Bruce Lee & The Masters 8-Pack (2002)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film: for the actual Bruce Lee movies,
for the rest of this drek
DVD:

Directed by Bruce Le, Ling Ping, and Lo Wei
Starring Bruce Lee, Bruce Le, and Bruce Li

Features:

• None.
  
• Nada.
  
• Zip.
  

Rating: NR, suitable for 17+

Anamorphic: 2 of the 8 discs, yes. The real Bruce Lee movies, to be exact.

My Advice: Point and snicker.

Bruce Lee's name is absolutely synonymous with the explosion of the kung-fu theatre market into America. You don't get to have kung-fu geek credibility until you've seen Fists of Fury and The Chinese Connection. Before Jackie Chan, before Jet Li, there was only Bruce. And he was a singularly bad mofo. Moves like a cat and a kung fu style that he made up himself, Jeet Kune Do. To top it all off, he even directed a few of his own flicks, completing his scramble from the Green Hornet's sidekick to the premiere martial arts action hero in the world.

So naturally, as a huge fan of the genre, I was thrilled to hear Goodtimes had cranked out an 8-pack full of Bruce Lee goodness. You can imagine my disappointment turning rapidly to frustration upon realizing that only two of the eight discs actually feature the man himself. To be sure, his image adorns nearly every case, and is plastered large across the box in which the set resides. But six discs are nothing but imposters. Poseurs. Fakes. After Lee's untimely demise, an entire Hong Kong cottage industry sprang up with the sole purpose of exploiting the Master to make a quick buck. So we got Bruce Le (born Kin Lung Hung), cranking out a seemingly endless stream of flaccid chop-socky re-hash, followed closely by the equally lame Bruce Li (Chung Tao Ho), likewise spewing terrible derivative kung fu crap. So this lovely Bruce Lee collection is equal parts Lee, Le, and Li. And all parts lame.

While the two authentic Bruce Lee films are absolute classics, I shudder to think of people making their first encounter with them in this set. Never, in years of cable access kung fu theatre and bad late-night presentations or Sunday matinees, have I ever, EVER seen a worse-looking print of these films. Pops, cracks, jagged tears in the original that dance across the screen for minutes at a time, combined with colors so washed out it looks like the celluloid was soaked in bleach or left out in the sun for a year, serve to make this the absolutely worst DVD transfer I've ever seen of any movie. Period. If I were responsible, I'd be really concerned about Bruce's surviving offspring and their capacity for kung fu destruction. Advice to the responsible parties: hire bodyguards. If the Lee clan doesn't get you, kung fu fans will.

The Le/Li rip-off films are terrible to the last, with equally spotty video transfer and crackling sound, but I was actually glad they weren't widescreen, as it means there might have been more of the awful picture I was being spared by the crop. Most all of the remaining films attempt to portray Lee himself as an action hero like his film roles, which in some places seems natural and in others so ridiculous and forced as to make a mockery of what the man did accomplish. The worst part? Neither of the two phonies actually look all that much like the real deal. There is a passing resemblance in the case of Le, particularly, but still. Hardly look-a-likes. The final disc that rounds out this octet of terror is Bruce Lee and Kung Fu Mania, essentially a montage of fight scenes from the original Bruce Lee, his imitators, and a host of unrelated kung fu stars. It's actually got a better plot than Bruce Lee the Invincible, so go figure.

In closing, I can't imagine a decent reason anybody would shell out the serious bread that set like this costs, when for a few dollars more, you can get the nice Master Collection that includes nothing but Bruce Lee movies, all remastered and made pretty again. For the slight reduction in price that this set offers, you get absolute bottom of the barrel, with no extras, bad sound, bad picture, rip-off exploitation films, and only two Lee classics. Stay far away from this one.