Review of Dragon Lee`s Ways Of Kung Fu

Introduction

Dragon Lee aka Bruce Lei was born Vyachaslev Yaksysnyi, changed his name to resemble his Kung Fu idol and made 28 films. The synopsis of this film almost defies explanation, although the plot seems to revolve around `Dragon` seeking revenge on `White Cloud` and a broken pendant; I doubt that director Godfrey Ho or Dragon Lee himself gave much thought into introducing a more complex or coherent story.

Video

The less said about this appalling transfer, the better, as I`ve seen old films recorded onto VHS tape from TV that look ten times better than this DVD. The film was made in 1982 but it looks as though it was filmed on equipment from 1922: there are numerous blemishes, contrast changes and the aspect ratio seems to change randomly throughout the film.

Audio

Badly dubbed on a poor mono soundtrack with all combat sounds courtesy of the Random Kung-Fu Sound Generator, this is just a horrible soundtrack.

Features

A trailer for `Bruce Lee`s (sic) Ways of Kung Fu` shows you everything you need to see of this film and the fact that Bruce Lee seemingly had nothing to do with it obviously didn`t stop them. The voice-over describes the film as "An action packed movie extravaganza of the year!" which stretches the truth to breaking point and should open them to litigation.

Upon selecting `Exciting releases from 55th Chamber`, one is treated to a slideshow of several DVD covers from the 55th Chamber studio - this feature is notable only for the hilarious titles, such as `Flash Legs`!

There are also weblinks to SoulbladeDVD.com and PrismLeisure.com.

Conclusion

There is a TV show on the Paramount Comedy Channel called `Badly Dubbed Porn` in which soft-core skin-flicks are re-dubbed with new stories and dialogue; this film would fit into the category of `Badly Dubbed Kung Fu` as the dubbing and dialogue are so awful it`s hard to believe that anyone did it without intending it to be a joke. Dragon Lee either wears a comedy wig or just has an unfortunate natural hairstyle; depending on who you listen to, White Cloud either has 17 or 18 female bodyguards and the awful choreography shows the kicks missing by sometimes as much as two feet! I wouldn`t even recommend this to the most ardent Kung Fu fan as it`s just dreadful, after 30 minutes I couldn`t believe that I still had over 50 minutes to endure.

One footnote is that the disc has not one but TWO anti-piracy ads at the beginning: one from FACT and the other `You Wouldn`t Steal a Car...` warning. These warnings are irritating enough on legitimate DVDs on their own, but when you have two of them to contend with, I feel that the studio has gone into overkill, considering no-one in their right mind would want to own this DVD let alone copy it!