The Clones of Bruce Lee (1980)

The so called 'Brucesploitation' phenomena which sprang up in the wake of Bruce Lee's death in 1973, saw a number of actors promoted as being the 'true' successor to the deceased martial arts star.   Perhaps the most prolific of them all was Bruce Li, who starred in a number of (usually hugely inaccurate) biopics of Lee, including Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth, Bruce Lee: The Dragon Lives, Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story.  He also appeared in films which supposedly portrayed hitherto unknown adventures of the martial arts master - Fists of Bruce Lee, for instance, tells the bizarre story of how Lee was recruited by Interpol to work as an undercover agent.  Interestingly, though, despite his status as the pre-eminent Bruce Lee impersonator, Li is absent from one of the most bizarre examples of 'Brucesploitation': The Clones of Bruce Lee (1980).  (Although this isn't the most bizarre manifestation of the phenomena - that accolade must belong to The Dragon Lives Again (1977), in which the soul of Bruce Lee ends up in the Underworld and fights the likes of Dracula, James Bond, Clint Eastwood and even Emmanuelle).  Instead of Li, The Clones of Bruce Lee gives us three of his rivals: Dragon Lee, Bruce Le and Bruce Lai, playing the titular characters.

The film opens with Bruce Lee being rushed to hospital, his death quickly confirmed by medics there. Enter Hong Kong law enforcement  official Mr Colin, who calls in Professor Lucas to take tissue samples from the dead Lee for a top secret project.  This turns out to be a plan to produce three clones of Lee, who are to be trained as undercover operatives for Colin's organisation, the Special Bureau of Investigation (SBI).  Lucas succeeds in creating, over an unspecified time period, Bruce Lee 1 (Dragon Lee), Bruce Lee 2 (Bruce Le) and Bruce Lee 3 (Bruce Lai).  During their creation, he implants a hypnotic suggestion in their minds, making them ultimately obedient to him.  After the usual lengthy training montage, the clones are sent on their first missions.  Number One goes undercover as a martial arts actor to infiltrate a dodgy film producer's company, which is actually a front for a gold smuggling operation.  Suspecting Lee 1 of being a police agent, the producer and his equally villainous director plan to have him killed on screen in an 'accident', (an eerie foreshadowing of Brandon Lee's actual on set death during the shooting of The Crow). Naturally, Lee 1 foils this plans, beats hell out of the producer's minions and single-handedly puts paid to his racket.

The other two clones, meanwhile, are sent to Thailand to deal with mad scientist Dr Ngai, who is plotting world domination.  There they are assisted by SBI agent Chuck Lee  (Bruce Thai) who, although not a clone, still looks a lot like Bruce Lee.  Ngai, meanwhile, has developed a serum which turns the skins of test subjects to bronze, making them invulnerable.  After an initial skirmish with Ngai's organisation, which results in the destruction of his lab, Ngai sends an army (a small army) of 'bronze men' against the trio of Lees.  After finding their King Fu skills ineffective against the 'bronze men', the Lees, bizarrely, find that a common garden weed is poisonous and, in the course of fighting the metallic horde, succeed in shoving quantities of it down their throats, leaving Ngai exposed.  missions accomplished, the three Lee clones return home to the Professor's lab complex.  The professor, however, is disgruntled that all he has received from the SBI is praise, not money, so sets the three clones against each other, to discover which is the 'ultimate' Bruce Lee, which he will then use as part of his plans for world domination.  Realising that their boss has gone crazy, his two nurses succeed in breaking his control over the Lee clones, who then take on all of the Professor's cohorts, including their martial arts trainers.  Clone Three is killed by a death ray protecting the Professor's inner sanctum, but Number Two smashes through the wall and dispatches the last henchman.  The escaping Professor is apprehended by Mr Colin, who has been called in by the nurses.  At which point the film abruptly ends.

You can see why the makers of The Clones of Bruce Lee would have thought they had a winner on their hands: three Bruce Lees for the price of one, plus the sight of Bruce Lee fighting Bruce Lee!  The problem is that it is so cheaply made.  The production values really are threadbare.  The Professor's lab, for instance, is like something from a 1940s cinema serial - a cabinet with flashing lights is the only equipment and the headgear used to initially program the clones is clearly a World War Two era US GI helmet sprayed silver and with wires attached.  The initial fight between Lee 2 and Lee 3 and the 'bronze men' appears to have been shot in someone's garden (the children's slide and rotary clothes line are giveaways), while the location of Lee 1's mission, a film studio, is just about the cheapest location any film can utilise.  The script also glosses over many issues - for instance, do the clones retain any of Lee's memories, (it is implied that that they don't, yet they all display his characteristic mannerisms and speech patterns)?  Why does nobody recognise them?  Various characters note that Clone One bears a resemblance to Lee, while its is noted that Two and Three fight like Bruce Lee, but surely the point is that, as clones, they look exactly like Lee?  Why isn't anybody surprised to see the deceased Bruce Lee wandering around alive and well, not to mention in multiple?

The film is poorly structured, with the two missions presented as entirely separate episodes, with no attempt to integrate them into a single narrative via cross cutting.  Indeed, the whole thing feels like a series of loosely strung together episodes, designed solely to showcase the martial arts skills of the three Lee impersonators.  While their skills are impressive, mimicking Lee to near perfection, this leads to one of the film's central problems: the fight sequences quickly become repetitive.  There simply isn't enough variation in the fighting styles of the three leads and the choreography is generally uninventive.  This is particularly evident when the clones fight each other: each has an identical style.  Logically, of course, this should lead to stalemate - Bruce Lee surely could never beat Bruce Lee as they wold be equals in skill and stamina.  The abrupt ending also leaves us wondering what happens to the two remaining Lee clones - do they go off with the nurses and live happily ever after?  Do they continue working for the SBI?  We never find out.  The performances also leave a lot to be desired.  While the three leads all offer perfectly decent impressions of Lee, the rest of the cast are very variable.  The actor playing Professor Lucas (Jon Benn, who had played the mob boss in the real Bruce Lee's Way of the Dragon), in particular, hams it up outrageously.

Indeed, Benn's performance, the shoddy sets and bizarre premise do suggest the possibility that The Clones of Bruce Lee was actually intended as a parody of the whole 'Brucesploitation' phenomena, satirising the plethora of competing Lee imitators by bringing three of them together in one film.  Certainly, it comes at the very end of the 'Brucesploitation' phenomena, which had been in decline since the late seventies and the emergence of Jackie Chan as a new martial arts icon.  Whatever its intentions and despite its roughly assembled feel, The Clones of Bruce Lee is a curiously entertaining film.  If nothing else, it does answer the question of who the best Bruce Lee imitator is: there is no doubt that top billed Dragon Lee bears the most physical resemblance to Lee, not mention having all the mannerisms and fighting style off pat.  Bruce Le comes a close second, but it has to be said that Bruce Lai, despite having the fighting style and some of the mannerisms, bears only a passing physical resemblance to the real Bruce Lee.