Fist of Fear, Touch of Death (1980)

Excellent but underrated film

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Where to begin with this one? It's so bad, so unintentionally hilarious, in so many ways, that I am almost paralyzed with indecision about what to address first, and how to keep this review under 1000 words. OK, I know. The real problem with this film is that the writer and director were apparently on acid when they put this together. It's just a mess. Several real life celebrities play themselves; a couple of minor martial art luminaries get to act out their Bruce Lee fantasies; there's some archival footage from an early Chinese soap opera where a young Lee played a supporting part; this is mixed incoherently in with footage swiped from an old time Chop Sockey film, claiming that this footage is the back story of his "grandfather"(????). There's a Madison Square "title bout" to determine who gets to be Lee's successor (or sometimes his "title', despite the fact that Lee didn't compete in tournaments after his movie career took off,and never had a "title" that I knew about, and his "successors", if any, would be members of his Jeet Kune Do training group....none of whom appear in this film) There's several badly mangled pieces of Lee interview footage where someone dubs over Lee's actual words so it looks like Aaron Banks (or the TV announcer)is interviewing him. BTW, the dubbed speeches use the terms "karate" and "kung fu" interchangeably,and it's obvious that whoever wrote and dubbed the footage didn't know the difference.There are other extremely odd choices. Fred Williamson is in here for a bit, playing himself, and the movie wastes about 10 minutes following him as he oversleeps, tries to catch a taxi, and verbally spars with the announcer (who gives him a lift to the Square). Ron Van Clief appears (as himself) in an interview while he works out (which sort of makes sense) and then rescues a couple joggers from a gang of thugs on HIS way to the Garden (apparently the interview camera followed him out of the gym). Aaron Banks (in real life a promoter and sometime karate competitor) babbles on about the "death touch" and then demonstrates it for the camera (anyone with a smidgen of martial arts background will recognize what Banks is doing as a variant of Lee's "one inch punch", NOT a "death touch".) Some guy dresses up in a Kato costume and also rescues some girls by beating up a some thugs, and the inclusion of this footage makes so sense whatsoever in terms of the story or the milieu. Add did I mention the actual bouts? At one point one the competitors rips the eyes out of another one! I'm pretty sure that counts as a foul and a disqualification under most events that would occur at Madison Square - not to mention prison time for aggravated assault and a million dollar lawsuit. It just goes on and on like this; nothing connects to anything else, and the feeble "framing device" of the TV interviews doesn't even begin to make up for the weird stuff the producers just made up. If Bruce Lee had come back from the dead, the first thing he would have done would be to pulverize the director and producers responsible for this movie. I am very surprised that his family and estate didn't sue. The only reason to see this is a) the footage of the soap opera with the adolescent Bruce (which I had never seen before) and b)to see just how bad an exploitation movie can get.

Before you reed this comment i want you to know that when I saw this movie I found it so disgusting I could not watch the whole movie.I've been a martial arts fan ever since I saw what Bruce Lee was capable of in a two-hour documentary on the Discovery Channel. Very unfortunately this was one of the first movies I saw about him. Though "Goodbye Bruce Lee" isn't too good either, at least it doesn't put violate his reputation as "The king of Kung Fu".If you reed this comment before you are about to watch the movie, let me warn you that if you want Bruce Lee, go get yourself "Enter The Dragon" instead.

Everything in the is movie is a 100% true about Bruce lee. Finally we have a film that tells of his; voyage to America with just the clothes on his back, his great grand fathers swordsmen ship, confrontation with the people that know him best, his journey through the early stages of KARATE, death from the touch of death. This movies also finally shows us the real successor to Bruce lee (through a KARATE match).I advice any Bruce lee fan to get this movie immediately. It really shows you how great of a man Bruce lee was. Since Adolf Caesar really founded Bruce lee (and he was immediately famous) its no wonder that he is as big as he was. I mean, there's no way that Bruce would have died of natural causes, it had to be....the touch of death.

Unfortunately, this film neither features real martial arts, nor is it a classic. It hardly even features Bruce Lee, except for some old footage that has been re-dubbed to make it look like Lee actually agreed to this film being made. I hope somebody got sued for this one.This could have been a good documentary about the "1979 Karate Championship" but most of the footage from the karate matches is obviously staged, and has little to do with Chinese martial arts. Some interesting "facts" were revealed by this film however. For instance, prior to watching "Fist of Fear", I had no idea that Lee's great grandfather was the greatest Chinese samurai warrior.There are a few funny moments in the film (the Bill Louie Kato scene, or when Fred Williamson is introduced for example) but if you have any respect for Bruce Lee or film-making in general, I would highly recommend avoiding this film.Lex