Bullet Points: The Black Dragon’s Revenge

A decorated member of the United States Marine Corps. A martial artist with black belts in five different disciplines. Winner of the All American Karate Championship at 60 years old… Ron Van Clief is a legit badass.

Van Clief was able to parlay his legit badassery into a movie career at the perfect time… kung fu cinema was enjoying a popularity explosion and the Blaxploitation era was in full gear.

Ron Van Clief would make his acting debut in 1974’s The Black Dragon and in 1975 he would star in the unrelated The Black Dragon’s Revenge…

• Whodunnit?: The movie begins on July 21, 1973… one day after the tragic death of international superstar, Bruce Lee. Ron Van Clief (aka The Black Dragon) is heading to a meeting with Mr. James Yen, who we first see watching a Black Dragon slideshow in preparation for his meeting. Yen has an interesting business proposition for Ron… $100,000 to find out who killed “Bruce”. From this initial meeting I had three takeaways about Mr. Yen… 1) He had no faith in the Hong Kong police’s investigation of “Bruce’s” death. 2) He had money to burn since he didn’t even want to wait for the official cause of death to be announced. 3) He preferred his bodyguards to be shirtless.

• Pantera: Once Ron arrives in Hong Kong he makes his way to Li Po Antiques looking for a guy named Charlie Woodcock… Mao (played by Addy Sung Gam-Loi of Bruce Lee in New Guinea fame) works at the shop and takes Ron back to meet his boss Charles, who is working out. There’s some tension in the air between Ron and Charlie and then Ron slowly removes his shirt to make things awkward. The two men begin to spar, but we soon find out that Charlie (aka La Pantera) are old friends. So now we have The Black Dragon and La Pantera teaming up to solve the mystery of “Bruce’s” death and the first person they want to talk to is actress Betty Tang (a character no doubt inspired by Betty Ting Pei, who was with Bruce Lee on the day he died). “Bruce” was a guest at Miss Tang’s home the day he died and Ron hopes she can provide some information that was not included in the official reports. But Ron and Charlie are turned away when they get there, then find themselves in a street fight with members of Hong Kong’s underworld.

• The Burning Question: The Black Dragon and La Pantera are not the only ones looking for answers concerning the death of “Bruce”… some students from one of the local martial arts schools also want to know what really happened to him. So a trio of students, led by Jason Pai Piao of Bolo fame (not sure they ever gave his character a name) start snooping around outside Betty Tang’s house and like Ron and Charlie they find themselves engaged in a street fight with the local hoods… later that night Jason, Ron and Charlie all have the same idea… they are going to slip into Tang’s under the dark of night. And our two sets of heroes end up fighting each other and accomplish nothing in the process.

• Who’s the Boss?: All of their curiosity has Ron, Charlie, Jason and his friends on the unnamed crime boss’ radar and The Boss does not like the fact that they are so curious about Bruce’s death. All five men make their way onto The Boss’ hit list… he even puts their photographs on the wall, so he can put a big red x through them once they have been terminated. Even poor Mao gets caught in the crossfire, when he is brought before The Boss for questioning… when he doesn’t have the answers… The Boss stabs Mao in the eyes!! The bad guys use their numbers advantage, a poison dart and even a snake to try to eliminate our heroes. This is bad news for the good guys, but great news for those of us who love fight scenes as the third act of the film is filled with them… including the final battle where Ron Van Clief breaks out a pair of sais!

The twist leading to the final battle of Black Dragon’s Revenge, like many aspects of the film, really makes you wonder if the plot of the movie was thrown together at the last minute and not something that much thought was put into. After reading the Bonus Bullet Points, you’ll wonder no more…

• The Clones Cast: The Black Dragon’s Revenge was covered by our friends Michael Worth and Matthew Whittaker over at The Clones Cast. Among the interesting tidbits Michael shared on that episode was about Serafim Karalexis, the Executive Producer of The Black Dragon’s Revenge, writing the movie on the flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Ron Van Clief pay for a rickshaw ride only to be the one doing the pulling, then The Black Dragon’s Revenge is the movie for you.
• AKA: The Black Dragon’s Revenge was also released in the United States as The Death of Bruce Lee. The UK and Norway releases mashed the two US titles together and released the film as The Black Dragon Revenges the Death of Bruce Lee.
• Disclaimer: Despite being released in parts of the world with Bruce Lee’s name in the title and the main characters going by his actual name, there is a disclaimer at the start of the film that states, “The names and characters in this film, based upon the Death of Bruce Lee are fictitious and any resemblance to any real names and people is purely coincidental.”