FIST OF FEAR, TOUCH OF DEATH (1980) – BAD MOVIE REVIEW

FIST OF FEAR, TOUCH OF DEATH (1980) – It’s the review FOURTEEN YEARS in the making! Yep, Fist of Fear, Touch of Death is yet another one of those classically bad films that I had planned on reviewing here on Balladeer’s Blog back in 2010 but it always fell by the wayside. At long last this review can stand alongside my examinations of other Bruceploitation flicks like The Clones of Bruce Lee and The Dragon Lives Again.

A fictional Karate Tournament being held in Madison Square Garden is hyped as a battle to be the successor to Bruce Lee. That’s just an excuse to feature a conspiracy theory about Bruce having been murdered and mix it in with stock footage from the Master’s interviews, movies, and tv appearances.

Also stretching out this jumbled mess to feature length are scenes from several 1970s and 1960s Chop Socky movies which are supposed to be footage chronicling Bruce’s ancestor, who is called a samurai even though samurai are Japanese, not Chinese. Other forced connections with Lee pollute this sewage.    

Where to start with this Psychotronic gem? Well, for starters, it’s obvious that the late Bruce Lee couldn’t do anything about the footage of himself in this low-class bomb, but Fred Williamson and, of all people – ADOLPH CAESAR – chose to participate in this dreck PLAYING THEMSELVES!

Okay, blaxploitation legend Williamson has his fair share of schlock among his screen credits, but Adolph Caesar was one of the greatest stage actors of all time and his performance in A Soldier’s Story (1984) helped make it the powerful movie that it still is.

If you need a Psychotronic connection to justify Caesar’s presence in this travesty, his very memorable voice narrated film trailers for several grindhouse flicks and horror films over the years. Mr. Caesar is a total boss in this movie, making it clear that he knows it’s sheer garbage and smirking sardonically throughout his screen time.

He’s being himself, Adolph Caesar, as if he is doing sports commentary for the Madison Square Garden tournament for network television. The bizarre tone of this film is set within the first five minutes, as Caesar’s play by play of a karate tussle we’re seeing in the ring includes the words “suddenly, he grabs for the eyes and twists violently, ripping them out from the sockets and in a dazzling piece of showmanship tossing them to the crowd.”

A dazzling piece of showmanship. To toss your opponent’s torn-out eyes into the crowd. All said in the legendary voice of Adolph Caesar. It’s a true “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto” moment for viewers who are used to more conventional fare.

Anyway, even the NEW footage shot for this film looks like it comes from a 1970s flick. After Caesar whetted our appetites for the insanity to come with his “showmanship” narration, we get treated to footage of him describing a fight between a female martial artist and an opponent called “Fred the Flying Fat Man.”   

After the little lady polishes off that Dom Deluise of China, Adolph resumes talking to the tournament’s promoter, Aaron Banks. They discuss Bruce Lee’s career and the theory that Bruce didn’t die of natural causes, but was murdered via the “touch of death” – a martial arts blow that will cause its victim to die three to four weeks after impact.

Basically, all the footage in this movie falls into certain categories.

THE MURDER THEORY – Aaron Banks and boxer/ movie star Ron Van Clief are among the characters who periodically throw in some half-assed, half-hearted lip service to Bruce Lee possibly being killed for revealing too much about the “secrets” of kung-fu, karate, tae kwon do, etc.

For all the world, these moments come across as afterthoughts, like the filmmakers occasionally remembered their own title and had the figures on screen throw in remarks like “oh, yeah, and some kind of touch of death, or whatever.”

OLD INTERVIEW FOOTAGE OF BRUCE LEE – Bruce becomes “the man of a thousand voices” as old interview footage of him is redubbed by various wimpy guys whose voices make Ned Flanders sound intimidating.

The dubbing features stupid dialogue which omits whatever Bruce was really saying in order to pretend he’s talking about the nonsense going on in this movie. Embarrassingly, the footage is often edited as if Adolph Caesar is the man interviewing Lee in the scenes.

Caesar remains my favorite figure in the film, as he can barely keep from laughing with contempt while forcing himself through obviously fake scenes like that. Or, hell, sometimes blatantly READING HIS LINES FROM INDEX CARDS WHICH HE HOLDS IN HIS HANDS! “What a legend” as Will Jordan would say.

RON VAN CLIEF, QUICK-CHANGE ARTIST – The scenes of Adolph pretending to interview Ron via footage of the boxer on a small tv set in front of him are like absurdist comedy. Picture yourself talking to your tv screen and getting replies from the people in whatever you’re watching and you’ll get the idea.

The WTF? element gets cranked up when footage of Van Clief in different outfits and different rooms is passed off as part of that continuous conversation between Caesar at the Garden and Ron on the little tv. Suddenly, he’s surrounded by assistants as he uses a specialized blade to … cut carrots on the stomach and neck of two of those assistants. All while maintaining his alleged “live interview” with our man Adolph.

FRED WILLIAMSON SCENES – The Hammer himself gets a few scenes of intentional comedy regarding people mistaking him for Harry Belafonte. Otherwise, he acts like he is personally outraged at the thought of a tournament audaciously claiming it will crown a successor to Bruce Lee.

Fred first appears in his hotel room, pretending to be disgruntled by a wake-up call that is two hours late. A woman portraying the kind of bimbo you’d expect to be chewing gum and filing her nails while talking says she wants more lovin’ from Williamson.

Fred replies “Come on, baby. Five times wasn’t enough?” (Oh, the number of times I’ve had to say that to young ladies in the morning. I’m kidding!) Anyway, the Hammer talks with Adolph about how angry he is at the thought of a “successor” to Bruce Lee. Well, when he remembers he’s supposed to be angry he does.

MAKE UP YOUR MINDS – The production inconsistently presents itself as a Pre-Fight Show sometimes and what it specifically calls a “Halftime Show” at others. Do karate tournaments even have Halftime Shows? I guess it doesn’t matter, when whatever it is it takes up 90 percent of the movie before we get a few minutes of actual fighting between John “Cyclone” Flood and Louis Neglia at the very end.

BIG APPLE HEROICS – Two separate portions of the movie purport to be footage of Ron Van Clief and later on Bill Louie protecting beautiful women from getting assaulted on the streets of New York. Ron saves a buxom pedestrian, while the porn-stached Bill gets a tour de force scene as Bruce Lee’s Kato from The Green Hornet television series.

Bill – the same man who tore out his opponent’s eyes early in the movie – shows up driving the Black Beauty, the Green Hornet’s car. He gets out in full Kato costume (but the mustache breaks immersion) in order to save two buxom joggers from being assaulted by two black guys, a white guy and a Hispanic guy.

This fight is pretty well done and Bill perfectly imitates Bruce Lee’s mannerisms as Kato.

THIS IS YOUR LIFE, BRUCE LEE – A prolonged portion of Fist of Fear, Touch of Death is devoted to a pseudo-documentary look at Bruce Lee’s life. This footage often features flashbacks, which would be impossible in a documentary, but whatever. We also get flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks at times.   

The biographical portion bounces back and forth from black & white footage of a VERY young Bruce Lee on a Hong Kong television show and color footage of some of the most inane chop-socky films of all time.

The black & white scenes are redubbed as if they feature actual arguments between young Bruce, his mother, brother and father about his martial arts obsession. Facial expressions and body language often indicate anything BUT an argument is going on, but what can ya do? It’s like the Mad Movies comedians with the L.A. Connection are doing the dubbing.

Also, I was distracted by the way the actor playing Lee’s father looks like he’s starring in “Portrait of Wilford Brimley as a Younger Chinese Dude.”

The color scenes are supposedly reenactment footage of Bruce’s “samurai” ancestor but are really just excerpts from weirdass martial arts films like the kind comically overdubbed on the show Kung Faux. The distraction in these bits of business came from the way a midget warrior in one of the fights has a face that looks more like Bruce Lee’s than do those of half the full-sized actors in Bruceploitation movies. Weird.

I’m serious about the resemblance. The little person brings a surreal Bruce Lee Mini-Me aspect to the proceedings.

By the time this schlockfest sputters to an end we viewers have also been treated to the use of an abacus as a weapon (?), martial arts demonstrations which don’t match the narration being spoken by Adolph Caesar, and my personal favorite – a supposed conversation between Bruce Lee and Aaron Banks in which Mr. Banks obligingly turns himself black & white to match the footage of Bruce being used in that scene.   

I can’t recommend this movie highly enough for my fellow fans of bad movies. They’ll be laughing nonstop, but those folks who just shake their heads at the whole “so bad it’s good” mindset wouldn’t get nearly as much enjoyment out of Fist of Fear, Touch of Death.