REVIEW:
This film is just one of the many 70’s and 80’s films containing Bruce in the title to exploit Bruce Lee after his untimely death. And even though this is a Bruce Li film, it states “Bruce Le” on the cover of my copy! Furthermore, the packaging shows a couple of pictures with Bruce Lee on the back. It’s business practices like these that stained the careers of people like Dragon Lee, Bruce Li and Bruce Le, besides their choose of names. Yet, beneath all the deception there is sometimes an interesting flick hiding inside. Unfortunately, Blind Fist of Bruce isn’t one of them. At least Bruce Li and Simon Yuen give good performances, which save the film from being a complete waste of time!

The story starts with Fu and his men attacking the local sheriff and seemingly taking control of the town! The scene takes place before the title screen and seems out of place considering that this scene is never referred to in the actual film. The fight isn’t too bad and it shows how mean Fu and his henchmen are. Next, enter Bruce Li as Yeh, a relatively rich bank owner. He arrives at his bank just in time to stop an attempt at robbery and is praised for his heroic act by the people including his two masters. We soon find out though that his masters don’t really know any kung fu and paid the robbers to lose the fight. The two masters even make up styles such as Elephant, Cat, Dog and everything silly you can think of! Yah soon realizes his inferior kung fu abilities when he is attacked by Fu who even takes over the bank from him. Lucky for Fu an old beggar takes pity on him and starts to train him in the Blind Fist Ghostly Hands style!

Up to here we have already seen a couple of weird occurrences, like how can someone just take over your business by winning you in a fight! And how good can a blind man really defend himself against multiple attackers! Luckily the rubbish story is over-shadowed by the heavy dose of fighting. As with most films, the fighting is not just plentiful, but improves as the film progresses. The rest of the film deals with Yeh going back to take revenge on Fu and his men. When he has finally received enough training from the old beggar, he manages to beat Fu and get back his bank. But just then, on the opening day, Tiger arrives on the scene to help out Fu. This of course means Yeh is beaten by Tiger and loses the bank once again. The old beggar then informs Yeh that Tiger was an old student of his who blinded him and together they kill Fu and Tiger’s men in the final showdown.

The story is pretty standard, but actually never boring. As I said earlier, the script made room for many fights! Since the cast is so small we get to see the beggar and Yah beat up the same people all the time. Tiger and Bruce Li are obviously great martial artists and it shows during their encounters. If you’ve seen Tower of Death (1981) you will recognize Tiger as one of the main villains. He looks Korean and has a nice pair of legs on him while Bruce Li mostly uses his hands. The acrobatics were pretty good too even if you could clearly see the actors being doubled for most of it. The choreography wasn’t amazing or anything, but quite average for a film of 1979. Bruce Li was definitely not trying to imitate Bruce Lee in any of the fights and neither does Simon Yuen copy his Drunken Master role too much. The two work together pretty good and the one training scene involving ropes and wood look pretty good. Unlike most similar films it doesn’t waste too much time on the training scenes that usually get boring rather quick.

I’m not even sure in which time period this film takes place, but it’s not all bad. Yeah, it’s low budget and it doesn’t even have that cheesy comedic feel to it. Old school fans will enjoy some parts of the film, but most people won’t get much of a kick out of it. The cropped and dubbed versions available don’t help the film either, and I don’t think anyone is going to release a re-mastered edition of this film any time soon...

Anyway, in "Blind Fist of Bruce", Bruce Li portrays a young man named Yeh who is a member of a well-to-do family that owns a bank. When a gang of extortionists, known as the Hu Wei Bandits, arrive in his hometown, they use their wu xia (martial arts) skills to terrorize the locals financially ("taxes" and "protection money") as well collaborating with the corrupt city officials. The Hu Wei Bandits strip Master Yeh and his family of their capital, acquisitions, property, and even their bank. Luckily, Master Yeh meets a blind martial artist (portrayed by Simon Yuen Siu-tin, probably in one of his last roles) who trains him in kung fu.

With his newly acquired skills, Yeh and his blind sifu go after the Hu Wei bandits. There's a plot twist as well as an abrupt ending which I'll leave as a surprise to anyone who chooses to view this decent, watchable kung fu film.

The fight scenes are pretty exhilarating with a couple of exceptions. For example, the opening fight scene is slow and somewhat sloppy. Also, I don't feel that "happy" music is appropriate for an attempted rape scene. Due to the budget of this independent film, the music used in this film is obviously canned like in so many kung fu movies. Thankfully, an eerie music cue from 'Superman' following the "happy" one saves the day and so does Simon Yuen in the attempted rape scene. There's also a memorable supporting role where Meg Lam Kin-ming portrays Miss Hong, a woman employed in a whorehouse, but as its book-keeper, not a prostitute. Although, she does offer sex to any man on the condition that he can outdo her escort's kung fu. This is what probably leads to her downfall (note: This is not a sexist comment. This comment will make more sense if one chooses to watch this film).

"BFOB" is a decent, watchable, and better-than-average kung fu film. It' s no classic or perhaps it could be deemed an underrated classic.