| An interesting footnote in martial arts movie history concerns the making of Fist Of Unicorn (aka The Unicorn Palm). Conceived as a vehicle for Bruce Lee's long time friend, the late Unicorn Chan, reportedly producers had said to Chan that if he could get Bruce Lee into the movie, he would have himself a starring role. Bruce did indeed agree to support the project by coming onto the set to direct the action and to promote the film. However the film crew secretly filmed Bruce on the set and ended up integrating the footage into the storyline in addition to marketing Fist Of Unicorn as a Bruce Lee film. Whether Unicorn knew of this plan or not is unclear but it definitely put a strain on the soon to end friendship with Lee's untimely demise so close. Legal actions were taken but I haven't been able to figure out whether or not a settlement was made since the proceedings were interrupted when Bruce died.
That's about as interesting as it gets aside from the fact that the Mandarin version presented on VideoAsia's dvd doesn't have any of the poorly inserted shots of Bruce Lee or the backstory to Unicorn's character where these reside. It was clearly once part of the print (as evident by a brief shot of the Chinese/English subtitles on the English version during Lee's segment) otherwise we wouldn't have had this ruckus.
Outside of all this, Fist Of Unicorn remains poorly plotted and made with Unicorn Chan being all too wooden to be sold as the great, new martial arts hero. Points of interest turn up through young Mang Hoi's energetic performance and Whang In Sik's glorious kicking skills gets a fine showcase. Finally, Bruce's action directing is felt as selected fights are razor sharp in the to the point-way that he employed. |
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