Originally Posted by DJariya

. . . and even a Japanese guy named "Bruce Lo" That guy even laughed when he saw the poster

Originally Posted by Brian T

I popped downtown yesterday afternoon purely for something to do, and by early evening I ended up in the neighbourhood where the Hot Docs cinema is located (Hot Docs is our annual documentary film festival, but the theatre, a former rep house, runs all year, although recent events mean they’ll be closing for the summer). I happen to check their schedule and ENTER THE CLONES OF BRUCE was playing, that night, one night only! I’ve seen pre-paid movies at this theatre many times over the years, but the last time a chance opportunity like this happened for me was way back in 2008, when I randomly visited the neighbourhood the night CORMAN’S WORLD was showing, and duly popped in. It’s nice when that kind of thing happens out of the blue.

So despite saying I’d wait for my box set to arrive, I couldn’t resist seeing CLONES on the big screen, and it had me grinning throughout. YMMV of course, and depends on how much of this kind of junk you may have consumed in your youth (not just the Bruce knockoffs, but all the other lower-grade HK chopsocky films). David Gregory, who spent the better part of the last decade piecemeal building this beast (which means some of the folks we see on screen have since passed on) deploys tons of well-chosen clips from the films – in varying quality, of course – many of which amusingly punctuate comments from the interviewees. The clips carry the original hokey English dubs, which is entirely appropriate as most of these movies were made for an export market that just couldn’t let the real Bruce Lee go back in those days, and the original Cantonese or Mandarin tracks are probably long gone if they ever existed at all. It’s really well done, and the graciousness of the Bruces and some of their costars (including Angela Mao Ying, who looks great!) has me itching to check out their many extended interviews in the box. All of these folks have pretty sharp memories of their glory-by-proxy days, and some are obviously a little bittersweet about it because their careers were fairly restricted because of the association. It was also nice to see Juan Piquer Simon’s PIECES put into context here as well (you may recall it has a Bruce in it too). I doubt the documentary will necessarily convert anyone into a fan of these films — after all, most of them are junk, albeit fun junk in the right frame of mind — but on its own it’s about as worthy a tribute to an oddball moment in cinema history as we could ask for. And actor and Bruceploitation expert Michael Worth’s memorabilia collection, particularly the original posters, had me drooling. Lucky bastard.

Originally Posted by Brian T

Almost forgot! I mentioned how much the CLONES doc made me grin, and while that started in little ways in the preamble before the credits, the first really big one came during the opening credits themselves, a colourful retro-70's animated collage set to the theme song "King of Kung Fu" from GOODBYE BRUCE LEE: HIS LAST GAME OF DEATH (1975), which is included in Severin's box. I'm not too proud to admit I actually taped this tune off of a VCR recording when I was a kid (most likely from Detroit's local late-night 'Kung Fu Theatre' show). I wasn't exactly a huge martial arts nut, but I loved funky/cheesy riffs like this. At the time I figured I'd never see or hear it anywhere else, let alone in a documentary 40 years later!

Originally Posted by Brian T

Another post about the CLONES doc here just to say that the bonus features are excellent. The extended interview bits total an hour over three featurettes: one with the participants discussing working methods at Shaw Bros.; another with them discussing their experiences working with Lee and their reactions back then to his sudden death; and another about the overall lack of preservation of negatives and IPs once the original exploitation period had passed, which is probably the saddest bit. Frank Djeng’s location tour of ‘Bruce’s Hong Kong’ is one of the better of its kind, even if it’s a little rough anround the edges, and runs 27 minutes and covers a lot of ground (with a slightly amusing cameo by Michael Worth).

Not sure if these segments are available with the digital release, but they add considerable context to the documentary. The extended interviews in particular are the bee’s knees because they mostly venture beyond Bruceploitation and provide great insight into the industry itself from the people who were actually there (instead of the usual cadre of gwailo experts presuming to give us the inside story.)

The commentary is solid too, and breaks down the lengthy production process across multiple countries. Part of the problem was the Bruces themselves, who had encountered so much fanboy fawning over the decades that some were wary of being used in yet another b.s. “interview” that might barely be seen. Bruce Le seemed to play hard-to-get the longest, to the extent that they basically constructed a version of the doc without him to prove they were serious. That convinced him to participate and he basically became the lynchpin of the whole film.

Originally Posted by Dvdfanman

You said some of the participants have since died. Can you elabotate on who exactly you are referring to?

Originally Posted by Brian T

Some folks here might have already seen this actor, Yasuaki Kurata, in other films as he had a lengthy career in Hong Kong cinema that outpaced his work in Japan!

Originally Posted by HeIsTheZissou

The Expanded Springsteen Universe is getting weird.