Deadly Strike

AKA: Shen Long, San Lung, Wanted! Bruce Li Dead or Alive, Bruce Has Risen, Incredible Dragon

1978

Director: Wong Fei-Lung

Action director: Wong Fei-Lung

Producer: Kan Yiu-Tung

Writer: Wong Fei-Lung

Stars: Ho Chung Tao (aka Bruce Li), Chen Xing, Tang Wei, Lung Fei, Choy Hung, Sze Chung Tien, Chu Li, Su Chin Ping, Li Min Liong, Tsang Chiu, Zheng Fu Xiong

As far as "Bruceploitation" movies go, Deadly Strike isn't too bad. The Dirty Dozen-inspired plot has Bruce Li (who is the actual star of this movie, despite the packaging on many western versions of this movie which credit Bruce Le with the lead) grabbing prisoners from the local jail in order to have them help him overthrow a nasty gangster. And ummm... that's about it. What did you expect from a Bruce Li flick, anyway?

Like most movies of this type, the wafer-thin shoestring story is just a bridge to get to the next fight scene, and there are plenty of them here. Of course, the martial arts moves on display aren't up to the level of the top productions. But they do a fine enough job in creating some excitement, especially as seeing how the version I watched (one of the many US VHS variants) was so severely center-framed that it was hard to tell exactly what was going on at some points.

I certainly wouldn't rush out to see Deadly Strike, but as far as cheapie old-school kung fu movies go, this is one of the "better" (a relative term for films like this) entries out there. It's kind of hard to review movies in this genre nowadays -- as more and more great remastered versions of films are coming out, it's getting increasingly tough to sit through badly dubbed stuff like this. However, if you arm yourself with mass quantities of beer and check your expectations at the door, you should have a good enough time with Deadly Strike.

RATING: 5