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Bruce Lee saw the frequent blurriness of his camera and probably thought what Chaplin thought when told about the boom mic dipping into his frame—why would the audience notice when he's there to be looked at? The Hong Kong hayseed in Rome, sent as a fierce protector but defeated early on by a five-soup meal at the airport bistro. The mission is to ward off real-estate thugs menacing a restaurateur (Huang Chung-hsin), whose niece (Nora Miao) mainly plays straight woman to the protagonist's culture clash. ("Our slums are just like this," he snaps dismissively at ancient ruins, another monument is Malisa Longo as the local bellezza whose topless come-on sends him running from her apartment.) After much teasing and delaying, his fists and feet get to work on a pack of goons. "Little dragon seeks the path—hiya!—Big dragon whips its tail!" Lee on Lee, which translates to straight-faced goofiness, bountiful zooms and sinewy fetishization. When a colleague extols Chinese boxing at the expense of "foreign" karate, he waxes magnanimous: "It doesn't matter the style if you use your body well and without limit, even in the midst of violent movement, to honestly express oneself." The henchmen include a mincing dandy (Wei Ping-ou) who favors purple ties and fondling the hero's bare torso, and a barrel-chested beardo who suggests a slobby young Pavarotti and scurries away with a boisterous "Mamma mia!" The true opponents are the real-life athletes on the villain's side, Robert Wall and Hwang In-shik and, as the tragic gladiator in the Colosseum showdown, a certain Chuck Norris. Lee's The Bellboy, and cause for regret that he never lived to make his The Patsy. "In this world of guns and knives, he's the one who walks the lonely road." With Tony Liu, Unicorn Chan, Chin Ti, and Jon T. Benn.
--- Fernando F. Croce |