Yet another fine entry into the genre that is “Bruceploitation”. “Spirits of Bruce Lee” is an early ’70s martial arts thriller filmed in Thailand with a mostly Chinese cast and crew.
Michael Chan stars as a man who travels to Thailand to avenge the murder of his brother. Of course, Chan is more than suitably equipped to deal with the bad guys, as he just so happens to possess some serious supernatural bad ass martial arts mojo.
Chan is aided by an undercover cop and a Chinese family living in Thailand; together they raid the palatial estate of the lead villain, a fellow who mutters “Gol-damn” (that’s right: “gol-damn”, not “goddamn”) when he’s angry and spends most of the film clenching a cigarette holder between his pursed snarling spout and blotting his moist brow.
After Mr. Cigarette Holder has finally been dispatched, a couple of his henchmen show up (one of them who’s rail-thin and dressed as a cowboy sporting a whip – Fabulous!) and Chan has his way with them too. He works them into a lather, working them hard, until finally blowing them away. Yes!
“Spirits of Bruce Lee” suffers from all the usual deficiencies of the genre, of course: poor pacing, not-very-funny comic relief (provided by a heavyset young man known only as ‘Fatty’), ridiculous dubbing.
But it’s filled with hardcore martial arts action, and that’s the only thing you can reasonably expect from a Kung Fu Movie. Michael Chan is, as always, impressive in the fight scenes…and this is one of the few films in which he manages not to look too sinister. The soundtrack is a trippy HeeHaw sounding funktified Chinese mash-up. Weird. Enjoy!