Previously on Fist of Fear, Touch of Death, “Bruce Lee” was having trouble dealing with his film family. His film brother and film parents could not come to terms with “Lee” being karate crazy. Meanwhile, a barely related series of flashbacks saw one of “Lee’s” ancestors plying his trade as a Chinese samurai. Great-grandfather “Lee’s” flashbacks are in colour because people had more exciting lives in those days. They flew through the air and shit!

Bruce Lee’s “father” is one of many reasons to see Fist of Fear… He never fails to be entertaining, whether he’s outing a teenaged girl as a slut or being insulting to his wife. Lee’s “father” also doesn’t do what his woman wants him to, acting like a Chinese Archie Bunker. In reality, Lee’s father was a Cantonese opera star and introduced Bruce Lee to both martial arts and acting, but facts have no place in a Bruceploitation picture. Eventually, “Bruce” runs away and manifest destiny reveals itself.

The train derails completely when “Bruce Lee” goes to Hollywood to try his luck as an actor. Even if Fist of Fear… is a complete pisstake of “documentaries” like The Real Bruce Lee, the humour is firmly in Bizarro World territory. Don’t believe me? “Bruce Lee” had no luck finding an acting job before a Hollywood producer placed him in a low-budget Chinese film, or something. I don’t know, Fist of Fear… stopped making sense long before this point. Lee actually spent a few years in the American entertainment system before going back to Hong Kong to work for Golden Harvest. Either Matthew Mallinson and Ron Harvey did absolutely no research on this film or they were purposely trying to get everything wrong to amuse themselves.

Back to “Bruce Lee’s film debut,” a clip of a guy jumping off a roof. That one image – which has become the URBMN masthead, it’s so etched in my mind – underlines the bizarre nature of the film. Is that supposed to be a joke? Were viewers set up by an overlong splicing of two Asian films for a three-second punchline? Fist of Fear… is full of these non sequiturs.

We’re now at the Green Hornet/Bill Louie segment of the film, where Louie wears the Kato outfit but forgets to shave that moustache of his. Fake Kato’s enemies are gangbangers and they round up their intended victims, two girls jogging. What follows is the least convincing rape scene ever – both a gangbanger and a victim have their clothes on – and Bill Louie beats the gangbangers up for their troubles. Naturally, the gangbangers are shitting bricks over Louie cosplaying Kato, regrouping with weapons but without success. Louie winds up saving the day, which should be obvious to anyone with or without a pulse.

Aaron Banks introduced Fist of Fear… by intimating that the winner of a fight between Louis Neglia and John “Cyclone” Flood would become the next Bruce Lee. He also says during the film that Bruce Lee was murdered by the Touch of Death, since cerebral edema isn’t as fun to exploit. Banks is known in New York for his karate school and has quite a history behind him. Banks still seems like a shameless promoter as “Bruce Lee” extols the virtues of his promotional skills.

Speaking of shilling, Fist of Fear… is a long-form commercial for Banks’ “Oriental World of Self-Defense” show, as that’s what Mallinson is actually filming. Teruyuki Higa and Richard Barathy do some demonstrations. Louis Neglia and “Cyclone” Flood fight an uneventful kickboxing match, with Neglia winning in the second round via a kick to Flood’s head. No matter how good Neglia or Flood were back then, Fist of Fear… cheapens both them and Banks’ show by using Bruce Lee to bait-and-switch casual martial arts fans. Way to go, Banks – you’ve undercut your own promotional strategy! Good job!

The film ends as Adolph Caesar prefigures the Ric Flair “to be the man you gotta beat the man” speech. See, you can never be Bruce Lee since he’s dead and never lost an official fight. Rarely does a film outright tell you you’ve wasted your time watching it, but that’s what Fist of Fear… does here. The only person exiting Fist of Fear… with any dignity is Ron Van Clief, whose appearances are limited to chasing off a street gang and pointing out that Bruce Lee should never be imitated. Adolph Caesar quotes Clief and exits the now-empty arena as Fist of Fear, Touch of Death passes into budget-DVD limbo, still holding a place in the bowels of all who watch it.

This is the first of a series of articles (I hope) to point out the fact that I’m still alive. To put it mildly, URBMN has become a ghost town of articles for a year or so. Something needs to be done about my lack of interest in updating my own site. To that end, I’m posting a few multimedia-intensive articles based on films I have on DVD and VHS. I own a lot of crap, and I want to share that crap with you – anything to resuscitate this corpse.

Fist of Fear, Touch of Death (1980) is not like any other Bruce Lee documentary out there. In fact, it’s not much of a documentary, or even that coherent a film. The presence of bad comedy, what-the-hell moments and Fred Williamson playing comic relief makes me wonder how serious this “documentary” really was. Sure, Fist of Fear… shits on the memory of Bruce Lee, but a running joke about Williamson looking like Harry Belafonte? The only thing Fist of Fear… used the touch of death on is competent filmmaking, and that’s why I like the film so much.

The film is supposed to be set at Madison Square Garden during the “1979 World Karate Championships.” The film is actually set at the Felt Forum (now the WaMu Theater) at Madison Square Garden, so that’s technically true. Adolph Caesar, a few years before his Oscar nomination for A Soldier’s Story, reads stiffly from a cue card while pretending to be a TV sports anchorman. Caesar still turns in the film’s strongest performance.

Adolph Caesar introduces footage of “last year’s competition” as Bill Louie comically kicks some guy in the nuts. Without warning, he pulls the guy’s eyes out of their sockets and throws them to the audience. This out-of-left-field joke surprised the hell out of me when I first saw it. Fist of Fear… is Matthew Mallinson and Ron Harvey’s only writing credits according to IMDb, and I can’t say I’m surprised due to their rather esoteric ideas about “humour.”

We’re back to the smooth tones of Adolph Caesar’s voice as he interviews “Bruce Lee.” “Lee” sounds a lot like Brent Spiner as sepia-toned footage of Lee is poorly mixed with sepia-toned footage of Caesar. Wikipedia claims that the footage of Lee is actually from the 1971-72 ABC show Longstreet. You can hear the awkward pauses as Caesar dryly phones it in for a paycheque. Caesar deserved better roles than this, but at least he isn’t playing a slave or a butler.

More comedic martial arts footage is played, this time a petite woman tossing a fat black man over her head. Poor dubbing is used to point out that the obese man is just that, since calling him Fred the Flying Fat Man and showing that he’s fat isn’t obvious enough.

Here’s a rare sight – Fred “the Hammer” Williamson in a comedy routine! Granted, The Fucking Hammer (you have to say it like that, The Fucking Hammer) plays things straight as he should, since he is blaxploitation’s Lazarus. In the film, The Fucking Hammer has allegedly had sex five times with a white woman the night before the Karate Championships. Never satisfied, the woman expresses her displeasure for his not putting out enough while Williamson worries about “a Bruce Lee title that doesn’t even exist.” Naturally, sex wins.

More fun is had when a guy named Jasper Milktoast picks a fight with The Fucking Hammer over entering a taxi! Jokes about Williamson looking like Harry Belafonte abound, since a film about Bruce Lee needs those purposeful Belafonte references.

At this point in the film, a redubbed/sepia-toned Lei yu (a/k/a The Thunderstorm) is intercut with Tian zhan/Invincible Super Chan to comprise “The Bruce Lee Story.” This is where the film gets amazingly stupid, either purposely or otherwise. The in-joke with regards to “The Bruce Lee Story” is that Lei yu stars a young Bruce Lee. Were Mallinson and Harvey trying to comically redub Lei yu for a few laughs? Perhaps, but it seems more like Aquarius Promotions was trying to knock out a grindhouse title and needed a lot of filler. After all, characters are talking about Bruce Lee being karate crazy. Apparently, all martial arts are interchangeable to the slant-eyes. Lee was born to a lineage of Chinese samurai warriors, too! Truly, Fist of Fear… caters to the true martial arts fans and not utter morons.

The first act of this article ends with the award-winning dialogue that has made Fist of Fear, Touch of Death a martial arts classic. A cliffhanger has scarcely been as nail-biting, at least not since…uh…Cliffhanger. Here’s a severed head as a bonus you’ll mildly appreciate.