Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave (1979) Review

Rating: 2 out of 5

Director: Lee Doo-Yong

Year: 1979

Plot:

The movie is originally known as “Visitor of America”, and is part of the Brucesploitation genre of kung fu movies. The opening of the movie is right out of horror movie lore, as lightning strikes the grave of Brue Lee. When lightning hits it, out rises Bruce Lee ready for combat. The title screen comes through and we see the title, “Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave”, and we are in for a good romp, right? Well, that’s the last  you really get about Lee, as the movie features a different story altogether.

The plot revolves our main hero looking for his brother in the big city, which looks a lot like Los Angeles to me. He befriends a lady along the way, and tries to figure out what happened to his brother, who may have been involved in a criminal syndicate. The movie plays out like a standard revenge, detective film, and has fighting thrown into the mix as well.

Thoughts:

I watched the English dub version, and it was not upgraded or remastered in any way. It looks a lot like a VHS transfer, and that hinders the quality a bit. I also found out through a little searching, that the opening sequences was made for the US release of the movie, even though the film has nothing to do with Bruce Lee at all. I give it a couple of strikes for that reason, and the lack of upgrade in film quality as the grain is seen throughout and simply not grand. There’s a lot of darkness, shadows, and bad dubbing that comes through with this movie. The plot takes a while to unfold, and there are a lot of stop gaps, including a parade sequence in what seems to be real time. It’s laughable to say the least.

Our main hero mimics some of the work of Bruce Lee, in the way that he fights, although he lacks the same precision that you expect from The Dragon. While the fights are good, they are not grand at all, and feature a lot of cuts. The pacing is slow, so don’t expect any frenetic paced fighting. There’s a lack of fluidity to the fights, and it takes me away from the movie a bit. Other than that, it’s more of an action movie at times, than a kung fu movie, so I give it a rating of 2 out of 5.

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