They Call Me Bruce? (1982)

A cook (Johnny Yune) is mistaken for a kung fu expert and is hired by the mob to deliver special ‘noodle flour’ that turns out to be cocaine. A wild, cross-country road trip begins.

Part martial arts parody, part road movie and all political incorrectness, They Call Me Bruce? is a mixed bag of stand-up one-liners, bland fights, and situations capable of equally offending Asians, Italians, Jews, and African Americans.

Korean comedian Johnny Yune plays a cook nicknamed Bruce who works for the mob and like Sammo Hung in the much superior Enter the Fat Dragon (1978), idolizes Bruce Lee. The only problem is that he doesn’t know any kung fu. After luckily thwarting a convenience store robbery with a pair of nunchachu, Bruce is mistakenly labeled a kung fu champion and given the job of transporting cocaine to various clients around the country before ultimately arriving in New York. This suits the benign Bruce fine since he believes that he’s transporting flour for making Chinese noodles. Plus, his goal is to reach New York where his dying grandfather once told him to find a certain woman.

Thus begins a madcap road trip through Las Vegas, the South, Chicago, and concluding in New York with kung fu fighting federal agents trailing, a combat ready Margaux Hemingway out to foil Bruce’s deliveries, an insane and balding assassin closing in with all manner of weaponry, and the mob “Boss of Bosses” out for blood.

As martial arts parody, the film is pretty much falls flat. Nobody in the film is capable of pulling off any martial arts either real or hilariously contrived. And as most genre fans will agree, with the exception of Stephen Chow, only martial arts stars are really capable of offering up successful parodies of the genre and Sammo Hung gets the top prize in that category. The main gag seems to be that Yune’s character is about the only person who doesn’t know martial arts. Instead, he relies on his quick wit and advice from his grandfather to see him through sticky situations ranging from barroom brawls to street gangs intent on doing harm. Yune has a certain deadpan charm that helps in the delivery of numerous puns that in other hands would easily bore. Some of the jokes such as references to popular advertising are dated and there is a heavy dependence on poking fun at “Orientals” (a term more correctly belonging to rugs) and other minorities. Because Yune – obviously an Asian himself – is delivering most of the jokes, its supposed to be satire, but it still comes off as more abrasive than funny. But seeing how similar jokes are still used in films like Rush Hour 2 (2001) and Romeo Must Die (2000), proves that some screenwriters have yet to come up with witty banter among various ethnicities that doesn’t take cheap shots.

For an independent and low budget comedy released with little fanfare in 1982, They Call Me Bruce? is surprisingly entertaining thanks to Johnny Yune’s easygoing comedy delivery and a few clever scenarios. At its best, such as when police officers dressed as Hari Krishnas start kung fu kicking drug runners while pounding away on their drums, the film recalls such cult classics as Kentucky Fried Movie and Airplane. And no where else will you find a ninja crash a barroom brawl at a truck stop and with a Chinese nine-ring sword to boot. But still, this may be low grade comedic entertainment and not the best example of it, but it beats getting poked in the eye with a stick.