Bullet Points: Black Belt Karate
I am not entirely sure how the producers of the movie I will be reviewing in this edition of Bullet Points decided upon the name of the film, but it feels like it may have went something like this…
San-Yuen: “What should we call our movie about karate?”
Chi-Yung: “Why not go simple and just call it Karate?”
San-Yuen: “Hmmmm… you may be on to something, but the audience needs to know this is a top notch karate movie.”
Chi-Yung: “Ok then… how about Black Belt Karate?”
San-Yuen: “I love it! I fucking love it!”
- Fresh Off The Boat: As our movie begins, Tommy (Larry Lee) has just arrived in Jakarta after receiving a letter from his uncle inviting him to visit. When Tommy arrives at the address that was on his uncle’s letter, he finds out that his uncle no longer lives there and that his uncle actually moved away a year ago. I felt a great deal of empathy towards the Tommy character, the whole letter taking a year to arrive in Tommy’s mailbox and then the invitation being null and void when he went to use it reminded me very much of a personal story about a movie poster, but I digress… Tommy is now shit out of luck having spent all of his money to get to Jakarta, he now doesn’t have enough money to go back home. Fortunately, Tommy is able to get a job with a local restaurant washing dishes and delivering food. When I think about it, delivering food is a noble profession that provides a valuable service. People are always going to want to eat and in many cases these same people will be too lazy to want to go get the food themselves. It feels like a job that will be around forever, at least until the drones take over, but I digress.
- He’ll Never Be Employee of the Month: To say Tommy is not 100% focused on his work would be an understatement. Tommy has one thing on his mind 24/7 and that is karate! When Tommy is washing dishes he is distracted by a karate themed radio show on his transistor radio. When he is out making deliveries, Tommy always manages to stop by the Golden Eagle martial arts school where he marvels at the feats the students perform as part of their training, like breaking boards and bricks. Once again I felt a great deal of empathy for Tommy. Who doesn’t day dream about what they love while they are at work?! I know I’d much rather spend my days at work researching and discussing movies, instead of dealing with angry customers and hearing employee small talk about the weather all damn day, but I digress. Tommy’s boss eventually has his fill of Tommy’s karate obsession and fires his ass. Fortunately for Tommy during his brief tenure as a delivery man, he befriended a young lady named Tan-Wei… the daughter of Master Sai, the man in charge of the Golden Eagle school.
- Sai Worthy: With some prodding from his daughter, Master Sai agrees to let Tommy do odd jobs around the school and when he feels the time is right, and when he believes Tommy is worthy, he will allow Tommy to practice karate with his students. This leads to a montage of Tommy doing things like sweeping, doing laundry, washing the floor and cleaning motorcycles all while some jaunty music is playing. But everything is not hunky dory for Tommy when he has a run in with the head coach at the Golden Eagle school, Lam. Lam does not like the attention that Tommy is getting from Tan-Wei and he beats the crap out of Tommy the first chance he gets… Tan-Wei and her brother Yi-Fu (Billy Chong) tend to Tommy’s wounds and moments later Master Sai decides that Tommy is now ready to become a student at the school. I am not sure if Master Sai was impressed that Tommy was able survive an ass whooping from Lam or if he was merely being a smart businessman and avoiding what could have been a pretty nasty lawsuit filed against Master Sai and the Golden Eagle school for unsafe working conditions, but I digress.
- Screeching Halt: After a great set up with underdog Tommy getting to live out his karate dreams, Tommy finds himself as one of the representatives of the Golden Eagle school in a regional tournament. To me this tournament sequence brought the movie to a screeching halt. It dragged on and on. At times you could not even see the top of the heads of the competitors and there were only two things of note… one was the official presiding over the matches kept saying “to the left”. The ref said it over and over again… I think the only person in the world to say “to the left” more times than this referee was Beyoncé, but I digress. The other was that Tommy wins the whole thing… but in the days following the tournament, Ah-Tat (the guy Tommy defeated in the finals) tracks Tommy down looking for another fight and he is not taking no for answer. So Tommy fights Ah-Tat and wins again, but in doing so violates the rules of the Golden Eagle school.
- On the Lam: Lam is all too happy to tattle on Tommy for fighting and convinces Master Sai that Tommy has to go. Master Sai reluctantly kicks Tommy out of the Golden Eagle school for fighting. With Tommy out of the way, Lam is top dog again and now has designs on one day running the school himself. Step one in Lam’s plan to takeover the Golden Eagle is to propose to Tan-Wei. Tan-Wei wants nothing to do with Lam and fortunately for her, Master Sai also objects to the marriage, realizing Lam is just doing it so he can run the school once Master Sai dies. This pisses off Lam so he jumps ship and goes to the rival Dragon school, where he becomes the head coach and along with Master Wang, they begin to scheme on how they can do a hostile takeover of the Golden Eagle school. But it is not all professional for Lam… he makes shit personal when he attempts to rape Tan-Wei and ends up murdering Master Sai when he comes to his daughter’s rescue… we don’t actually see Lam do these things, but instead hear about it when Yi-Fu nonchalantly fills Tommy in of the goings on since he has been away from the Golden Eagle. You would think at this point, after the Lam bullying of Tommy early in the movie, after Lam got Tommy kicked out of the Golden Eagle school, after Lam tried to rape Tommy’s love interest Tan-Wei and after Lam killed Master Sai, that this was all setting up for a final showdown between Tommy and the despicable Lam? Tommy does fight Lam in what is basically a throwaway scene. Tommy wins the fight, but does not deliver the kind of beating Lam truly deserved. Tommy should have beat the ever loving crap out of Lam and his stupid looking face, and then show him no mercy by stabbing the bastard right in the heart with one sai and shoving the other sai up Lam’s ass… poetic justice for his murder/attempted rape of members of the Sai family, but I digress. Tommy’s final fight ends up being against Yamaguchi, a Japanese dude that the Dragon school brings in to take out Tommy. Yamaguchi was played by Lo Lieh (Bruce’s Deadly Fingers).
Black Belt Karate started off with some promise, but could not keep up the momentum. The finale with Lo Lieh gave the movie some much needed Hong Kong star power but it felt like it was an after thought, like the producers got wind that Lo Lieh was available for a couple of hours and just tossed aside the villainous Lam that they built up the entire movie in favor of the more notable and talented Lo Lieh. It did not make for a satisfying ending and certainly not the logical ending.
But while Black Belt Karate did not have the ending I expected, this Black Belt Karate review will wrap up exactly as I expected, with some Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Face: At one point Tommy goes to Hong Kong to continue his karate training. It is there Tommy encounters a familiar face in the form of Bruce Leung. Leung is one of the lesser of the Bruce Lee Clones. Leung starred in such Bruceploitation films as Bruce Against Iron Hand and The Dragon Lives Again.
- Emphatic Quote: “I would never marry that bastard!” – Tan-Wei
- AKA: The English dubbed version of the movie that was originally released in the United States was known as Bad Guys Wear Black which some how feels like a more generic title than Black Belt Karate.
- Potential Rap Lyric Quote: “Goddamn that Lam! He’s a filthy bastard. He betrayed our school and killed our master!” – Tommy
- Opening Credits: The opening credits sequence incorporated a chopsocky gimmick I have seen used on more than one occasion with footage of the star of the film demonstrating their martial arts skills in a studio playing under the opening credits. Larry Lee does the usual kicks and flips. At one point he goes into what appeared to be a breakdancing move. Then that turned into some sort of fit. And the opening credits sequence wraps up with Larry showing off his nunchaku skills and wielding some sais.
