Have you ever wanted to see Bruce Lee battle the likes of James Bond, The Man with No Name and Dracula all in one epic movie. Well folks, you are in luck since the death of Bruce Lee spawned a subgenre of exploitation movies called Bruceploitation and the movie studios just couldn’t stop capitalizing off the fame of Bruce Lee. RIP Bruce, your legend will live on as will these horribly amazing movies. It’s time for The Dragon Lives Again.
The story follows Bruce Lee after he dies and ends up in Hell. Once there, he does the logical thing and opens a gym. After fending off the advances of the King Of Hell’s naked wives, he discovers that the most evil people in Hell are attempting a takeover, so Bruce sets out to stop it. As if it wasn’t weird enough, the evil people are: Zatoichi (the blind swordsman hero of Japanese film), James Bond, The Godfather, The Exorcist, Emmanuelle (the “heroine” of many European softcore porn films), Dracula, and, of course, Clint Eastwood (played by a Chinese guy). Aiding Bruce is The One-Armed Swordsman (hero of kung-fu films), Kain from the U.S. tv series, Kung-Fu (actually played by a Chinese guy this time), and Popeye the Sailor Man! Yes, Popeye the Sailor Man. He eats spinach and helps Bruce fight some mummies.
I never thought I would get to see the day when Popeye helps Bruce Lee battle mummies. I mean I never realized I wanted to see that until this movie came into my life. But that is not just the most ridiculous thing about this movie folks, this entire thing is absolutely shit house insane. I mean the fact that Bruce Lee is in hell, well a guy who is supposed to be Bruce Lee, and that he has to battle hell’s demons who just happen to be pop culture figures is just enough bizarre for one person to handle. It’s just, I mean, wow.
The opening sequence, which you can see above, is just the tip of the iceberg in what to expect from this movie. The fight sequences are dodgy at best, but the level of insanity more than makes up for the entirety of the movie. Battling such greats as Zatoichi, James Bond, The Godfather and an Asian Clint Eastwood is enough to get you to forget about everything else going on in this movie. It’s amazing seeing these pop culture figures, played by Chinese actors of course, all doing combat with one another in some sort of wicked pop culture fantasy mashup.
The movie doesn’t really have anything other than a ridiculous story line and a line up of famous figures in cinema all engaging in a battle royale of sorts with a guy who sort of is like Bruce Lee, but isn’t. It’s sad to think that they are cashing in on the legacy of Bruce with all these Bruceploitation movies, but then again he was an influential figure and we wouldn’t have these sort of movies to see. The Dragon Lives Again is certainly in the pantheon of those pure exploitation films that just go above and beyond the realm of comprehension. Again, I can’t state the fact enough that this movie posits that Bruce Lee is sent to the underworld, meaning being sent to Hell. What the hell did Bruce do to be sent to hell? And that all these famous figures in cinema are also sent to hell. Popeye I guess is an addict with spinach intake and Emmanuelle just likes to sleep around, but that doesn’t make them bad people. I guess you just have to see it to believe it.
