The Clones of Bruce Lee (1980) User Reviews

Damn! - Why didn't I think up this plot?!

[HaemovoreRex · 5/10 · 2 September 2007]

Here's yet another in the fairly lengthy list of Bruceploitation flicks to emerge after the great mans untimely demise.

Well, first things first, you just have to hand it to the makers of this – what a bloody ridiculous (i.e super cool!) plot! There is just one slight problem from the start however……the three clones of the late martial arts star actually bear bugger all resemblance to him! (nor to each other even more alarmingly!!!) Still, let us not nit pick over such erm….inconsequential factors; rather let us instead revel in the never ending series of chop-socky fights, cool seventies fashions (including humongous sunglasses and medallions) and indeed the presence of perennial B-movie faves Bruce Le, Dragon Lee and Bolo Yueng.

Also of note there are some admittedly hilarious scenes on offer including an entirely gratuitous sequence featuring a group of naked girls on a beach, and in another set of scenes, a bunch of chubby bronze warriors who just can't seem to catch on that chomping on certain poisonous plants isn't conducive to one's good health(!!!)

Despite the above high points, it does have to be said that the film is actually rather mundane in it's execution however and that the numerous fights (which account for the majority of the films running time) do actually become somewhat tiresome after a while. Nonetheless, as I previously said, credit where credit's due – for sheer stupidity of plot, this is something of a classic!

Old Dragons never die they just get cloned

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 18 July 2016]

With the news of actor Bruce Lee's sudden death in July 1973 from a mysterious brain aneurysm at the age of 32 it's decided by Mr. Colin of the SBI-Special Branch of Investigations-to have a sample of Bruce's brain used to have him cloned into not one but three Bruce Lee's to fight crime in the orient. It's a task given to mad professor Lucas who as we'll soon see has plans of his own in using the Lee's to do his insane bidding; Which is to kill each other in mortal combat for his own sick entertainment!

The Lee's get involved with a number of bad guys in the movie one a film director who uses his job as cover to smuggle gold bars out of the country-Hong Kong-and have Bruce murdered while staring in his movie as a cover to his crimes as well as increase the film's box-office returns. There's another crazed psycho who plans to create a army of free rang and grass fed men of steel or bronze to take over the world and make him the supreme dictator. And then finally Professor Lucas himself who's just plain crazy who plans to destroy the very thing or things that he created the Lee's just for the fun of doing it! Played for laughs the movie does in fact have a number of great fight scenes with the three Lee's doing their best to imitate the late Bruce Lee but falling a bit short.

There's also in the movie a number of shocking but very titillating T&A scenes-With naked and very busty Chinese girls running around on the beach-in the film that are in fact far better then any of the action scenes in it. Worth watching in seeing just how influential the late Bruce Lee was in that his death didn't put an end to his career but made him far more popular then he was when alive. That to the point of movie studios raising Bruce from the dead in order to do it!

The ultimate Bruceploitation movie?

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 27 May 2016]

THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE is perhaps the ultimate Bruceploitation film, featuring no less than three Bruce Lee imitators (and two of those are the hard-working Dragon Lee and Bruce Le). It starts off with the depiction of the death of the real Bruce Lee, only to have his body claimed by a mad scientist (Jon Benn, who starred in CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER and WAY OF THE DRAGON) who proceeds to replicate three clones from it.

This action-packed tale then follows each clone as he engages in training routines before being sent off on special missions, typically performing assassinations and the like. Eventually they turn on each other. The whole thing was brought to you courtesy of infamous exploitation director Dick Randall, whose CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER is a mini masterpiece of its type. THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE isn't, but it's still a must for trash fans.

There's no denying the slapdash nature of this film, which was shot in Thailand and the Philippines. While the plot is more involved than your regular kung fu outing, the fight scenes feel very laboured and predictable; the Bruce Lee imitators spend too much time copying Bruce Lee instead of showing much in the way of real skill themselves. I feel they did better work elsewhere. Still, on the other hand, the viewer does get treated to Bolo Yeung (DOUBLE IMPACT), gratuitous nudity, training scenes set to stolen ROCKY music, and a general air of ineptness and anything-goes cult appeal.

Goofy fun.

[Sum Flounder · 7 February 2002]

I saw this film in the early eighties, so my memory of the plot details is pretty hazy. I do recall, however that the clones mentioned in the title not only didn't look very much like Bruce Lee, they didn't look like each other! Also, there was an army of overweight men in diapers who were covered with metallic paint and were supposed to be made out of bronze. Whenever these guys would get kicked or punched a metallic "bong" was heard on the soundtrack to enhance the illusion. The only problem that the effect was ruined by the way their flesh jiggled on impact. I went to a lot of lousy films in those days, but this one got by far the worst audience reaction of all of them(although the place was nearly full!). If they were dumb enough to think a film with a title like this would be good, they deserved to be disappointed. Personally, at the time I thought it was a lot of goofy fun.

Bronzefinger, or Bruce Only Lives Twice

[El-Stumpo · 5/10 · 1 November 2007]

One of the crassest of an already crass genre was The Clones Of Bruce Lee (1977), a wildly episodic car crash of a film featuring not one but FOUR of Bruce Lee's most prolific imitators: Bruce Le, Bruce Lai, Brice Tai and our old friend Dragon Lee. It starts with the death of the "real" Bruce - but not before a secretive organization known as the SBI contacts Professor Lucas and ushers him to the hospital slab to extract a syringe of Lee's DNA, in order to create a trio of Bruces in his secret lab. The three Lee-alikes are brainwashed by a disco light known as a "Magnitator" and are trained to a stolen Rocky theme, by the more stocky (and therefore un-Bruce-like) Yang-Sze, better known to world as Bolo Yeung from Enter The Dragon.

Before long, the three Bruces are sent on their secret missions: Bruce One (Dragon Lee), is sent to the kung fu sausage machine set of film producer Chai Lo, a dodgy front for all kinds of nefarious un-Lee-like activities. Chai Lo suspects the new Bruce is a narc, and plans to literally "shoot" him in front of the camera! Meanwhile in Thailand, Bruce Two (Bruce Tai) and Three (Bruce Le) team up with a fourth Lee-alike "Chuck" (I presume this is Bruce Lai) on the trail of Dr Nai, a Thai narcotics smuggler who sweats maniacally into his three dollar suit and plans on world domination with his formula for turning schmucks into invincible bronze warriors. The three Lees chase him from one border laboratory to the next; the sight of them rubbing up against tough martial artists fighters in y-fronts and easily removed shiny paint is, in a word, GOLD.

The increasingly insane Professor Lucas decides to use the Clones for his own purposes, and pits the Brainwashed Bruces against each other in the ultimate Bruce-Off. Which is exactly the way to read this movie: four wannabes trying to out-Bruce each other. As they're actually meant to be Bruce Lee, they devolve into the most grotesque of caricatures - animal howls, thumbs to the nose, biker sunnies, and the always-popular ripping off the shirts. In the final tally, EVERYone's a winner - or loser, depending on your political persuasion.

The Clones Of Bruce Lee comes courtesy of Dick Randall, the American exploitation genius and distributor who literally ran amok in South East Asia in the Seventies: he returned to Thailand to make the Z-grade horror Crocodile (1979), discovered Weng Weng in the Philippines and sold him to the world. Here, in one of his first excursions into bad kung fu territory, he actually threatens to rip the very fabric of film reality itself: Clones... plays like a shonky mad doctor opus like Randall's King Of Kong Island (minus the gorilla suits, of course), a second rate James Bond and a third rate chop socky, with some random nudity thrown in - because they can. Call it Bronzefinger or Bruce Only Lives Twice, or call it completely out of its mind - prepare yourself for one of the most bizarre Bruceploitation epics, The Clones Of Bruce Lee.

Funny as Hell

[rancor-7 · 1/10 · 18 March 1999]

This movie is actually so bad. (Direction, acting, effects, even the fighting) that it has reached some sort of cult status over here. You should check it out. It's funny as hell.

awfully funny, inconsequential pretentious low-budgeter

[r-c-s · 3/10 · 10 November 2007]

This movie is awfully funny, leaving one with an awkward sense of time warp. Secret British intelligence (as secret as unheard of ) summons brilliant scientist for an equally secret operation in a hospital. So the Bond guy calls the professor, they ride to the hospital...picture this, and when they arrive Bruce Lee has been dead for only 20 minutes! So the scientist engineers three morons supposed to be clones of Bruce Lee, but who look credible with sunglasses only, at not less than 20 meters distance. Here we have another common ploy similar to Remo Williams, 6 millions dollar man etc: disaster gives intelligence agency the opportunity to engineer superheroes, who are brainwashed using a pasta bowl & carnival electronic equipment (EG a €29,99 karaoke set ). They are trained by Bolo Yeung...mind this...the AAA+ secret underground facility looks more like the cellar of a third grade middle school in ruins, than a Bond-styled base. They learn awfully fast and are soon having conniptions while a slightly altered version of the Rocky music plays. One of them is dispatched to get rid of some gold smuggler working under the cover of the movie industry...needless to say the Bruce clone is an instant hit. Ultimate fight ensues in what seems a dump, and the thug tries to escape sailing away on board of a ship more attuned to XIX century China...where is Wong Fei Hung? The other two are dispatched to get rid of a thai drug kingpin-scientist whose AAA+ world-threatening laboratory is located in a barn and run by two hindu morons with hollow teeth, the answer to Dr. NO, Hugo Drax etc. This low-budgeter tries to cross the line with shots in Thailand. The evil scientists turns dozy Thais wearing ancient Japanese swimming suits into bronze warriors, but it is easy to open their mouth and stuff it with handfuls of grass, enough to kill them. Audio is out of synchrony, so they hit the bronze warriors and ten second later we hear "deng!". When the scientist who created the clones (the same man who played "boss" in the way of the dragon ) gets rewarded with a hefty "well-done" in front of the picture of a teen aged queen Elizabeth (this tells you how recent the movie is ), he goes berserk in resentment and wants to dominate the world with the best Bruce after a lethal combat between the three. Sympathetic nurse unplugs the brain-control machine controls and final battle ensues. Acting? Pardon? SFX? Pardon? Ten seconds of nudity with chubby thai sunbathers. Fights are very mediocre. Plot is paper thin & poorly stitched together. Image quality very mediocre.

At least the title's honest

[ericstevenson · 4/10 · 22 August 2018]

Some people have considered this lesser known film to be the worst Chinese movie ever made and I wholeheartedly agree. Why is to easy to find Chinese movies online? Anyway, Bruce Lee was such a massive icon there was actually an entire genre devoted to imitating him. Let's just say imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery in this case. This movie features a guy who, well makes clones of Bruce Lee. We get a lot of pointless scenes showing them fighting.

The movie's plot just seems to be all over the place. About halfway through, they go to a beach where naked women are. I guess if I was more of a pervert, I'd enjoy this more. They fight this villain who wants to, you guessed it, take over the world ("of course!"). He turns people into metal to use as soldiers. It's as stupid as it sounds, but at least it's not worse. *1/2

A spoof with growth-potential

[welshnew50 · 3/10 · 6 June 2023]

Some name / style exploitation films of the 60s/70s had sexist undertones / audiences,

others had political prejudist ones, etc,

others, like this one, had a pure exploit, in this case of a name,

and so are not excluded even moreso than the worst of the worst,

BUT,

also like some exploit films where they were likely just a bit of fun at the time,

it had aside from the usual, not much worse than a james bond film at the time baddies,

one memorably absurd and unique way of dealing with robot like under a mad scientists's control clones / baddies...

... feed them some weed!

:D

worth it just for that! Lol.

Maybe strap a bucket-bong to their heads and spin them around JC style?

Might've been too obvious? Lol.

Worked though, didn't it? Metallic man went down!

Brave. Compared to many exploit films, on-screen,.. weed makes metallic-man goes down... FEED YOUR MAN WEED... ethics, politics at the time,..

... yep. Brave. Production values are a joke,.. :D ... but brave nevertheless.

A wacky for-kids tibetan film style zoom-in on the metallic-men's faces contorting to the taste / experience of the weed, would've been a nice touch.

:)

worth it just for that. The rest is disposable.

Bruceploitation at its finest

[InzyWimzy · 7/10 · 17 January 2004]

HA HA HA!!! Man, I wish they could move that gas mask or take those 70s shades off. Is that Bruce Lee times three?

This movie definitely was shoddily done, but the dubbing is kooky and the story is hilarious. At times, I think there were four Bruces. There is so much to say during the beach scene seeing two Bruce wannabes sporting speedos and one of them warning him to stay away from the naked babes on the beach and that they'll "eat you alive". WHY are they avoiding the women? Of course, throw in gratuitous nudity to attract attention. The kung fu isn't up to Shaw Bros. level, but it's decent. Dragon Lee is the best one as Bruce number one and swipes at his nose so often, you'd think he did lines in between takes. The scientist guy is played by guy who was head boss ("What I like, I get. And I want that restaurant!!!) in Way of the Dragon. Head Ham award gose to the evil drug lord who you have to credit him for being a big thinker. Not only does he want to be top drug lord, but be impressed by his "We will rule the world" speech.

This is far from being good in quality, but a lot of fights, very kooky premise, and high in kampiness value makes Clones a fun one to watch.

The fights as usual are cheap and unconvincingly low budget

[jordondave-28085 · 4/10 · 12 May 2023]

(1980) Clones of Bruce Lee DUBBED MARTIAL ARTS

It has often been said that the Bruce Lee name continued to be exploited long after he had died, and this movie is evidence to that which regards a scientist taking a small sample of blood from Bruce Lee's arm for the intentions of creating clones of the martial arts star- hence the name. And since this facility was being financed by the SBI not the FBI mind you, which stands for the "Special Branch of Investigators' , the real intentions for the cloning was to do some good with it by sending each of the Bruce Lee clones to do some good with it, such as to going after a well renown movie producer, who was dealing with gold smuggling, and a doctor in Thailand dealing with narcotics. Notice the credits called each of the characters chosen to play the clones of Bruce Lee all have some relation tot he Bruce Lee name which are Dragon Lee, Bruce Le with "E" missing, Bruce Lai and finally Bruce Thai.

three for the price of one

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 8 January 2012]

Following Bruce Lee's death, Hong Kong made a number of "Bruceploitation" movies: they starred people who looked like Bruce Lee (and some got advertised as genuine Bruce Lee movies). "The Clones of Bruce Lee" is a prime example. It depicts the creation of Bruce Lee clones sent on missions. Of course, the whole thing is an excuse for non-stop action. The best scene is set on a Thai beach. Without a doubt, the movie's target audience is 14-year-old boys.

This is the first Bruceploitation movie that I've seen. All that I can say is that I hope that the entire genre is like this. The funny action and erotic beach constitute one fun flick! A really good time.

Creepy & Surreal Exploitation

[Falconeer · 7/10 · 28 February 2020]

Most of the "Bruceploitation" titles are pretty awful, ("Challenge of the Tiger") while some are genuinely fun, eye popping entertainment, ("Bruce's Deadly Fingers"). Then there is something like THIS,a movie which is just so bizarre that it's hard to believe your eyes. 40 years ago the subject of cloning was pure fantasy, something only seen in movies. Today, with cloning being a reality, this film takes on a whole new meaning, and although it's silly in it's execution, the basic ideas behind it are weird and fascinating. A power-hungry scientist extracts some blood from a recently deceased Bruce Lee, and uses it to produce 3 clones of Lee, that he further dehumanizes by naming them simply 1, 2, and 3. The clones don't have much personality and that makes them creepy. They are trained to be killing machines, as their martial arts skills are honed and shaped to be as good as the Master Lee. Of course this doctor does not have good intentions with his plan, and in the end he sadistically orders the three clones to basically beat each other to death. The only thing that can stop this is the two beautiful nurses who have been there from the beginning, and have developed real emotions towards the guys. And that's easy to understand when the guys are Bruce Le, Dragon Lee and Bruce Lai, three of the most popular of the Bruce lookalikes. Featuring the expected over the top fight sequences, a fantastic retro soundtrack and handsome widescreen photography, and most important, a script that is interesting and very unique. I think these movies have more value now than they did 40 years ago, as historical documents of an era that is sadly gone. Those who are tired of bloated, CGI, Politically Correct Hollywood nonsense, will most likely love this movie.

"Things are getting hot and I don't like to get burned"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 3/10 · 23 November 2022]

One of the striking film titles of all time but it's a pity 'The Clones Of Bruce Lee' is such a poor film and rather tasteless in its use of actual pictures of the real Bruce Lee, including the great martial artist in his coffin. So there are in the movie three clones but they are only pale imitations, copying moves and gestures and the occasional ejaculation unconvincingly. BL1 is tasked with killing a film director who is also a gold smuggler and BL2 and BL3 with Chuck Lee (who isn't a clone of Chuck Norris spliced with Bruce Lee) separately go after a drug kingpin who also creates men made out bronze and who laughs a lot. BL1, BL2 and BL3 only briefly unite near the end.

There is a lot of repetitive fighting but there is also jacket-fu and metal pipe-fu to add to the mixture. Every henchman seems to wield a metal pipe. It's a hilariously bad film (bronze men felled by munching a poisonous plant stuffed into their mouths etc.) but it also leaves a sour taste in the mouth by disrespecting the original actor and it was a pity the great Bolo Yeung who actually acted with Bruce Lee appears, albeit briefly, in such a travesty. Shame on the film producers.

Clones

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 28 September 2022]

Bruce Lee only made four movies but the number of movies made by his imitators could be incalculable.

The Clones of Bruce Lee may be among the strangest of those movies.

Seconds after the death of Bruce Lee in Hong Kong, Colonel Colin (Andy Hannah) of the Special Branch of Investigations and Professor Lucas (Jon T. Benn, who was the bad guy in Lee's Way of the Dragon) take the samples of the actor's DNA needed to create three crimefighting remakes, played by Bruce Lai, Bruce Le and Dragon Lee.

While Dragon Lee becomes an actor battling corruption on the sets of the movies that he makes, Bruce Lai and Bruce Le meet up with Chuck, who is played by Bruce Thai and yes, looks just like Bruce Lee. Their job: defeat Dr. Ngai, who has harnessed the secret of the Shaw Brothers bronzemen through scientific means. This isn't new for director Joseph Velasco, who as Joseph Kong also made Bruce and the Shaolin Bronzemen and Enter the Game of Shaolin Bronzemen.

This movie is as wild as you hoped it would be, from Bolo Yeung (who was Bruce's enemy in Enter the Dragon) and Chiang Tao training the clones to Professor Lucas turning heel when no one knows just how hard he worked to make these clones of the actor. He decides to kill them all and he's 33% effective. He does so by making the clones fight one another kind of like a Capcom palette swap.

How exploitative is this movie? It uses footage from Lee's funeral. It also has the gall to take the theme from Rocky by Bill Conti which you have to grudgingly respect. I mean, what better montage music is there?

Bruce-ploited !

[ichocolat · 25 May 2010]

Whaaam Baaam Duuuuush Dussssh Aiyyyyyyyyyy ! That's the sound of these so-called Bruce Lee's clones whacking each others and their enemies. And that is also the sound of my stomach whilst watching this film.

First up; none of the Bruce Lee's clones look like the original (it debunks the fact that they are are clones, LOL) and the fighting scenes looks as original as watching the election result of an African country.

The storyline, if any, is laughable. I may not know if it the preferred storyline back then in '77, but in the millenia, it is not so cool anymore.

And the film simply take matters too far. Even with the advancement of technology of 2010, no doctors can revived a person back to life, if the person has been dead for 20mins. But back then, it is possible! And the dubbing makes the film a whole lot hilarious. Like when Bruce Lee told the doctor in an impressive English, "I am killing you for the heinous thing you have done to me!" I mean, WOW ! A good watch if you like to watch a comedy from '70s, but don't watch it if you a a Bruce Lee fan.