Bullet Points: The Tattoo Connection

• Cold Open:  A lone guy walks up to a bunch of street toughs looking for a fat accountant that was a former associate of his. The street toughs don’t like this lone guy on their turf and a skirmish ensues. The leader of the street toughs, a man with an eye patch, halts the proceedings and he and the lone guy agree to fight one on one, the winner gets to keep the fat accountant, which may go down as one of the worst prizes in the history of movies. The lone guy wins and takes the fat accountant back to his boss and promises him he won’t be killed (he did not promise however that he wouldn’t get the shit kicked out of him and branded with a branding iron).

My apologies for the abrupt start to this review, but I wanted my review of 1978’s The Tattoo Connection to start as abruptly as the movie itself. When I hit play there was no music, there were no credits, the movie just started with the lone guy walking. We eventually learn the lone guy is named Tin-hao (Tao-Liang Tan), the fat accountant is appropriately named Fat Dog and the boss that Tin-hao was taking Fat Dog to is named Mr. Lu.

• The Premise: Crime boss Mr. Lu (Sing Chen, who you may recognize as a dockworker in Double Impact and if you do you are a way bigger Sing Chen fan than I am) has a plan to steal the rare North Pole Star Diamond. The North Pole Star Diamond is absolutely perfect.  Lu plans on cutting up this perfect diamond and selling it off to the highest bidders.  Lu puts his boy Tin-Hao in charge of guarding the diamond, and he has Lu’s henchmen to help him, one of those henchmen is played by the one and only Bolo Yeung (Bloodsport and Shootfighter: Fight to the Death). Lu warns Tin-Hao that the police and “other guys” are going to be after the diamond. One of those other guys looking for the diamond is the self-proclaimed “Black Six Million Dollar Man”. His actual name is Lucas and he has been hired by the company that carries the insurance policy on the North Pole Star Diamond to retrieve it. Lucas is played by Jim Kelly (Enter the Dragon and Black Belt Jones) and despite being the star of the film, he doesn’t show up until about 13 minutes in. But before you can say Hong Kong Phooey, Lucas is in Hong Kong meeting up with George, the sad sack that Lu stole the diamond from to begin with and a guy that looks kind of like Merv Griffin. #DatedReference

• Uncle Suck: Tin-Hao is a character filled with inner conflict. He doesn’t exactly come across as a bad guy, despite being the main bad guy’s right hand man. Tin-Hao is loyal to Lu because Lu took him in when he was an orphan living on the streets. And while he may be loyal to Lu, he isn’t exactly honest with his boss as he secretly dates  Nana, one of the girls who works at Mr. Lu’s strip joint. One of the big plot points I didn’t understand was the inclusion of Tin-Hao’s uncle. How was Tin-Hao an orphan living on the streets if he had an uncle!?!? And it is Tin-Hao’s uncle that is brought in to cut the diamond… so obviously Tin-Hao doesn’t even hold a grudge against this uncle who absolutely sucked at being an uncle and just  left him on the streets to fend for himself. Aside from being a bad uncle, we also learn that Tin-Hao’s uncle is a dirty old man… his payment for cutting the diamond was three of Lu’s girls. Girls he examines very closely with his jeweler’s glass. I guess he was checking to see if their nipples were hard enough to cut glass or he always dreamed of being a gynecologist.

• Lucas with the Lid Off: This movie could have been a total disaster but it sprinkled in just enough Jim Kelly, and more importantly Jim Kelly fight scenes, to keep me from hitting the stop button. When he’s not fighting, Lucas is looking around town for clues to where the diamond could be hidden, he even gets some help from Fat Dog, who has more than a passing interest at seeing Lu and his crew go down.  It is a shame that Jim Kelly didn’t get more of a chance in Hollywood and his movie career was basically all but over before the mid-1980’s. He could have been a major player in the world of action entertainment in my opinion. The movie ends on a real high note when  Lucas delivers one of the most powerful kicks I have ever seen in a movie during the final fight with Mr. Lu.

Would I recommend The Tattoo Connection? If you are a fan of the Kung Fu Theater classics or of Jim Kelly, then you should absolutely watch. Also, if you are a fan of female nudity, The Tattoo Connection would also be of great interest to you as there is plenty in this movie.

Now if you are fan of bonus Bullet Points, you are in luck…

• If You Ever: …wanted to hear Bolo Yeung start a sing-a-long, then this is the movie for you. The song Bolo and his friends are singing are about how Nana is a whore and how all his friends have “had” her… TWICE! This greatly upsets Tin-Hao as you may expect.
• Buzz Kill: At one point Lu pays Nana a visit and lets just say he isn’t meeting with her to discuss her health care benefits. When she is not receptive to Lu’s advances, he ends up roughing her up. This causes Nana to cry and Lu scolds her for “ruining the atmosphere”.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Jim Kelly play and win at chess, then this is the movie for you. #Checkmate
• You Only Die Once: Tin-Hao and Nana cut a deal with Lu, when Nana agrees to seduce and poison Lucas if Lu will let Tin-Hao and Nana then runaway together. I love that Nana specified that she was only willing to kill Lucas once.

• If You Ever: …wanted to see Bolo Yeung spike a guy’s pet rabbit like a football, then this is the movie for you. Bolo’s unnamed character definitely loved his henchman job in The Tattoo Connection.
• Get Yourself Connected: After the success of The French Connection in 1971, movies went a little “Connection Crazy”. There was Bruce Lee in The Chinese Connection, Gene Hackman returned for The French Connection II and then there was The Tattoo Connection.