Bullet Points: Bruce’s Deadly Fingers
An argument can be made that part of the charm of watching the 1970’s chopsocky imports from Hong Kong is the fact that they looked a little rough. The color would always be washed out. You would see half a character’s face or miss some of the action due to the cropping that would haphazardly be done to make the aspect ratio of the movies more TV friendly for the video rental market or to air as part of “Kung Fu Theater” on your local UHF station.
But after watching VCI Entertainment’s release of Bruce’s Deadly Fingers, there is something to be said for experiencing these kung fu classics as they were originally intended in all their wide screen glory.
- He Still Hasn’t Found What He’s Looking For: Crime boss Lee Hung (Lo Lieh) has designs on acquiring Bruce Lee’s Kung Fu Finger Book. This book (which by all accounts never actually existed) purportedly contained the secrets of Bruce Lee’s fighting finger style. Lee Hung already considers himself a martial arts master and even goes so far to brag to his main squeeze Rose, that he would kick Bruce Lee’s ass if he were still alive. But the greedy Lee Hung still wants the book and he is willing to do whatever it takes to get it including killing people. But Lee Hung isn’t the only one looking for the book. One of Bruce Lee’s students Bruce Wong (Bruce Le) returns to Hong Kong after spending some time in the United States after he received a letter begging him to return to get the Kung Fu Finger Book before it falls into the wrong hands. But before Bruce Wong can go after the book, he needs to find his missing sister…
- Wong vs. Wrong: When Bruce Wong tracks down his sister, she is being pushed into taking a job at brothel by her fiancé of all people as a means to pay off his gambling debts… Bruce isn’t having any of this, as you may imagine, and we get a little action in as Bruce gets his sister the hell out of the brothel and to safety. The brothel happens to be one of Lee Hung’s many nefarious businesses and Ku, the guy who runs the brothel for Lee Hung rushes over to Hung’s estate to break the news that Bruce Wong is back in town and Lee Hung soon realizes that a monkey wrench has been thrown into his evil plans. Bruce realizing he is going to need some help if he will have to contend with Lee Hung and his criminal empire enlists the help of his friend Allan Fong and the race for the Kung Fu Finger Book is on!
- Interpol Interloper: Lee Hung has more than Bruce Wong and friend to worry about, there is also an Interpol Agent after him. The Interpol Agent (Michael Chan) and Lee Hung are actually featured in the opening scene of the movie where the two fight in San Francisco. The fight ends inconclusively with the unnamed Interpol Agent vowing to put Lee Hung behind bars and Lee Hung making his way back to Hong Kong. The Interpol Agent follows Lee Hung to Hong Kong, where he recruits a partner (Nick Cheung) and they begin to wage their own personal war against Lee Hung and his thugs. The interesting thing here is that Bruce Le NEVER appears on screen with Michael Chan or Nick Cheung.
Watching Bruce’s Deadly Fingers on Blu-ray was unlike any of my previous Bruceploitation movie experiences and that was all thanks to the time and effort that VCI Entertainment and Bruceploitation expert Michael Worth put into the special edition release and what I hope is the first release of many. But even all the high-def bells and whistle could not cover up the glaring plot holes and the general feeling that many scenes were inserted to pad the runtime or this was in fact two different movies that were mashed together to form one slightly below average Bruce Le flick.
While the story was lacking, Bruce Le was not… he thumbs the hell out of his nose while looking 70’s super fly, he pulls out the nunchakus (said to be the very same nunchakus that Bruce Lee himself trained with), he pokes a hole in a can of beer with one of his deadly fingers, gives us some wonderfully over exaggerated facial expressions and he even rips an eyeball out!
Now is the time to put your eyeballs on some Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Faces: The one and the only Bolo Yeung sneaks in right towards the end of the film. Credited as Young Zee, Bolo is his usual awesome and imposing self. Michael Worth described Bolo and his popularity among fans perfectly in the commentary track (one of the many special features included on the Blu-ray) calling Bolo “The Darth Vader of Kung Fu movies”… Frequent Bruce Lee co-star Nora Miao plays Mina, an actress/pseudo love interest to Bruce Le’s character. This was only one of two Bruceploitation movies that Nora ever starred in, the other was New Fist of Fury with Jackie Chan.
- AKA: Bruce’s Deadly Fingers was also released under the names The Young Dragon and Bruce’s Fingers.
- Best Quote: “Shut up, I don’t like your face!” – Bruce Wong
- Escape Artist: Allan Fong gets his ass kicked so much in this one, you may begin to wonder if Bruce could have selected someone better to help him out… but after Bruce and Allan get caught by Lee Hung’s men and tied up and hung from the ceiling by their feet… Allan Fong pulls out some Harry Houdini shit that proves he was the right man for the job.
- Unofficial World Record: Bruce’s Deadly Fingers holds the unofficial world record for the number of times the phrase “Kung Fu Finger Book” is uttered in a single film. I lost track but the final number had to be into the double digits.
- Best Kill: A man dies in a pool hall courtesy of an eight ball to the mouth.
- Job Evaluation Quote: “Mr. Ku, you’re useless!” – Lee Hung
- Ring of Fire: At one point in the film, we see a scene where some hot rod driving bad guys take some women out to a field in the middle of nowhere and proceed to rape them inside an actual ring of fire. The scene had absolutely nothing to do with the story, but it was like Joseph Kong was trying to be Hong Kong’s answer to Michael Winner and be sure to work in nudity/rape into his film.
