movie producer named Mr. George who sends random gangs of toughs to every country that Lee is filming in, leading to a headache-inducing number of  attacks in what's supposed to be America (it isn't even), Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea, sating the viewer's need to see a bellhop fight, and even James Bond-style ski slope brawls, but Lee reigns triumphant over all comers, forcing George and his cronies to up the ante by kidnapping Lee's girlfriend and forcing him to throw a fight in an upcoming martial arts tournament if he ever wants to see her alive. Natually, Chow helps rescue her in the nick of time, and Lee wins his match in the end, but he gives up the glamorous movie lifestyle for good, having had enough of it, and returns to happier times as a cab driver.


"I'm not Bruce Lee either!", boasts Li Hsiu-Hsien, in a scene from a different movie altogether.
The plot of tonight's review mirrors lead actor Ho Tsung Tao's rise to fame, much like his later effort, The Chinese Stuntman/ Counter Attack (1981).You might notice Steve Sander, also an extra in Enter the Dragon(1973),  in one of the fight scenes, in his trademark funky stocking cap, can you dig it, baby? Director Hwa would go on to work with Billy Chong on Crystal Fist (1979), A Hard Way To Die(1979), and Kung Fu Zombie (1981). Perceptive readers might wonder how one of the better Bruce Li efforts only merits two wops on the scale, but I think that rating speaks volumes on how much worse most of his other stuff really was. Then again, compared to the next most prolific Lee imitators, Huang Kin Lung(Bruce Le) and Dragon Lee, whose collective unwatchable stink-bomb rate is prodigious as all fuck, average is pretty much as good as it gets in this subgenre.

 
"Sayyy, are those Swingster ski pants?"
 

"Crystal Fist" (1979) d/ Hwa I Hung

From the instant lead pugilist Billy Chong's title sequence form kicks into high gear over the opening credits, you should already know what a tempest whirlwind of martial action you're in for. Tonight's review, also known under it's alternate "Jade Claw" title, is Chong's starring debut; a Kung Fu Theater staple throughout the eighties on Philadelphia and New York stations like WPHL and WWOR, packed to the gills with quality kung foolery, beautiful training and form sequences, and breathtaking fight choreography from Simon Yuen's sons Brandy and Shun-Yi (who also doubled for Chong and elder Yuen during the trickier maneuvers), so much so, in fact, that it bears striking resemblance to Yuen's elder son's (Yuen Woo Ping, for those keeping track) groundbreaking genre work with Jackie Chan, leading to the inevitable 'Chan copycat' tag that would wrongfully follow the Indonesian action star for years to follow. Pay such damning comparisons no mind, especially in the case of tonight's focus: a classic in every sense of the word.

 
Farcical physical slapstick humor? Check.
Young Wen is orphaned when Master Yen(Chu Tiet Wo) erase his father(Hau Chau Sing) from the equation with his deadly Double Phoenix Eye fist and help from his two henchmen, Deaf and Blind(Brandy Yuen, Addy Sung). Now a young man (Billy Chong) looking to learn martial arts to exact revenge, he poses as an instructor to gain entry to a local kung fu school, and is taken on as a kitchen hand to the Cook (Simon Yuen), when he's not being used as a punching bag by Fatty and Skinny (Lung Ga Chun, David Woo),  the assistant teachers. Feeling sorry for Wen after much pranking (of the prosthetic smashed big toes variety and then some) transpires, the Cook begins to teach him the Eagle Claw technique through a painful-looking montage of training exercise and sheer physical endurance, and it isn't long before Wen is an adept enough fighter to protect his nation's honor against a cocky Russian ( Alexander Grand), but the tail end of his humbling lesson is witnessed by Yen, who instantly recognizes the Eagle Claw technique of his rival, and attacks Wen on his way home.

 
Impossibly difficult training sequences that border on the sadistic, really? Check.
Yen and his thugs viciously beat the young pupil, burning his hand in a fire and smashing the jade his father had given to him, but he manages to escape with his life. When the cook sees Wen's broken jade, he realizes who he really is, and vows to teach him the shadow eagle's claw style to defeat Yen's Phoenix Eye and avenge his father's death.Cue: dramatic forms sequence, and Wen's ready to dole it back out in droves.After he puts a jerk off nobleman who lets his German Shepard eat off a restaurant table in his place and beating the stuffing out of Fatty and Skinny, he squares off against Blind and Deaf and double handicaps both of them.When he finds Yen, he's laughing maniacally, having just set the young man's digs on fire. Man, this guy is hardcore. With the building burning to the ground behind them, the men majestically fight to the death, both with weapons and finally, barehanded, where Wen unleashes the secret shadow eagle's claw upon his foe, and in an acrobatic slo-mo, crushes Yen's throat, leading to a Shaw-esque final freeze.


Avenging a father's volent, untimely death at the hands of a power-mad warlord? Check.
Chong would follow up this hit for Eternal Films with another Hung film,  A Hard Way To Die(1979), and 1980's Super Power. The two would work together again the following year in the legendary Kung Fu Zombie(1981). The Ocean Shores clamshell VHS under the Crystal Fist title boasts of the only uncut print I've seen of the movie, with the profanity and fight violence excised from the television edit intact, though I can't say I've given any of the cheap bare bones dvds I've seen of it much attention. If any classic golden era kung fu movie needs a special edition widescreen restoration, this one gets my vote. As one my all-time favorites of the genre, I'd write about it all day if you let me. If you're into this sort of thing, you can't go wrong. Highly recommended. Four wops.


"Attack the heart, and then the lungs... Tired?? TOO BAD!!!"

"Inseminoid" (1981) d/ Norman J. Warren

How can you top homicidal inter-species  lunacy in space in the form of a thirty-five cent British Alien(1979) rip-off as overseen by the legendary Shaw Brothers' elder,  Run Run? This stuff is way ahead of it's time, believe me. Just imagine Jason Reitman's Juno if Ellen Page was British sex kitten Judy 'To Sir With Love' Geeson (I like where I'm taking this), and Michael Cera was a rubbery bug-eyed intergalactic horndog with a clear tube full o' green pipsqueak pudding (Okay, maybe not.). Warren's fourth feature, which follows marginal genre fare like Satan's Slave(1976) and 1978's Prey, is as loopy as it's gore is goopy; don't think of it as laughable Dollar Store knockoff of Ridley Scott's groundbreaking 1979 cult classic, think of it as a feature length Doctor Who episode with ample boobs and over-the-top splatter that more than compensates for not having Tom Baker running around the cheap-looking sets with that toothy grin and ridiculously long trademark scarf, don't you think?

 
Remember to always use your low beams when approaching a crater.
While excavating the ruins of an ancient civilization based on dualism and once ruled by a pair of twins on a desolate planet, a team of  Xeno project scientists has set up base precariously near a stage set cheaply decorated to resemble a convolution of catacombs where an alien intellect has taken up residence in some crystals, influencing some of the team members to act in a less-than-British manner indeed. One deranged fellow is plugged with a harpoon gun, while his trapped partner removes her helmet in the deadly atmosphere and freezes solid when a chainsaw foot amputation turns out worse than aspirations. Unfazed by the gruesome deaths, another duo naturally sets out to investigate the murderous crystals, and this time, is set upon by a stretchy-looking alien beast, who extirpates the gent and lays down his partner for some sweet otherworldly dream sequence rape.


"No time for the old in-out, love, I've just come to read the meter."
Rescued by her remaining colleagues, Sandy (Judy Geeson), who's been regularly injected with contraceptives like the rest of the female officers (Call me, ladies) along the way, is now pregnant with twin alien/human hybrids, and as a side effect, is inhumanly strong, and quite prone to dismembering her coadjutors and drinking their blood when she feels her progeny is threatened. Several super sanguinary slayings later, it's up to Mark (Robin Clarke), the senior officer and Sandy's former fuck-buddy, to take her down for keeps after delivering her newly stumbled upon twin reptilian urchins over to Sharon (Heather Wright). Mark C.T.F.O.'s his ex, but discovers one of her mutant kids chewing Sharon's neck upon his return, and is wiped out himself, by the other equally homicidal one. When a rescue team later arrives to investigate loss of communications with the team, the twins stow away on the shuttle as it departs, as no survivors are found...


Sometimes a chick's gotta take a vadge fulla space yogurt for a movie, I guess.
If  you like your cinematic rip-offs like your sin-sating one-offs (cheap n' sleazy, who doesn't?), then you'll do right by yourselves in securing a rental copy of this one at the very least. The more hopeless of you probably already bought it on purpose. Mine's an Embassy VHS print under the alternate "Horror Planet" title transferred to dvd with custom dupe sleeve, though I'm not sure where that places me on the aforementioned  scale.  It'd make a sick fit on a sci-fi / schlock horror drive-in retro triple bill with Galaxy of Terror(1981) and Contamination(1980), for anybody with the money and means out there to make such an affair transpire. Rancid space debris as you like it. One wop.


"I just tasted some Adam's apple, you're a MANNN, BABY!"