The Dragon Dies Hard (1975) User Reviews (9)

Another Bruce Lee exploitation movie just as expected in every way

[ckormos1 · 4/10 · 21 March 2020]

The movie opens with Ho Tsung-Tao doing some kicks and punches over the opening credits. After the first opening fights, Ho Tsung-Tao gets a role in an action movie. At about the 19 minute mark is a big continuity error. Our hero disarms a swordsman yet the sword is instantly back in his hands in the next frame.

It was odd to see so many non-Asian extras and stunt men. In 1974, as far as fights go, there probably wasn't a non-Asian stunt man in the world who was a match for any Asian stunt man. That's one reason the fights are below average in this movie.

This is another movie exploiting Bruce Lee. The events in the movie relating to Bruce Lee's life are certainly not accurate. The movie was packaged for the VHS rental boom with Bruce Lee's name and likeness. This was not a deliberate search by movie makers to find another martial artist to replace Bruce Lee. It was simply deceptive advertising to sell a VHS of a movie made a few years ago.

These exploitation movies are well known as bad. This one is not the worst and that's about all I can say good about it. Ho Tsung-Tao is the lead. He is Lebanese and appeared as a stunt man in some Lebanese movies. He then appeared in Hong Kong and Taiwan movies as a stunt man. This movie is his first lead.

My copy is a digital file that plays on a HDTV in 4:3 format with English dubbing similar to the old VHS format. It looks as if recorded from a TV broadcast.

Today I think the only person watching this movie would be a hard core fan of martial arts movies of the golden age from 1967 to 1984. That fan would find this movie to be as expected - a movie exploiting Bruce Lee's life with action sequences all below average and overall bearing only passing resemblance to Bruce's life. I am such a fan and I watched this movie once to write this review and I am sure I will never watch it again.

Bruce Lee lives on (or at least his ghost does)

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 5 May 2017]

I caught this Taiwanese kung fu cheapie under the title BRUCE LEE, WE MISS YOU. It's a stock Bruceploitation effort which is quite cheeky in terms of plotting, featuring a staple Bruce Lee lookalike (Bruce Le) who idolises the real Bruce Lee and is devastated when his inspiration dies. Luckily enough for him, he's visited by the ghost of Bruce (played by a second Bruceploitation star, Bruce Li, the one who actually looked most like Lee himself) and inspired to go after his own gang of bad guys.

What follow is routine in the extreme but manages to pack in plenty of cheap action to keep bums on seats. Sadly, the fights are routinely staged and marred by the film's typically cheap and grainy presentation in home video prints, being fullscreen, of poor picture quality, and badly dubbed throughout. Lung Fei shows up for his regular bad guy role while the two Bruces go through the motions. It's nothing to get worked up about.

Pathetic Waste of Film

[Falconeer · 3/10 · 14 February 2020]

During the heyday of the Kung Fu craze, countless movies like this were being churned out, some good, a few great, but mostly terrible. "Dragon Dies Hard" is one of the worst I have seen. Usually the problem is a weak story but worthwhile fighting scenes, but this trash has neither. There is literally no understandable plot beyond some guy being obsessed with Bruce Lee's death. He starts dating some bimbo and suddenly these old men become obsessed with HIM.. because he's dating the bimbo. Fights ensue, the end. And sadly the fight scenes are very few and totally unspectacular. Bruce Li was a fine athlete, but he seems to be sleep walking through this drivel. It's depressing to watch a movie knowing that nobody involved in its creation cared in the least about what they were doing.

Kung Schmaltz

[failedscreenwriter · 13 November 2002]

I recall seeing a film in the late 70s called "The Dragon Dies Hard." Now, what with all the title-switching on martial arts movies of that day, this may or may not be the one I saw, but it sounds close enough. The one I saw rose to new heights of bad-osity. From that day to this, I remember it with a shudder.

In my town anyway, this gobbler was touted as a "biography" of the recently-dead Bruce Lee. Now, I can forgive a "biopic" for being fictional; most are. But this one first centered around a racist "turf war" between Lee and some Japanese martial artists, with a finish implying that Lee was murdered by the mob. Fair enough, but the actor playing Lee not only resembled him about as much as I resemble Russell Crowe, but didn't even fight in Lee's style. And to say that this crap-socky piece of yak doody had none of Lee's melodramatic flair as well as none of Jackie Chan's slapstick fun, is an understatement. Between the strong anti-Japanese sentiment, a script too weak even for a kung fu movie, and martial arts scenes played with all the excitement of a T-ball squad on Ritalin, it's no wonder this kung bomb remains in the murky past.

Two sided script...

[mikesurman105 · 2/10 · 12 April 2005]

By that I mean there's TWO elements of the script.. The Bruce Lee clone investigating the death of Bruce Lee & the Bruce clone running round beating people, anyone up. (SPOILER) The whole point of the 'story' is for Bruce Li to find out why? But he never does. He just ends up killing a drug baron who turns up a third of the way through the movie... I found this tedious. To keep us entertained we need SOMETHING! Even if it is a bad script, hilarious characters, funny fight action; this had none of it! I like Bruce Li, he always comes across as a likable fella who actually wanted to carry the torch for Bruce Lee but this has to be the worst of all his films. There are flashes of watchable action but most of the time you just want someone to die, turn into an eagle and fly or start a rock 'n ' roll band instead of being a henchman.. Watch it if you must but believe me, you will have wasted your time!!

Bruce's lawyers, we miss you

[InzyWimzy · 8/10 · 26 January 2004]

First off, this movie serves as a standard for classic Bruceploitation.

It's kind of like Hamlet with the ghost and the warning...except not very good. I love scenes where Bruce Li gets hammered to ease the pain. That's the realness of these movies! From the start, Bruce boast of his fondness (aka 'extreme obsession') over Lee and then someone runs in and informs him "Bruce Lee is dead". Watch his face...no one pulls off facial expressions like him! His search for the truth leads Bruce to random fighting, avoiding lusty women (damn vixens!), and lots of vengeful rage. There is the great bus fight where camera decides to show a closeup of the bridge over water before the big "SPLASH!". Film school, BAH!! Nothing much gets answered and mediocre battles ensue. Oh man, it's a riot seeing Bruce plastered and hallucination scenes. How much did he drink?? Plus, the fateful flashback of Bruce's last night is so wrong, but another highlight of this one. I didn't know he wore shades while guzzling down Cuervo.

Note: This is NOT Bruce Lee. Bruce Li, my fave in the Bruceploitation genre, helps pull of a fave kampy pleasure here. Watch it for sheer delight.

Hilarious Bruce Lee tribute!

[zelig77 · 9/10 · 25 February 1999]

This is a great martial arts movie! It tells the story of a young man who is saddened upon finding out his idol, Bruce Lee, is dead. He then goes about trying to uncover the "conspiracy" involving his death. Highlights include Bruce Lee's ghost guiding our hero on his search for justice, and possibly the greatest death scene ever filmed! (by great, I mean really funny!) If you love martial arts films, especially cheesy ones, you need to see this movie!

Mostly another mindless 1970s kung fu movie

[Wizard-8 · 12 June 2017]

This particular "Bruceploitation" effort has an admittedly promising premise, with the ghost of the recently deceased Bruce Lee getting a martial arts expert to find out who killed him. Despite this loopy idea, the movie for the most part is a disappointment. Though the hero tracks down who killed Bruce Lee, for some reason it is never revealed WHY the bad guys did this! And the journey along the way is pretty dull, with one of the slowest murder investigations ever depicted in a motion picture. Facts like those will probably not deter action fans, who will simply be asking for fight scenes. Well, there are certainly a lot of fight scenes, but none of them have any particular spark or exceptional choreography. As for unintentional humor, the only laugh the movie manages to generate is when at one point it steals music from the Alfred Hitchcock movie "North by Northwest". It's movies like this that for several years killed the kung fu movie craze in the 1970s.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

[Nick Zbu · 7 May 2001]

I first caught this little film a while back when a local independent channel created "Kung Fu Theater" during the summer. They aired this in all it's glory.

It's not a bad film: there are fights in between a lot of pointless dialogue, but the plot boils down to the ghost (!) of Bruce Lee inspiring some guy to fight some bad guys. That's it. As soon as the fight is ended, the movie ends.

Not a good film; yet not a bad film. One of the other mediocre kung-fu chop-socky films you can watch. Hopefully some company will take this and "Clones" and put it onto DVD...release it, somehow!!