Starring: Michael Chan
Director: Shang Lang
Rating: Two of Ten Stars
When his brother is robbed and murdered while buying jade in Thailand, jeweler and kick-ass martial artist Chen-Wai Chang (Chan) sets out to find and punish his killers.
"Spirits of Bruce Lee" is a waste of time and space. It's populated by uninteresting characters portrayed by handsome but unremarkable actors and actresses, and it moves at a glacial pace from predictable plot point to predictable plot point. Even in 1973 this boring and overlong film must have been a sleep-aid for some, and a welcome make-out opportunities for teenagers at drive-ins and second-run movie houses. The only way to get through this movie without boredom killing you as dead as Bruce Lee--barring making out or dozing off--would be to consume copious amounts of spirits (Bruce Lee Spirits or otherwise.)
This film is one of the few in this set that has no qualities that give any reason for you to watch it. It's possible the original Chinese version is slightly better than what comes across in this obnoxiously dubbed film that features one of the greatest collection of annoying voices to ever be assembled in one place, but even it can't possibly be worth the time it takes to watch. It's rare that I think Godfrey Ho adding some random ninjas could improve a film, but I think taht would have been the only thing that could have saved this paint-by-numbers, half-assed martial arts melodrama..
By the way, can someone explaine the "Brucespoitation" thing to me? Did movie-going martial arts fans in the mid- to late 1970s really go to see any piece of crap that had Bruce Lee's name in the title? This movie can't be described as a tribute to Bruce Lee (or even anyone who was involved with making it it's so awful), nor does there seem to be any similarities to any of the movies Lee made plot-wise or theme-wise--except in a single, minor point that one really has to stretch to even consider a similarity. I simply don't get the selling point.
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