REVIEW: ‘Big Boss 2′ (1976)

There is kung fu so bad it’s good and then there is simply bad, bad kung fu. BIG BOSS 2 fits the latter category as one of the lesser in a string of Bruce Lee exploitation films.

The title is bunk. The story has nothing to do with Bruce Lee’s THE BIG BOSS. It bares more resemblance to FIST OF FURY as it focuses on the pre-war struggle between occupying Japanese and oppressed Chinese. The painfully simple story is one only a Neanderthal could fully appreciate. Regular Bruce Lee impersonator Dragon Lee plays Lee Han-sun, a Chinese fighter who ends up on the run from a gang of Japanese thugs led by Bolo Yeung. There really is nothing else going on. But to fill 90 minutes, he is shot, recovers with a family headed by Philip Ko and exchanges gushy smiles with his pretty daughter. Lee also hooks up with Cheung Lik, playing a streetwise beggar, and his crippled sister. All of them are nothing but fodder for the Chinese actors… I mean Japanese character to chew up. After countless little fights here and there, we get to the final battle of two the genre’s buffest – Dragon Lee versus Bolo Yeung. It’s pretty uninspiring, as is the entire film.

What would a Brucexploitation film be without the “Brucisms?” Dragon Lee is notorious for being one of the hammiest clones. Here, he regularly goes into overdrive by exaggerating all of the trademark hand gestures, facial expressions and body postures, but without Bruce’s charisma, speed or delivery. The dubbing features equally exaggerated screams and high-pitched growling. A couple of his most ridiculous screaming sessions, including the very end are worthy of a laugh.

Then there are the many references to Bruce Lee’s films. If there was any value in this film, it might be in making a game out of spotting these scenes and linking them to their corresponding film. But since few genre fans would even waste their time or money on this stinker, I’ll point out the more obvious ones. Dragon Lee does show off his dexterity by replicating the kick that Bruce Lee used to shatter a light bulb hanging above his head in MARLOWE (1969). He goes on to do a flying kick to shatter a Japanese sign ala FIST OF FURY. One of Dragon’s friends is killed and strung upside down as Jim Kelly had been in ENTER THE DRAGON. But most notably, Dragon gets the bright idea to master throwing chopsticks in order to disarm gunmen, just as Bruce used small wooden darts to do the same in WAY OF THE DRAGON.

The kung fu action in BIG BOSS 2 is not terrible, just repetitious and dull. But the acting is so bad and the plot is so thin that this is truly a painful experience. The “Japanese” thugs must be the most one-dimensional characters ever conceived of. They laugh hysterically after beating or killing someone. And their method of looking for Dragon amounts to walking down the street and asking every person they meet where he is while beating everyone senseless. If anything, the filmmakers should have taken a beating for putting together this lower than low exploitation film for it has no redeeming value.