Early Bruce Li films - where did they play?

[Killer Meteor]

This applies to many other indies besides, but I thought I'd focus on these.

 

Before signing with Eternal in 1976, Bruce Li made a bunch of movies for Taiwanese based producers, including Jimmy Shaw's Alpha

		Super Dragon (1974)
		Conspiracy (1975)
		Bruce Lee Against Supermen (1975) ... Cato/Carter
		The New Game of Death (1975) ... Lee Hon Hung
		Dragon Dies Hard (1976) ... Stone
		Bruce Lee - The Star of All Stars (1976) ... Tiger/David/ Tan Lung
		The Story of the Dragon (1976) ... Bruce Lee
		Chinese Chieh Chuan Kung Fu (1976) ... Bruce Lee
		He's a Legend; He's a Hero (1976)
		The Ming Patriots (1976)
		Return of the Tiger (1977) ... Chang Hung
		Fist of Fury, Part Two (1977) ... Chen Shen
		New Game of Death played in HK (possibly distributed by Shaws) and He's A Legend, He's A Hero & Ming Patriots were distributed there by First. But the rest do not have recorded HK play-dates, either on HKMDB or HKFA. We know they played dubbed in the US and US, but is there a way to find out release dates of such films for other Chinese speaking territories such as Taiwan?   Other notable films that seem to have skipped HK include Born Invincible and Shaw's own Opium and the Kung Fu Master.

 

 

 

[De Ming Li]

This is a question that bugs me as well, not only as a Ho Chung Tao fan but of course also a classic kung fu film fan. Many films of this era only appear as being dubbed in English when it was clear by looking at the actor's mouth movements that they were speaking in Mandarin/Cantonese. The important question is where to find the original language prints....

[shukocarl]

Were they made for export only? They could have played once or twice in overseas Chinatowns which would mean that English dubbed prints survived yet the mandarin dubs are now lost.

[DragonClaws]

3 hours ago, shukocarl said:

Were they made for export only?

This could have been the case with some of the titles, never read about there being a big market for Bruceploitation in mid-70's H.K. Some I think were also U.S/H.K co-productions right?.

[Killer Meteor]

I've seen Chinese versions, or at least trailers, for most of them. I suspect they may have been picked up by small distributors.

 

Dick Randall invested in some of the Bruce Le movies.

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

You would see some of that stuff every now and then in Chinatown. I will be honest, hard to get worked up to see a funky Bruce Le movie you can see in Oakland when you can see the Executioners of Shaolin and Champions of Shaolin on a double bill on a huge screen, Mandarin with English subs.

[globe]

his movies were very big in south africa. we had them all in eng dubbed

[Squid Lips]

Yes, some bypassed local releases for international sales but almost all were released in HK and/or Taiwan.  I did see The Dragon Lives and Fist of Fury Part two at the Great Star in San Francisco in Chinese with subs.

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

In the San Francisco shapes and Tae Kwon Do were big by the 1980's. If Tan Tao Liang was playing, we were there. Did we go see Bruce Li? Sure, but usually we were more impressed with the co-stars and villains.

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

Fist of Fury part 2? When? Great Star was fairly hard core Shaw Brothers releases. I went from 70's to about the release of Shaolin Rescuers. I was really put off by the Venom's, to me they had descended into a sort of soft acrobatics and bad comedy. I remember leaving and saying "that's enough of that". This was a harbinger of Shaw's falling apart. Jackie Chan was the big star and those Chang Cheh movies and Bruce Lee imitators were really dated. As well, the Shogun/Ninja craze took hold and Chuck Norris movies sort of snatched up that audience.

[odioustrident]

If this list is to be believed I see Ming Patriots as a Jan. 1 '76 release and Story of the Dragon as a July 10 '76 release. Edit: I mean Hong Kong release dates.