Starring Bruce Liang (aka Bruce Leung), Shen Ie-Lung, Tang Ching, Alexander Grand, Nick Cheung Lik, Eric Tsang, Lily Foo Lai, Jenny, Bobby Canavarro, Fang Yeh, Wong Mei, Cheung Hei and Yuen Siu-Tin. Written by Chi Lo, and Liang Wei. Directed by Lo Chi and produced by Hendrick Gozali for Goldig Film Company.

Bruce Lee dies and wakes up in the underworld, makes friends with some of the nicer folks there, including Popeye and the One-Armed Swordsman, and clashes with other characters, such as James Bond, the King of the Underworld, The Godfather, Clint Eastwood, Dracula, Emmanuelle and Zatoichi!

Aka DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU, this is a movie that has to be seen to be believed!

After a caption that reads ‘This film is dedicated to millions who love Bruce Lee’, ENTER THE DRAGON music kicks-in and then the Bond theme takes over, as James Bond faces-off against Bruce Lee! Awesomeness! This film is immensely enjoyable from the get-go, as characters we’ll be meeting in the movie strut their stuff during the extended shot-against-red credit sequence. 

We’re then shown Bruce Lee’s body lying in the cavern/throne room of the King of the Underworld (Ching)… and it looks as if Bruce died with a massive erection… but this impressive stiffness turns out to be his nunchucks!

Lee is played by Bruce Liang (aka Bruce Leung) who, let’s be brutally honest, is probably the Bruceploitation star who looked least like Bruce Lee, and the filmmakers obviously know this, so they have a character comment that, “It so happens when a person dies their face and their body undergo a change.” This explanation must also be the reason why Clint Eastwood, Popeye and Dracula are all asian in this film!

Bruce soon comes to terms with the fact he’s dead and that he’s in hell, which pretty much resembles a Chinese town with a small casino and restaurants. There are also some cavern dwellings and a quarry. The underworld’s residents defer to the King, mainly because he has the power to cause earthquakes by shaking a pillar, though a shady cabal led by The Godfather have plans to take over the territory.

Bruce visits the main town restaurant and encounters Popeye (a youthful Eric Tsang), while elsewhere in the establishment Zatoichi the blind masseur/swordsman catches flies and puts them in his food, so that he can get out of paying his bill. Then Zatoichi, along with James Bond, Clint Eastwood (dressed as the Man With No Name), and a bunch of dudes in skeleton costumes confront Bruce in the restaurant, and Bruce starts to feel sweaty and dizzy, making it easy for Clint to beat him up. Fortunately for Bruce, he’s cared for afterwards by Wa To (Siu-Tin), the doctor to the King of the Underworld, who’s such a good doctor he even helps skeletons! Bruce admits during his convalescence that his Achilles heel when he was alive was that he played around too much and says aloud that he’s sorry to Linda, his wife.

What makes this production so enjoyable are all the famous characters added to the mix, with some of them depicting real-life people like Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood and others representing fictional characters like Popeye, the One-Armed Swordsman, Zatoichi and Kwai Chang Caine from the KUNG FU television show.  So it’s great fun when the film cuts to Clint Eastwood, The Exorcist, Emmanuelle, Zatoichi and James Bond hanging out together in The Godfather’s cavern HQ. There’s no rhyme or reason to why some characters, like Bond and Emmanuelle, are played by western actors, and why Clint Eastwood, The Exorcist, etc, are played by asian actors. I guess we just have to remember that ‘when a person dies their face and their body undergo a change’, even when they’re fictional characters like The Godfather!

Bruce does a little gambling at a casino, but he then tells everyone they should stop gambling because that is probably the reason they ended up in the underworld. He meets the One-Armed Swordsman here and strikes up a friendship with him.

We also get to see some of the naked underworld concubines in a large bath, chatting about Bruce Lee, discussing the Hollywood actors he trained, and musing about how they’d like to go out with him.

The movie jumps from obvious sets to obviously real-world locations without attempting to disguise the transitions, mainly when Bruce and other characters dash from the town studio set and end up immediately in a bright exterior quarry location. I think this editing just adds to the hey-we-don’t-give-a-f**k-what-you-think mindset of the filmmakers!

At the quarry Bruce duels with Zatoichi, and each fighter takes turns to use different styles against the other, with the name of each technique superimposed on-screen. Zatoichi uses these styles: ‘Blind Man Finds Way’, ‘Blind Chicken Peaks’, ‘Blind Man Kills Mosquito’, ‘Blind Snake Climbs’, ‘Blind Fool Massages’ and ‘Blind Dog Pisses’! Bruce, meanwhile, uses these special techniques, inspired by movie titles: ‘The Big Boss’, ‘Enter the Dragon’, ‘Way of the Dragon’, ‘Fist of Fury’ and ‘Game of Death’!

For a while the movie shifts into sex farce territory, with the King of the Underworld cavorting and playing blind man’s buff in the hot tub with nude women, for no particular reason, plot-wise, other than to show off some attractive nekkid ladies. We also get one of the underworld concubines and the Queen of the Underworld planning to seduce Bruce, which involves them trying to give him a potion to ‘stiffen his resolve’. The foxy Queen even tells Bruce, “Beat me hard with that terrible weapon”! The concubine and the Queen end up forcing each other to drink the potion, however, and they both become scabby-faced hags. Meanwhile, sexpot Emmanuelle meets-up with the King of the Underworld. “You can spank my botty,” she informs him, and she promises to become the King’s wife.

Dracula (Hei) shows up now with his skeleton henchmen (referred to as zombies) and Bruce arrives to take them all on dressed as Kato from THE GREEN HORNET! Bruce gets pinned to the ground by the henchmen, who hold onto his arms and legs, so that Dracula can bend down, ready to bite him… and, suddenly, a third leg shoots up from Bruce’s groin area, booting Dracula in the face, as an on-screen title informs us this style is called ‘The Third Leg of Bruce’! Insane stuff!

Back with Emmanuelle and the King, they have sex in his pink-lit bed. There’s lots of moaning and groaning and Bruce has to intervene to warn the King that Emmanuelle was trying to give him a heart attack through pleasure, and the King muses that, “Her pussy’s in this plot too, she was using it to murder me.” 

Bruce is made the new captain of the King’s bodyguards, triggering reprisals from The Godfather’s team, resulting in Bruce killing James Bond and then Clint Eastwood. The Exorcist and The Godfather decide to try and kill the King, who defends himself by creating an earthquake by shaking the pillar, so they then decide to attack Bruce. This fight between Bruce, The Exorcist and The Godfather is very nicely done, in fact it’s thrilling and totally ace, as Bruce finishes off The Godfather (played by a very cool-looking Shen Ie-Lung) by utilising his ‘Fingers of Fury’ technique!

Knowing that Bruce is angry with him for causing an earthquake that hurt innocent people, the King implores General Cheung Fei to help him rid himself of Lee… so Cheung Fei leads a mob of bandaged mummies to attack Bruce! Popeye, the One-Armed Swordsman and Kwai Chang Caine come to Bruce’s aid and a madcap final martial arts skirmish takes place in the underworld quarry. Popeye gets kicked about… so he eats a can of spinach and the ‘I’m Popeye the Sailor Man’ tune plays as he beats-up the mummies! The One-Armed Swordsman slashes the mummies with his sword and Bruce battles General Cheung Fei with nunchucks! This is excellent stuff, with Bruce finally being granted permission to leave the underworld.

THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN is a priceless, peculiar pantomime of preposterous proportions. The movie would have been a stand-out Bruceploitation flick solely because of its totally unhinged storyline, but what makes it even better, what provides the exciting icing on the crazy cake, is the fact that the action is really, really good. Bruce Liang may not resemble Bruce Lee, but in real life Liang was a very skilled (and tough) martial artist – and he looks extremely good on-screen in the many fight scenes that were choreographed by him.

Okay, one final look at Dracula…