The Christmas Early Present' from Our Man From Bond Street Team :
( This critic page is dedicated to Pierre Patin )
So you thought you knew your James Bond Canon, down to the Barry Nelson entry , eh ?
In 1979, I was proudly publishing the first photocopied issues of my Fanzine , and started meeting other young crazy Film buffs in Paris . One of them discovered one day an oddity and started at once raving about it . At first we simply couldn't believe our ears when he described the movie he just saw by chance in a low zone Paris Chinatown Cinema .
A Hong Kong film starring a fake Bruce Lee ( ok , that , we were used to . So many copycats Bruce Lee appeared after the death of the Enter the Dragon star . All of them generally awful ) .
But co-starring were the likes of ...Clint Eastwood ' Man With No Name ' silent Hero, Popeye the Sailorman ( I kid you not ! ) , the French erotic symbol of the 70's Emmanuelle and,and...
A character always impeccably dressed in tuxedo and bow-tie called...JAMES BOND !!!!!
And - oh , the irony ! - that James Bond is on the...Villain's side ! ( But it's a ploy ! OMG ! )
Played by US actor Alexander Haig ,who actually looks more like Barney Collier from Mission Impossible than 007 himself ! ( sorry for the awful Caption pics : it's been Hell trying to find extracts of that movie on the Net . ) . What boggles the mind is the fact that Alexander Haig seems to speak...Fluent French ( listen closely to the credits sequence . )
To sum up a rather , errr , bizarre script : story has Bruce Lee ( actor Bruce...Leong ! ) fighting in Heavens against the most Evil Masterminds of all Times : The Godfather , Dracula ( who looks more like BLACKula , due to awful make-up ) ...And the Emperor of Evil Himself ( call it Satan, for us Westerners ) .
On the Good side , along Bruce ,are ...Popeye , Saïtochi the Blind Samuraï , Kato from The Green Hornet and Clint Eastwood !
' In between ' ( so to speak ) is the sensual...Emmanuelle ( in the Sylvia Kristel chic Sexy heroine mould ) , a treacheress " à la Vesper Lynd " ( an inspiration for the Eva Green characterisation perhaps... ) .
Film is called for Westerners ' The Dragon Lives again ' , dated back 1977 , directed by a certain Law Kei ( I kid you not ) and seems to be still available in DvD through a distributor called ' 5 Minutes To Live ' ( honest ! Must be the average time a normal cinemagoer manages to hang on while trying to watch that movie... )
Let's be thoroughly honest : although I finally DID see that...Thing ( yep, am so badly addicted to Bond stuff ! ) , it's really awfull ( The HK ' Ace Goes place ' series looks like a Kurosawa movie in comparison...)
So bad ...It actually becomes Fun watching it !
That is , if you're enjoying a Video night with friends ...And booze !
You can trace in Zone 3 DvD ( Hong Kong / Taiwan ) .
I've PsP format encoded the actual complete overture credits sequence of the Movie - starring James Bond firing against Bruce Lee ...With a soundtrack shamelessly borrowed from Lalo Schiffrin's Enter The Dragon AND ...The James Bond Theme !!!!! ( Danjaq people, I'm actually working for you , right now.... ) .
That sequence is actually a presentation of all the main characters , so you'll get a pretty general idea of the whole thing ...Without having to watch it entirely - how nice am I, eh ?
And , as a special Christmas Bonus , I cannot resisting adding ...Errr , you'll see by yourself !
Last info : this film is actually called in France ' LA RESURRECTION DU DRAGON ' , which makes some more sense ( not much , but still...) .
( Lord , I DO hope I'm not the only one enjoying that piece of crap ... Or else my reputation will go down the drain ! Which reputation ? Awwwww , come on...) .
THE GREATEST FISTICUFF / MARTIAL ARTS / COMEDY / ESPIONNAGE / WESTERN / DOWNRIGHT HORRIBLE MOVIE EVER MADE !
¿Sólo falta "Santo, el enmascarado de plata", héroe iberoamericano?
RépondreSupprimerTo my knowledge , no Santo movie ever tried to copycat a James Bond film ...
RépondreSupprimer