Is Fist of Fury II a better film than the original?

[shukocarl]

Bruce Lee as Chen Chen was a one-off - a frightening force of nature that cut a swathe through his Japanese (and one Russian!) enemies in Fist of Fury. Right from the start he leaps onto his teachers coffin in a fit of uncontrollable angst. Clearly Chen is  bordering  on becoming a full on psycho. His marvellous fighting skills aside, he scowls, hides out and ambushes his opponents and when he finally surrenders, he's still raging at the Japanese before leaping to his death under a hail of gunfire.

Now contrast his younger brother, Chen San; yes, he wants revenge too but he's controlled over his actions. He doesn't rage and  scowl. He's methodical, argues his case rationally and is more interested in rallying the troops than Chen Chen was. Chen San also deals with the police and gets the inspector on his side. He's also honourable, giving the Japanese Miimoto the noble way to meet his death. Finally, being the rational man he is - he gives himself up to the law, with the Ching Wu School re-established and justice dished out for the death of his (unstable?) brother.

[Ah_Tao]

Im a sucker for this movie so I might say yes. Its a bummer that Part III wasnt up to par. Hopefully this will be on blu ray, as Michael Worth has been teasing the remaster on insta

[TheKungFuRobber]

I would agree that Fist of Fury II is a better movie, but then again you have to remember that Bruce Lee himself didn't like working with Lo Wei, who had his own ideas. Lo was very anti Japanese. Fist of Fury II, on the otherhand was a Taiwanese production, although it is set in China and has a mostly Chinese cast other than Ho Chung Tao who was a Taiwanese man, and was directed by Lee Tso Nam who was a much better director, having directed numerous classics which remain popular among fans of Taiwanese kung fu to this day. I also think that Ho Chung Tao is a great actor. His first and probably most  well known role was in the Shaw Brothers movie New Game of Death, which was the reason why the folks at Golden Harvest ended up changing the story-line of Game of Death to bear no resemblance to Bruce Lee's idea of the pagoda setting with five floors. New Game of Death fails to accurately show his skills. His martial arts are very wooden in this movie and the choreography isn't too good, although I'd still say it was worth a watch if not for his acting skills and as an early look into the original idea for Game of Death (thanks New Game of Death for ruining my chance to see Bruce Lee's last movie properly and fully completed!). Watch Blind Fist of Bruce or The Chinese Stuntman, they are both his best movies in my books and are not too obscure. There is a subtitled DVD of the Chinese Stuntman in the US I'm sure.

[DragonClaws]

I still prefer the original, but I've only seen the heavily cut U.K release of Part 2. They should have ditched the scene with Chen Zhens girlfriend, commiting suidcide at his grave site. While these films are entertaining action wise, I alsways find them pretty sombre in tone.

[shukocarl]

1 hour ago, DragonClaws said:

I still prefer the original, but I've only seen the heavily cut U.K release of Part 2. They should have ditched the scene with Chen Zhens girlfriend, commiting suidcide at his grave site. While these films are entertaining action wise, I alsways find them pretty sombre in tone.

Actually, the cuts are quite minimal except for the nunchaku sequence and even that is quite short.

[DragonClaws]

2 hours ago, shukocarl said:

Actually, the cuts are quite minimal except for the nunchaku sequence and even that is quite short.

Not as heavily as some films of the era.

They cut the sequence were Lo Lieh feeds the leopard a pigeon, one sequence were a member of the Ching Wu school is tossed into some bamboo spikes. A few MA techniques such as ear claps, also went too. I did a write-up on the movies cuts a long time ago, sadly I dont have it saved anymore. The already cut U.K theatrical print, was basically cut back further for the VHS release. Then somehow, became the master for all the bootleg releases, or should I say at least most of them.

[TheKungFuRobber]

I have the uncut version of Fist of Fury Part II in Cinemascope on my YouTube channel. It's from the German DVD, but it's played back at 24FPS and has been upscaled to 1080p using Adobe's detail preserving upscale algorithm. I've also done some colour correction as I felt the print was a little faded. It runs for 1 hour and 38 minutes.

 

[KenHashibe]

I definitely prefer the original Fist of Fury. I've only seen Fist of Fury Part 2 once at the New Beverly in Los Angeles. It was a 35mm English-dubbed print. And even though I thought the fights were really good, I didn't care so much for the story or characters. Overall, I felt Fist of Fury Part 2 was nonsensical and underwhelming. Granted, I've only seen it once so it's entirely possible that I'd enjoy it more after seeing it again. As for the original Fist of Fury, I've seen it several times and I always find it exhilarating. I love the fights, the stars, and the story.

8 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

I still prefer the original, but I've only seen the heavily cut U.K release of Part 2. They should have ditched the scene with Chen Zhens girlfriend, commiting suidcide at his grave site. While these films are entertaining action wise, I alsways find them pretty sombre in tone.

I feel that the scene of her killing herself at the grave was in there because they couldn't get Nora Miao for the film. That's just my guess since they managed to get some of the original cast to reprise their roles. It might also be in there for some added drama.

[Killer Meteor]

Oddly enough, the UK VHS I picked up of this film was totally uncut, even though the cover was censored!

[DragonClaws]

3 hours ago, KenHashibe said:

I feel that the scene of her killing herself at the grave was in there because they couldn't get Nora Miao for the film. That's just my guess since they managed to get some of the original cast to reprise their roles. It might also be in there for some added drama. 

 

Thats rights, I just think they could have left the scene out. Then mentioned she had already killed herself in the dialogue, as its clearly not the original actress being used for the role.

[saltysam]

FOF PT 2 is an excellent follow up but no way is it to superior to Bruce's film, which is a stone wall  seminal classic and probably his best movie . I have the german dvd of Pt 2 which is wide and uncut. roll on the blu ray one day.

[DragonClaws]

17 hours ago, KenHashibe said:

I definitely prefer the original Fist of Fury. I've only seen Fist of Fury Part 2 once at the New Beverly in Los Angeles. It was a 35mm English-dubbed print. And even though I thought the fights were really good, I didn't care so much for the story or characters.

 

Thats a great way to see it for the first time, even if you were underwhlmed with it. Th first time I watched it, was on a murky bootleg full screen/cut VHS print.

[Killer Meteor]

I note on the int prints, Jimmy Shaw is credited as director - wasn't it in fact Lee Tso Nam?

[TheKungFuRobber]

2 hours ago, Killer Meteor said:

I note on the int prints, Jimmy Shaw is credited as director - wasn't it in fact Lee Tso Nam?

LSN and Jimmy Shaw, along with Indonesian director Iksan Lahardi were co-directors on the film, although having watched the film I can see the most influence from Lee Tso Nam, with his highly stylized directing style. The action was directed by Tommy Lee (ape guy from Hot, Cool and Vicious). http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=9533&display_set=eng

Asian prints of the film tend to use the same English titles, and in every version I've watched, Jimmy Shaw is credited as the director. It is one of the few old school Hong Kong martial arts movies (other than a handful of Shaw and Golden Harvest productions) I've seen which has end credits. It wasn't shot on the best quality film stock, which can be seen in the inconsistent colours and contrast throughout every single transfer of the film availible, but seems to have good production values for a Taiwanese-Hong Kong co-production from 1977. It's a movie in dire need of a proper digital restoration from an original master. Imperial Entertainment has the reels for the uncut English version in their archive, and the German DVD is made from old Cine Film reels which were in rough shape to begin with and missing several hundred meters of film, as it was a cut Spanish print. If I could get a full 2K telecine transfer of the print which was used by Asia Line on their DVD, digitally, I could use PFClean to remove the hairs, dirt and scratches from the film. After that, each individual scene would need to be graded to meet standards and to improve the look of the original film. It's totally doable and worthwhile, but would take a long time. Of course even then it wouldn't be perfect because I'd still need to track down the missing reels for the cut scenes (German DVD uses footage from a scope Betamax tape to substitute the footage cut from the 35mm print) and also I'd be inclined to find the first reel of the HK print for the Chinese opening credits for the sake of completion. I'd also like source the Mandarin audio track for the film and have a new subtitled translation commissioned.

But right now, I'm busy with Hitman in the Hand of Buddha, which is a nightmare to work on for several reasons but rest assured the hard work will be worth it.

[DragonClaws]