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In my opinion, Image of Bruce Lee is not the best work of Li cinema, but neither is it the worst. The martial arts are superior to anything he had done before this film, but like his other films, there is too much pointless fighting, a ridiculous plot, bad moments, and so on, which makes it a notch below other great achievements of Li like: “Dynamo,” “Chinese Stuntman,” and others.
Returning to the theme of exploitation, I claim that there is more unclothed female flesh in the Image of Bruce Lee than in any other old style chop sockey I’ve had to tolerate. It is Grade A all the way. And not only is the actress featured on screen relatively attractive, but the entire experience is pleasurable. The actress’ name is Dana (I have no belief she is ever the most famous person on the planet, so she doesn’t require a last name), and there is something especially cute in the way she is portrayed – ‘Donna’. Crime lord, after all, is now her father. He is spewing counterfeit U.S. dollars all over Hong Kong. Now, it is the job of Bruce Li, the special agent, and his partner with shaggy hair (who looks like the guy Conan’s friend from the movie “Conan the Barbarian”) to bring it all to a stop.
The movie opens with Li trying to prevent a suicide. He is dressed in a bizarre yellow Game of Death outfit and blue Asics Tigers shoes, which are both altered with some kind of special forces insignia. He them tries to repel a tall building and stops the guy but, instead, he fails. Thankfully, Bruce catches the guy’s arm only to see the saving-getting-grabbed arm is a fake arm.
Other filmmakers would consider that an original opening and use it as research. Most movies would focus on portraying Li’s character as depressed. However, Bruce Li moves on with his new mission after losing a practice sparring session, which starts with him preparing Donna, who is flying to Hong Kong from London. While preparing, Bruce Li and his friend discover that aside from the crime gang and their goons there is a Japanese group as well, led by Bolo Yeung who surprisingly does not look Japanese at all.
There is comedy in Bruce and his companion’s utter failure to live up to their roles as detectives as viewed in this movie. Their work involves following Donna without her knowledge, and her tailing her everywhere instead. I mean, she is no more – ah, the plane is just touching down in Hong Kong, and Bruce, she is looking for us at the airport!! And it only gets worse from there. I would say this is a mockery of all the undercover cop films, and the rest of the movie does not really support it; it is all the same – kung-fu confusion. It is one of those flicks where conflict erupts at mere words exchanged. I would not say it is as bad as a Bruce Le movie, but still, there are enough interesting characters on display to justify a little more character/plot development, and a little less “You mess with me, and I will mess you up!” brawling.
Viewers can expect a few clever turns and reveals. The most apparent of these is at the end when a character reveals that they are not who we believed them to be, as well as some enjoyable moments with Donna where she flaunts herself while playing with her pursuers. But, Image of Bruce Lee just doesn’t achieve the cheesy greatness of Li’s other films because it seems that the filmmakers were afraid to take a few chances with the story. They could’ve given us a nice ensemble piece with mulitple plots and only a few great fights, but instead they toned down the characterization and loaded up on the chop sockey.
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