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After the sudden death of Bruce Lee in July 1973, a rare phenomenon of appeared in the Hong Kong film scene -suddenly in action actors There are many new names of with "dragon" or "little dragon" appearing densely, such as Liang Xiaolong , Tang Long, Lai Xiaolong , and another example Jackie Chan . The main reason for
is that Bruce Lee caused a certain "vacuum period" after his death. Everyone realizes that the film industry has lost the best kung fu star, and everyone wants to be his replacement .
So martial artists from the Chinese-speaking regions gathered in Xiangjiang. They also changed the stage name to "X Xiaolong" or "XX Dragon", and the English name to "Bruce X", just like the stage name of Jackie Chan and . This period was started by Rowe.
and the movies made by these Bruce Lee imitators are also the follow-up of Bruce Lee's four half-kung fu films.
than how Zongdao (Lai Xiaolong) participated in "A Generation of Raptors", "A New Game of Death", "The Last Jingwumen" and other films; Liang Xiaolong also participated in "Li Sanjiao Megatron Hell Gate"; Jin Taizhong has "Death Tower"; Jackie Chan also has "New Jingwumen".
In the late 1970s, this phenomenon of following the trend intensified, and "introducing the old and bringing forth the new", there have been many unconstrained and staggering farce martial arts films .
For example, "The Three Raptors" , which was released in 1977, used the "scientific method" of cloning to create the three "Bruce Lee" of without any bottom line. The film is full of absurdity inside and outside.
Piccolo will talk to you about this movie today. Through this movie, we can feel how crazy and crazy the filmmakers of that era were in pursuit of "fame and fortune".
01, the "Clone Bruce Lee" project
The movie story started with the "Bruce Lee death" fever.
Bruce Lee was rushed to the hospital after he was unconscious, but after the doctor's rescue, he was finally unable to recover. At this time, Colonel Colin of SBI, a secret intelligence agency under the British government, found a scientist, Dr. Lucas, who was researching gene cloning technology, and ordered him to start the plan to clone Bruce Lee.
saw Dr. Lucas take the materials on the spot, and asked for a needle from the doctor, he withdrew a tube of blood from Bruce Lee, with a smug expression on his face.
Dr. Lucas took Bruce Lee's blood samples back to his laboratory, cloned three Bruce Lees, and named them Bruce Lee No. 1 (played by the giant dragon), Bruce Lee No. 2 (played by Lu Xiaolong ) and Bruce Lee No. 3 (played by Zhang Yiyi). After
, he gave special training to the three Bruce Lees, and asked Bruce Lee's friend Yang Si to teach them karate; he asked Jiang Dao to teach them the five-shaped boxing, and gradually increased the force value to the level of Bruce Lee. Seeing that the three Bruce Lee had learned something, Colonel Colin arranged spy missions for them.
Bruce Lee No. 1 was arranged to go to Thailand, a film company boss Cai Luo and his side undercover. On the surface, Cai Luo runs a serious business, but he is actually a gangster. He stole a batch of gold bricks from a temple in Thailand and is preparing to smuggle it out by sea.
Bruce Lee, as an action star, went to Cai Luo’s company to film and secretly investigate, and soon he had a clue. When Cai Luo carried the gold bricks onto the ship, Bruce Lee 1 jumped into the water like Captain America and swam onto the ship, fighting Cai Luo and his gang without fear, and finally wiped them out.
Bruce Lee No. 2 and No. 3 were also arranged to go to Thailand to destroy the biochemical weapons research laboratory of the local tyrant Lai’s boss. The joint with them was the Thai commissioner Charlie Sheen.
Boss Lai’s scientists have developed a biochemical weapon capable of weeding and made 6 bronze men with many swords and guns.
Bruce Lee No. 2 and No. 3 and Charlie Sheen fought against the bronze man several times, and finally found that they were born to eat grass, but after eating the grass, they would be poisoned and die. So the trio restrained the bronze man with grass, and finally destroyed the laboratory and captured Boss Lai.
The three Bruce Lees all accomplished the task very well. It is obvious that the plan to clone Bruce Lee was very successful. At this time, Dr. Lucas' ambitions increased greatly. He thought of letting these three Bruce Lee kill each other to pick the strongest one and take him to conquer the world (the brain hole is really big).
Fortunately, two female assistants under Dr. Lucas discovered in time that they prevented Dr. Lucas’ actions and reported the police. In the end, Dr. Lucas was caught by Colonel Colin and the police who came after hearing the news, and Bruce Lee was free from this.
02, the three imitators of Bruce Lee in the film,
, cloned Bruce Lee and Biochemical Bronze's creativity, with a bit of science fiction, but the assembly of the giant dragon, Lu Xiaolong, and Zhang together is the biggest selling point of the movie.
These three people are superb with their kung fu, flashing and moving, and their totem-like muscles are enviable. They are all action stars who can support a movie by themselves.
Among them, the giant dragon from Malaysia is the largest, with a fierce face, and his muscles are obviously much larger than Bruce Lee. When he debuted, because he was much bigger than the average martial artist, he was given the stage name of "Dragon" and compared all other stars who imitated Bruce Lee. We are more familiar with
Lu Xiaolong, because he later shot the classic martial arts film "Great Wall Battle" in the Mainland.
He is a native of Macau, his real name is Huang Jianlong, and he was born in Hong Quan. Because of his agility, he was taken by film companies. In fact, he doesn't look like Bruce Lee at all, and he has little eyes, not to mention the appearance, but the speed and strength of punching are outstanding.
Zhang is the most attractive of the three, with a small fleshy face, Peng Yuyan's figure and excellent martial arts foundation. It's a pity that he didn't get too many opportunities for development in the movie circle. In the 1980s, he was just playing soy sauce in movies, and eventually disappeared, so that few fans now know him. The length of the
movie is 89 minutes, of which at least 70 minutes are fighting, but the choreography of the action is messy. The protagonist and villain are playing in the then popular tight-fitting flared pants, which is particularly ridiculous, neither creative nor smart. Sex, compared with Bruce Lee's movies, is far behind. The plot of
is really very simple and can't stand scrutiny. Even if Bruce Lee is cloned, he is just an ordinary person who knows how to use it, but it is too funny to use it as a super weapon. There is no way to talk about the shaping of the characters of
. The three Bruce Lees have absolutely no scenes that can express their characters, and they only appear for fights.
Stories like this are far from Bruce Lee's kung fu movies, and it was this type of movie that flooded the Hong Kong film circle at that time. These film companies make this kind of follow-up film, but they just want to rub Bruce Lee's fame, so as to grab a hand, the starting point has never thought of making a good film.
03. The film was designed to imitate the self-binding legs
. There were many Bruce Lee impersonators who emerged in the 1970s, and countless movies were made, but they did not reach the height of Bruce Lee in the end, just becauseThere are many shortcomings in these following movies, and they cannot be compared with Bruce Lee's kung fu movies.
Take Bruce Lee's self-directed and self-acted "The Raptors Crossing the River" as an example. The film groundbreakingly moved the story background to Rome, the capital of Italy, and Bruce Lee carefully created the image of a simple-minded but powerful warrior. The action scenes in the film are actually very restrained, but they are all martial arts moves that are very close to actual combat. Even now, they are of reference value.
On the other hand, following works like "The Three Raptors of Gods and Powers", the focus of the story is often directly on the fight. The performance space of the actors is very limited, and the shaping of the roles is even more impossible. The choreography of those action scenes is often a routine, and the slow pace is tiresome.
Let me talk about the imitation of Bruce Lee by several actors in the film. Even if they can achieve the realm of vividness and realism, the audience will never regard those actors as Bruce Lee himself. They have always been confined to Bruce Lee's aura, lacking their own characteristics and individuality, and have very limited development space.
Actors like Julong, Lu Xiaolong, He Zongdao, and Zhang Yiyi actually have obvious characteristics, but they have never fully explored their own potential. They only go further and further on the road of imitating Bruce Lee, and they are eventually lost because of the loss of the market. Eliminated.
04, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, , gave up imitating and found a new way
At that time Jackie Chan also played a silly Aaron in "New Jing Wu Men", and several Luo Wei film works released afterwards were all bleak. end.
Fortunately, Wu Siyuan and Yuan Heping borrowed from Luo Wei later, so that Jackie Chan turned over with "Snake-Shaped Hand" and "Drunken Fist".
and Sammo Hung also made works that imitated Bruce Lee's fight like "Fat Dragon Crossing the River", but he and Jackie Chan knew that the path of imitating Bruce Lee's style could not go on, so he created a new type of comedy kung fu film. Let Hong Kong Kung Fu films go out of Bruce Lee's old road and find a new direction.
Looking back at this history now, you will find the emergence of a new thing, accompanied by a lot of failed cannon fodder. Works like "The Three Raptors" are now just used as entertainment, and feel the madness of that era in the video.
Text/Pippi Film Editor: Passionate
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