Bruce Lee's Secret
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| Bruce Lee's Secret | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Chan Wa William Cheung Ki |
| Starring | Bruce Li Carter Wong Hwang Jang-Lee Roy Horan Robert Kerver Alan Ellerton |
| Release date(s) | 1976 (Hong Kong) |
| Running time | 91 min min. |
| Language | Cantonese |
Bruce Lee's Secret is a 1979 Bruceploitation martial arts film, which is also a pseudo-biopic of Bruce Lee. It stars Bruce Li as "Bob" Lee, whose life is essentially the same as Lee's and is on two occasions actually referred to as 'Bruce'. The film has been released under the alternate titles Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung Fu, The Story of the Dragon, and Bruce Lee's Jeet Kun Do. This film is not to be confused with another Bruce Lee biopic, Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story.
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[edit] Synopsis
In Seattle, Bruce "Bob" Lee (Bruce Li) works in a Chinese food restaurant with his wacky friend Chang Ming. When a gang of hoodlums is making trouble, Bob puts a lot of pepper on their chicken, making them sneeze a lot (and inspiring the immortal line, "This is pepper chicken. Good for gut's ache!").
Unfortunately, Bob and Chang are blacklisted from the bustling Seattle Chinese restaurant community by the gang. However, after beating up some bad guys, people realize what an amazing martial artist Bob is, and encourage him to start his own kung fu school.
Bob's school opens to boffo business, but there is controversy among the powerful rival kung fu schools because Bob is teaching to non-Asians. He also creates Jeet Kun Do, and uses his newly improves martial arts ability to whup the baddies once and for all.
[edit] Reaction
Most fans of kung fu movies agree that this is a very bad movie - bad acting, pathetic attempt to pass off suburban Hong Kong as Seattle, unspeakable dubbed dialogue, thin characters and plot, etc.
In the fanzine Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger, Carl Jones writes:
"This film was a definite backward step for Bruce Li...The gwailos are laughable, notably Roy Horan (he later of Seasonal Films) blacked-up and wearing a fright wig (he also plays on of the gang sans make-up) and a tall Chinese fighter also blacked/wigged up who seems to live in his gi...Ho Chung Tao puts in another solid performance in the film, yet his fighting skills don't appear to have made any kind of progress, once again this could be because it was shot earlier. The locations are baffling: is it the U.S., is it Taiwan or Hong Kong, and who the hell cares?!"[1]
On the website [www.cityonfire.com/ City on Fire], Joseph Cuby is more affectionate:
"People buying this movie are more likely to watch it for the same reason I watched it: to entertain the notion of what would have happened had Bruce Lee clashed with Hwang Jang Lee...Bruce Lee's Secret isn't completely incompetent, there were quite a few scenes that I thought were well-directed. One scene depicts Bob and his friend working at this new place with Bob doing cool tricks with the bowls & glasses before getting sacked by their boss just by the sheer presence of Rob Kerver & his lackeys (the way it was done with editing, music and no dialogue was pretty effective) and I liked one directorial touch which shows Mr. Grace means business in this groovy shot where we see his office, almost pitch black, except there's a light behind his desk which is making the retro-looking wall behind him look shiny - creating a silhouette where the only other thing you see is the smoke coming from his cigar, quite artsy! All in all, harmless fun that's above average if not completely good!"[www.cityonfire.com]
Despite the negative reaction to this film, actor Hwang Jang-Lee would later of on the achieve stardom after appearing as the bad guy in Jackie Chan's breakout films, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master.
Re:"The locations are baffling: is it the U.S., is it Taiwan or Hong Kong?" The film was made in Taipei and nearby areas. The restaurant scene at the start is in Bo-Ai street Taipei. The bungalows are in a former US military housing complex near Taipei. The docks scenes are at Keelung. Some scenes were done in Peitou a suburb of Taipei. Filming started in late 1975 and finished early 1976.
[edit] Other connections to Bruce Lee
Actor Paul Wei Ping Au had previously played the effeminate translator in Bruce Lee's Way of the Dragon.
Roy Horan appears in this film in blackface. He was a regular actor as Seasonal Films, and is best known for his role as a bad guy in Game of Death II (A/K/A Tower of Death).
The bearded guy at the dinner table in the restaurant at the beginning and later in red and yellow garb was Alan W. Ellerton. He learned Wing Chun with Ho Chung-Tao's teacher Lo Man-Kam and also White Crane and Tai Chi for many years in Taiwan. He was the Far East editor of the well-known martial arts mag. "Fighting Arts International". He appeared in several films in Taiwan. The ginger haired guy at the table was Phil Cohen actually a former student of Bruce Lee himself - he taught Ho Chung-Tao how to do the Jeet Kune Do movements. The instructor in the blue track suit (not Roy H.) was Greg Talovic who taught Taekwondo at the US airbase. Roy Horan had achieved black belt status in Shorinji Kempo prior to coming to Taiwan. These Western participants were, in fact, all well versed in a range of martial arts: they were not, of course, allowed to show this to any great extent in the film.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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