Fake Bruce Lee’s finest moment

June 4th, 2009 at 10:00am Will Pfeifer

As part of its ongoing Gateways to Geekery series, the Onion AV Club offers recommendations for kung fu movies if you’re just getting into the genre. It’s a fine set of picks, led by the excellent 1978 film THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN.

But, as always, the discussion in the messages that follow is where things really get interesting. After mentioning dozens of kung fu films, someone finally brings up a legendarily bad one: THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN. Released after the death of Bruce Lee, it cast another actor (who doesn’t even look like Lee) in the role of Bruce, who finds himself in hell. And that’s only the beginning. THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN may be bad, but it’s like no movie you’ve ever seen. In fact, it’s great.

Here, for example, the faux Bruce Lee battles James Bond, what appear to be silhouette characters from a James Bond credit sequence, and the Blind Swordsman of Japanese movie lore, spaghetti western Clint Eastwood (as Kato, Lee’s role from the GREEN HORNET series), what appear to be a couple of Dracula-types, and a swordsman from a movie I can’t identify…

But that’s nothing! In this clip, he fights an army of mummies and gets help from — believe it or not — Popeye! — complete with a can of spinach and that familiar theme song!

Entry Filed under: Action!, Just plain weird