BRUCE & SHAOLIN KUNG FU is your standard fight-against-the-Japanese martial arts revenge story that is not, as the title would suggest, a Bruceploitation film at all, despite the presence of Bruceploitation regular Bruce Le in the leading role; he's not pretending to be Bruce Lee, just a guy who's had enough of the Japanese slaughtering his seniors.
The story has a little globetrotting feel to it with the character fleeing to Korea at one point, and the tale takes place more often than not outdoors rather than inside. Other than that, it's fairly par for the course, with lightweight plotting mixed with plentiful action sequences. The latter are acceptable without ever reaching classic status; there's a lot of leaping about and weird deaths but nothing that really proves remarkable to the kung fu fan.
Le is an acceptable hero here although he's done better work elsewhere. The supporting actors are better, particularly the great Chen Sing, who makes the most of an early role playing the main character's master. He gets a ferocious fight with the bad guys and makes a real mark. Said bad guys are played by the likes of James Nam, who also directs, although the real stand-out is none other than Bolo Yeung, playing a gorilla-like jijitsu expert with relish. Sing and Yeung really needed more screen time as they're the best thing about this stock kung fu outing.
The story has a little globetrotting feel to it with the character fleeing to Korea at one point, and the tale takes place more often than not outdoors rather than inside. Other than that, it's fairly par for the course, with lightweight plotting mixed with plentiful action sequences. The latter are acceptable without ever reaching classic status; there's a lot of leaping about and weird deaths but nothing that really proves remarkable to the kung fu fan.
Le is an acceptable hero here although he's done better work elsewhere. The supporting actors are better, particularly the great Chen Sing, who makes the most of an early role playing the main character's master. He gets a ferocious fight with the bad guys and makes a real mark. Said bad guys are played by the likes of James Nam, who also directs, although the real stand-out is none other than Bolo Yeung, playing a gorilla-like jijitsu expert with relish. Sing and Yeung really needed more screen time as they're the best thing about this stock kung fu outing.