Bullet Points: Iron Dragon Strikes Back
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that 1979’s The Iron Dragon Strikes Back (or Hui feng hao huang jin da feng bao as it was known in Hong Kong upon its release) did not make it out of Hong Kong until the following year when The Empire Strikes Back was raking in over 500 million dollars world wide. Making The Iron Dragon Strikes Back another example of Hong Kong movie marketing ingenuity.
The Iron Dragon Strikes Back was also another example of a Bruce Li movie where Li could just be himself and did not have to carry the burden of being a Bruce Lee clone…
…but Bruce Li’s character in The Iron Dragon Strikes Back, Ah Wai, has the burden of being the sensible one in his group of four friends.
- Gold Rush: When Ah Wai is not running his martial arts school, he is being nagged by his girlfriend Amy about needing a real job or hanging out with his three friends, Ah Keung (Han Kwok Choi, My 12 Kung Fu Kicks), Ah Chow and a fourth friend who I am not sure they ever called by name, but I do know he is the younger brother of Ah Wai’s girlfriend, Amy. One day the four friends go scuba diving and find a box of Vietnamese gold! A feeling of euphoria fills the group until Ah Wai wisely pumps the brakes on the proceedings, remembering recent news reports of a smuggling operation in the area. Ah Wai believes taking this gold will buy he and his friends a world of trouble, so a compromise is reached and the group decides they will return the gold but return in 3 days and if the gold is still there, they could then invoke the “finders keepers” rule.
- Mo Money, Mo Problems: Unfortunately for Ah Wai and his friends, Ah Keung decided to be greedy and return to get the gold without his friends knowing. Even more foolishly Ah Keung pawned one of the bars, a transaction that made its way back to the bad guys who felt they stole the gold fair and square and it was now their property… property that Ah Keung had stolen from them and they are none too happy. The bad guys kill the poor pawn shop owner, then they got a hold of the apparent weak link among Ah Wai’s friends, Ah Chow. They beat the crap out of Ah Chow, shoot a harpoon in his leg and then stick a compressor hose up his ass. They do all this before they call over to the martial arts school to cut a deal with Ah Wai… they’ll release Ah Chow, if Ah Wai and his other friends bring them the gold. The exchange is set for the next day at the quarry…
- Quarry Quarry Hallelujah: We get some Bruce Li action early on when we see Ah Wai fighting with his martial arts students and we got some bad guy action when they started terrorizing people… but the scene in the quarry was going to finally get us some Bruce Li vs. the bad guys action and I was ready for it. Ah Wai, Amy’s brother and Ah Keung arrive at the quarry in the mini-bus that Ah Keung drives for a living. Realizing that the bad guys will just kill them all once they get the gold, our heroes try to pull a switcheroo and bring a box of rocks instead of a box of gold… which leads to complete pandemonium! It is a down and dirty brawl as Ah Wai desperately tries to get his friend Ah Chow on the mini-bus while fending off his attackers. This is met with disastrous results time and time again as Ah Chow never quite makes it on the bus and every time he is partially on the bus, the bad guys get control of the vehicle and Ah Cow is instead dragged by the bus at least three times. It is brutal and sadly I must report that Ah Chow doesn’t make it out of the quarry alive… although he was at least out of his misery.
- Just Like the Movies: The powers that be behind the smuggling operation are getting desperate to get their Vietnamese gold back and since their regular goon squad shit the bed at the quarry, they call in a professional assassin. The movie does a fantastic job of keeping the identity of the assassin a mystery… although we do eventually see his face and that’s when we realize he is being played by Phillip Ko (The Dragon, The Hero). The assassin first strikes while Ah Wai is working as a fight coordinator on the set of a movie (not sure when this occupational change occurred and I really didn’t care given the scene we were about to get to). When one of the actors goes to the shitter between takes, the assassin takes him out and puts on the actor’s wardrobe, returning to the set and ACTION… he starts going berserk and attacking everyone. Panic fills the air as the cast and crew start throwing pieces of the set at what they believe is a co-worker who has lost his freaking mind. Great stuff here, completely unexpected and easily my favorite scene in the movie.
- And Then There Were Two: The assassin did not take out Ah Wai on the movie set… but he does manage to attack Amy with a flaming blanket to the face and kill off her brother. This leaves only Ah Wai and the cause of all this mess, Ah Keung, who are now hiding out in Ah Wai’s apartment just waiting it out… this would be the location for the final showdown that finds Ah Keung hung to death in the shower and a jaw dropping fight between Ah Wai and the assassin in the living room… and the movie still jams in one more shocker before the end credits roll.
The Iron Dragon Strikes Back gets high marks from me across the board. It is the grittiest Bruce Li film I have ever seen and an argument can easily be made that this is Bruce Li’s best film.
An argument can also be made that the best way to end a review on this site is with some Bonus Bullet Points…
- AKA: Iron Dragon Strikes Back is also known as The Gold Connection.
- If You Ever: …wanted to hear Bruce Li go into movie critic mode, then The Iron Dragon Strikes Back is the movie for you.
- Directed by: Chih-Hung Kuei was the director of The Iron Dragon Strikes Back. Some of Chih-Hung Kuei’s directorial efforts included Killer Constable, Corpse Mania and Coward Bastard.
- If You Ever: …wanted a Han Kwok Choi’s view of a Playboy centerfold, then The Iron Dragon Strikes Back is the movie for you.
