I saw this as a part of THE RON VAN CLIEF/CLEEF COLLECTION, which also has WAY OF THE BLACK DRAGON included. DEATH OF BRUCE LEE is absolutely hysterical in terms of its cruddy presentation. The print used on the DVD seems to be close to the definition of "worst imaginable." As wrecked as possible while still telling some semblance of story and having images accompanied by sound --- barely. It is filthy, scratched, faded, littered with brutal jumpcuts, and at some point was transferred over to video, which is what was used for this DVD. You can see tape damage rolling in some scenes! On top of all of this is the spastic, nauseating panning & scanning throughout. The operator was REALLY INTO IT and whips his lens all over the original frame, often LOSING TRACK of characters, or unsure of where to focus, especially during conversations when a character unexpectedly begins speaking and the lens bangs over to frame right only to jar suddenly back left to capture the response (often too late). The panner also exhibits moments of squeamishness and will often pan AWAY from a moment of violence on screen! The print's audio track was also at some point clumsily edited to exclude all spoken references to "Bruce Lee," resulting in jarring jumps in dialogue, bad grammar, and general plot confusion. All the characters seem to be investigating the death of "Bruce," or "Him." It is almost impossible to tell if the film was well-made to begin with. I somehow doubt it, if the corny cackling villains and absurd zooms in-and-out are any indication. But the cast, especially the 2 male leads, are magnetic and charming, and super cool. This is the first "Ron Van Clief" (spelled "Cliff" in the credits and "Cleef" on the box art!) film I've ever seen, and it makes me wonder why he is not more famous; he's a cool dude who looks like he could break me in half. He's fast and HUGE and dresses like a pimp crossed with Hunter Thompson. His fight scenes and honestly his mere presence light up the screen and demand attention. His final confrontation with the bad guy was truly remarkable and savage. The fact that the film's merits can survive the ravages of abuse and technician interference noted above should be compelling evidence enough to give it a shot if this is the kind of thing you like.

Ace martial arts champion Ron Van Clief is paid $100,000 dollars by some rich guy to find out exactly how the legendary Bruce Lee died. Fellow karate champ Charles Bonet, the star of the hilariously horrible cheapie "Death Promise," helps Van Clief out. Moreover, several other folks also investigate Lee's death. Of course, a bunch of evil people lead by a wicked bald guy try to stop our heroes. Director Chin-Ku Lu maintains a constant snappy pace throughout and stages the copious exciting fight scenes with a reasonable amount of flair. The villains are a truly mean and hateful bunch of no-count individuals; my favorite was the nasty lady who brandishes poisonous snakes. Van Clief's likable and charismatic presence rates as another plus; the engaging chemistry between Van Clief and Bonet really keeps the picture humming. The fairly polished cinematography, a generous sprinkling of brutal violence, the urgent, driving, wildly dramatic score, and the inevitable amusingly cruddy dubbing are among the other goodies to be relished in this hugely enjoyable chopsocky exploitation outing.

In the seventies the martial arts craze took solid hold on movie theaters. With the release of Bruce Lee's ENTER THE DRAGON the demand increased. His sudden death called for a replacement and while none could quite compare the list of stars made on his popularity was vast. Not only that, a number of films came out with the term "dragon" in them to capitalize on his nickname.

At the same time there was another huge player on the exploitation scene known as Blaxploitation films. These movies featured African-Americans in the lead roles and had themes more inclined towards urban audiences than most. While some would consider these stereotypical in a bad way at the time they were highly praised. Characters most often were pimps and mobsters taking on the man in charge.

But there was a different sort of black hero on the rise that found the merging of these two genres. The black martial arts star was a combination that drew audiences in. Jim Kelly was the first of these stars, having been featured in Lee's ENTER. But another on the scene was Ron van Clief. A former US Marine who went on to study martial arts and win numerous competitions, Clief parlayed that ability into a film career. While that film career was short lived, it did produce enough movies for fans to enjoy him in the role of hero.

Which brings us to BLACK DRAGON'S REVENGE. In the film Clief is hired by a billionaire to find out who was responsible for the death of Bruce Lee, a common theme after Lee's death in movies like this. He heads to the orient to pursue what few leads he has and gets an assist from an old friend named Charles (Charles Bonet). As the two begin to search for the assassin of Lee they find a mysterious organization trying to thwart their efforts. What follows is attempts on their lives, plenty of martial arts action and some incredibly weak story building.

Let's face the facts here, martial arts movies at the time with the exception of Lee's were pretty much low budget with the least amount of money being spent on the scripts. These were mostly tossed together with little more than finding a way to progress from one fight sequence to the next with enough story to make it seem plausible, though sometimes not even worrying about that. Fans wanted to see the fights and that was the focus.

But there were two sorts of films that featured those as well. One set was made in China and featured some amazing abilities captured on rather poor quality film stock. These films featured high wire effects and were performed more by acrobats than by actual martial arts stars. Their leaps would provide them with the ability to jump over walls and into trees. It was a fast paced choreography that has led to countless stars since that time including Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

The other sort featured actual martial artists like van Clief. These films tended to have decent fight sequences but were played more for reality and the choreography in these tended to be much slower and more an attempt to show the styles and result in less actual damage to the stars and stuntmen involved. It's not that they were bad, just that in comparison they were less eye popping for viewers. Perhaps the worst example of this was the TV series KUNG FU which featured David Carradine moving so slow that slow motion effects were used during the fight sequences to make it appear that this was why it seemed that way. It doesn't make it bad, it just makes it different.

So how does this movie fare in the end? It offers an evening's worth of entertainment for fans of both martial arts and Blaxploitation genres. Van Clief fans will be glad they can find a quality copy of the film to add to their collection. Film Detective is offering a quality print of the film on blu-ray, at least as clean as you can get considering the source material available, the original camera negative. Perhaps the most important thing is that in doing so they've preserved a part of film history that many may have chosen to ignore of forget. But for fans this means they can add another film to their collection to enjoy when they fondly remember these types of films. For those fans you'll want to pick this one up.