Wanted! Bruce Li, Dead or Alive

Bruce Li stars as a new police captain who gathers together a bunch of hardcore prisoners to help him take down a mobster who killed the last captain and is running the town with a deadly iron fist. Actually i'm not sure if Li is avenging the old captain because due to dubbing the main bad guy says "He's like all police captains, and we'll handle him the same way." which given the way people randomly attack Bruce Li, would indicate he killed the last one. I'm not 100% sure though. Speaking of which Deadly Strike doesn't actually have Bruce Le in it, especially the way that it was promoted. It's Bruce Li and I would assume Bruce Li was probably the most high profile of the Bruce Lee clones, so why the cover promises Bruce Le is anyone's guess. Still this movie features enough chop socky action to make this typical old school outing go down a lot easier. Once again Bruce Li has not a patch on the real Bruce Lee but he has his own screen presence and his martial arts moves are fairly fun to watch at times. What really hurts the movie (At least on a technical level) are the production values which are pretty bad. Once again though, it all comes down to whether or not this is your type of thing and being that anyone who sees the movie Deadly Strike promoted on video, knows whether you can gather enjoyment from such a title or not and as a bad movie junkie I found this to be fairly enjoyable as these things go.

* * out of 4-(Fair)

Definitely a classic, given the number of these gems, to remember the plot and scenes years later, speaks to its originality. Finding it once again, was a pleasant surprise.

This is an unintentionally funny martial arts flick, with Bruce Li as the incoming sheriff recruiting some of the town's vicious criminals and offering them a chance to spend most of their lives in prison or risk them fighting a band of thieves and being rewarded with their freedom after the job is done. The choreography is certainly not the best, though Bruce Li has some nice moments. Some of the scenes have to be seen to be believed (IE. the snake temple, the two thugs by the mountains.) Check out the main villain and don't tell me he doesn't look like Orson Welles' Charles Foster Kane (I think this may have been an official follow up to CITIZEN KANE, showing us Kane's times in Hong Kong when he was looking for enlightment.) Anyway, the dubbing job here, by Hong Kong voice actors, is so awful that is funny and can make a miserable rainy day fun. This movie is worth a look.

Okay, I'll admit I've seen this movie about more than a dozen times since I was growing up. Especially during the 80's with all that Martial Arts/Ninja movie craze people had fun with. And this is what movie making was all about, imagination, fun and excitement. While this movie isn't up to the standard b.s. of today's action films, Deadly Strike is a gulity pleasure when it comes to cheesy movies of decade's past. The plot is so simple you wouldn't need a map to figure this one out. The main protagonist is a newly appointed sheriff (in full macho form) enlists a bunch of ragtag convicts (a thief, a one-eyed knife specialist, a father and a revenge driven woman to new a few) to seek out and eliminate a gang of ruthless bandits who have been terrorzing a small town in the middle of nowhere. Each villian is given their chance to shine. There's about two or three of them which sequnces will leave you in awe. (Sorry I can't give it away, it would ruin the fun) The action sequences are much to be desired, but excecuted with comic book flair and such cheesiness that it will definetly leave you laughing all night long after you've seen this movie. The cinematography is aweful and the dialog is excruciatingly funny in it's dubbing. Overall, it's a gulity pleasure for someone who's really bored.