aka LI SAN JIAO WEL ZHEN DI YU MEN.
Directed by Kei Law.
I watch mostly horror movies and some art house type films but from time to time when I will watch a kung fu movie for laughs. My favorite type of kung fu movies is the schlock kind known by fans of this kind movies as 'chop socky'. These are cheap funny badly made movies.
After actor Bruce Lee died there was a bunch of kung fu movies made exploiting his name and image. These films might have some footage of Lee from other movies clipped in but mostly they featured actors calling themselves Bruce and trying to act like him. Lee's wife sued some of these filmmakers to keep the Bruce Lee image and trademark in the family estate.
THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN is a 'Bruceploitation' about Bruce Lee and his adventures in the after life.
The film begins with the spirit of Lee coming to the after life and it looks a lot like a Chinese village like you would see in many kung fu movies. Someone points out that he does not look like Bruce Lee and other person reminds her that people change their looks when they come to the after life. This line saved the producers the trouble of looking for someone who looked like Lee and can kung fu fight.
There Lee encounters The Godfather and his gang who are trying to take over the after life world. The Godfather's gang includes The Exorcist, Clint Eastwood (Dresses in his spaghetti western outfit and as of this writing is not dead), James Bond, Emannuel, The Blind Sword man, and Count Dracula.
Lee fights The Godfather's evil gang with the help of his friends that includes The One Arm Sword man, Cain from the Kung Fu TV series and Popeye the Sailor.
Yes Popeye the Sailor is in the film, He is played by a shave head Asian actor who plays the role for laughs and is very funny. The print I saw was dubbed in English and Popeye does not sound like Popeye of the cartoons. Maybe in the original soundtrack he does. But then again maybe the Popeye cartoons in China are dubbed and he does not sound like Popeye as we know him in the United States. In the scene where Popeye fights a group of mummies the Popeye theme plays after he eats his can of spinach.
After Bruce Lee and his friends beat The Godfather and his gang the king of the after life world allows Bruce Lee to return to the Earth and live again. The last scene of this weird movie shows Lee flying away.
I am surprised that this movie played anywhere without the producers being sued to death. They used copyrighted and trade marked characters from various movie and TV series as well as the name and image of Bruce Lee himself. At one point Bruce Lee fights people dressed up as Kato from THE GREEN HORNET TV series.
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