Exploring a bizarre and under-reported chapter in pulp cinema history, Enter the Clones of Bruce turns an expert eye on the avalanche of copycat action films and lookalike actors that followed kick-ass screen legend Bruce Lee’s untimely death 50 years ago. Directed by David Gregory of Severin Films, an LA-based company that specialises in restoring and repackaging vintage cult movies, this highly engaging documentary has sufficient production polish, human interest and broader cultural resonance for general audience appeal beyond narrow fan-boy circles. Premiered in Tribeca, it makes its German debut in Oldenburg this week, with a string of more genre-friendly festival bookings to follow.
When Lee died of a cerebral oedema in 1973, aged just 32, he was on the cusp of global superstar fame, a virtual one-man film industry who had elevated kung fu movies from local phenomenon to global brand. His sudden demise left a huge gap in the market, which unscrupulous bosses at grindcore film studios in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea rushed to fill with cash-in “Brucesploitation” movies. Martial arts-trained performers from across Southeast Asia were rapidly recruited, then brazenly re-styled and renamed in Lee’s image.
The best known were Bruce Li from Taiwan (Ho Chung-tao), the Burma-born Bruce Le (Lu Xiaolóng), Korean actor Dragon Lee (Moon Kyung-seok), Bruce Lai (Chang Yi-tao ) from Hong King and Bruce Lo (Yasuaki Kurata) from Japan. In some cases, these actors had their credited screen names changed by studio chiefs and foreign distributors without their knowledge, especially in Europe, a subplot to Gregory’s film that touches lightly on the casual racism of the period. Alongside these more famous clones, many of Lee’s tenuous associates and former co-stars also found themselves part of this prolific mini-boom, passed off as the next best thing in cheap chopsocky productions.
Experts and industry veterans interviewed by Gregory number the “official” canon of “Brucesploitation” films at around 80, though the unofficial total is closer to 200. Most are shameless rip-offs and barely coherent pseudo-sequels to Lee’s handful of hits: The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972), The Way of the Dragon (1972) and Enter The Dragon (1973). Others are heavily fictionalised Lee biopics and macabre Frankenstein patchworks incorporating real footage of the star’s corpse filmed at his public funeral. A few transcend naked opportunism to muster their own genuinely bizarre cult-movie energy, like The Dragon Lives Again (1977), which stars “Bruce Liang” as an afterlife Lee battling against clownishly bad approximations of James Bond, Popeye, Dracula, Laurel and Hardy, Satan and more. Toto, we are definitely not in Kansas any more.
Painstakingly assembled over seven years, Enter the Clones of Bruce features a treasure trove of obscure archive footage and an impressive range of contemporary interviews, notably all the main surviving Bruce clones. Of these, Ho Chung-tao was the hardest to secure, but he shares the most revealing and rueful insights, both celebrating and lamenting how his life has been shaped by his Bruce Lee associations. A few of the lesser interview clips here look scrappy and raw, notably an ad hoc chat with Hong Kong action-film icon Sammo Hung, one of the new-generation stars whose fame signalled the end of the Brucesploitation era in the early 1980s.
The rise of Jackie Chan, of course, was also a crucial factor, moving martial arts movies into a major new action-comedy phase that conquered Hollywood and beyond. Chan’s absence from the guest commentators here is hardly a fatal flaw, but a few words from him could have given this story a stronger sense of closure. Other slightly disappointing no-shows include Quentin Tarantino, whose films are peppered with homages to Lee, or any surviving members of Lee’s family, who declined Gregory’s invitations to participate.
Enter the Clones of Bruce is clearly made with affection for its subject matter, and a wistful nostalgia for the lost golden age of martial arts cinema. Even the most shoddy straight-to-video productions covered here have some kind of goofy appeal, from their resourceful use of minimal budgets to their delirious comic energy. It comes as no surprise that Gregory’s company has now licensed many of these films, with plans to kickstart a mini Brucesploitation revival of their own. Ironically, this documentary is made with far more slick professionalism than most of the movies it covers. Meticulously crafted and visually appealing, it features vivid vintage graphics, artfully enhanced archive stills and an authentically retro funk-rock score, all knowing flashbacks to an era when everybody was kung fu fighting. Send in the clones.
Director: David Gregory
Cast: Bruce Le, Bruce Li, Bruce Liang, Dragon Lee, Angela Mao, Sammo Hung, David Chiang, Phillip Ko, Andre Morgan, Mars, Yasuaki Kurata, Ron Van Clief
Cinematography: Jim Kunz
Editing: Douglas Buck. Music: Mark Raskin
Producers: Andrew Furtado, Michael Worth, Jeremy Kai Ping Cheung, Vivian Sau Man Wong, Frank Djeng
Production company: Severin Films
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival (Midnight Xpress)
In Cantonese, English, Japanese
94 minutes
