Director: David Gregory
Starring: Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, Bruce Siu-Lung Leung, Ho Tsung-Tao, Godfrey Ho and Angela Mao
Country: United States
Running Time: 94 min
Year: 2023
The world was taken by storm in 1973 when martial arts legend Bruce Lee suddenly passed away. Only a month away from seeing his biggest film yet, the Golden Harvest/Warner Bros collaboration Enter the Dragon end up being one of the most successful action films of all time. While this was the last official Bruce Lee film we’d see in a fully completed state, that doesn’t mean it was the last that we’d seen of Lee.
Not even a year after his passing, we’d be greeted to the first of many films in a genre fittingly coined ‘Bruceploitation’, and that was Super Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. A biopic about his life, starring a man named… Bruce Li. This subgenre would explode in popularity as the world was still mourning the loss of Lee, so across the next decade, Hong Kong cinema would explode with Lee imitators, with all of these production companies hoping to capitalise off of the likeness of Lee.
David Gregory’s documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce aims to dive deep into this bizarre sub-genre, interview all of the faces associated with it and ask the question – why? Gregory’s previous films include Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Shocking Truth, a look into the legacy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, as well as Ban the Sadist Videos, a two-part look into the world of the video nasties boom. I’ve always been a fan of the documentaries Gregory makes, he always chooses fascinating topics to cover, and Bruceploitation is no exception.
With Enter the Clones of Bruce, Gregory was able to get interviews with the most popular Lee imitators from that era, such as Bruce Li (Super Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, as well as The Man, The Myth, The Dragon Lives and Bruce Lee’s Secret), Dragon Lee (The Real Bruce Lee, Enter Three Dragons and Golden Dragon, Silver Snake), Bruce Le (The Big Boss Part II, Bruce the Superhero and Young Bruce Lee) and Bruce Liang (The Dragon Lives Again, Bruce Against Iron Hand and Bruce Lee, D-Day at Macao). All of them recount the films and the events that led them to star in them in an interesting manner, with a lot of them almost feeling like they’d get nowhere if they hadn’t starred in these films. Some of them look back on it fondly, whilst others are embarrassed by the films. Other people interviewed include cult director Godfrey Ho, Lee co-star Angela Mao and Ron van Clief, who received the nickname of ‘The Black Dragon’ from Lee himself, which Clief adopted into a stage name for a few of his Bruceploitation films.
The documentary does an excellent job at covering the extensive library of films that encapsulate the Bruceploitation genre and I admire Gregory’s approach at taking an unbiased look at them all. The genre is something that’s tasteless in many ways, sure, but hearing from the faces of the many, many films giving their honest thoughts on the experiences is something that I found enthralling from start to finish.
Enter the Clones of Bruce is essential viewing, easily one of the biggest surprises of 2023 for me. It’s a well-crafted, engaging documentary that will satisfy fans of Bruce Lee or his many, many impersonators. For me, it was a delightful look into a wacky genre that more people need to know about.
Film: 
Enter the Clones of Bruce is currently available to rent and purchase digitally, and is being released on Blu-ray via Severin Films on the 27th of May in the UK. The documentary is also included in Severin’s North American exclusive The Game of Clones: Bruceploitation Vol. 1 box-set which releases on June 25th. I viewed the standalone disc to check out the extras, which weren’t previously included with my screener I viewed last year. The following extras are included:
Special Features:
Audio Commentary with co-executive producer/director David Gregory, co-producers Frank Djeng, Vivian Wong and Michael Worth And Director Of Photography Jim Kunz
Working at Shaw Brothers – Outtakes with Godfrey Ho, David Chiang, Yasuaki Kurata, Lee Chiu, Lo Meng, Mars and Phillip Ko
Bruce Lee and I – Outtakes with Sammo Hung, Phillip Ko, Yasuaki Kurata, Mars, Angela Mao, Andre Morgan, Lee Tso Nam and more
The Lost World of Kung Fu Film Negatives – Outtakes with Godfrey Ho, Joseph Lai, Angela Mao, Lee Tso Nam and fIlm preservationists
Bruce’s Hong Kong – Location Tour with Frank Djeng
Severin’s Kung Fu Theatre with actor/director/Bruceploitation expert Michael Worth
Trailers
The feature audio commentary with David Gregory, Frank Djeng, Vivian Wong, Michael Worth and Jim Kunz is a solid track. Gregory discusses how some rare Lee footage was included in the early sequences, his reasoning behind making a documentary about Bruceploitation and some of the cut footage (that’s included on this disc, thankfully). The back and forth between all of the crew members on the commentary is an engaging listen (which is a given when you have Djeng on a track, he’s always great to listen to!) and I’d recommend the track for those wanting even more fun trivia about the genre and how the documentary was created.
Working at Shaw Brothers is a nineteen minute deleted segment from the documentary focused on the legendary Shaw Brothers studio and features most of the footage shot in regards to the studio during the shoot. Interestingly, the feature begins with on screen text that mentions how the first assembly cut of Enter the Clones of Bruce ran for over three hours. Seeing how much of that leftover footage was included on this disc, it’s an eye-opening tale in film editing that highlights how, even if the interviews are all great, pacing is key and it makes sense why they were removed for those reasons. It’s a solid overview on Shaw Bros and worth a watch.
Bruce Lee and I is a twenty five minute deleted segment from the documentary that focuses on Lee’s influence and stories about him from collaborators which was removed for pacing issues. There’s interviews with Sammo Hung, Phillip Ko, Mars and Angela Mao just to name a few and while it’s understandable why this was removed from the feature, it’s great to see it included here.
The Lost World of Kung Fu Film Negatives is a fifteen minute deleted segment from the documentary that focuses on the lack of great original negatives for martial arts films from the 70s and 80s and after much consideration, this segment was removed from the main feature. Similar to Working at Shaw Brothers and Bruce Lee and I, this rough edit of that segment is another great inclusion and features interviews with Godfrey Ho, Joseph Lai, Angela Mao and Lee Tso Nam, and will please those who enjoyed the main feature.
Bruce’s Hong Kong is a twenty seven minute location tour with Frank Djeng and it’s a delightful watch. Djeng goes across the locations of many of Lee’s films, such as Enter the Dragon and Game of Death as well as heading to the Shaw House and other locations. It’s a great documentary that compliments the main feature well and will please die-hard Lee fans.
Severin’s Kung Fu Theatre is a minute and a half long extra with Michael Worth and David Gregory that works as an introduction of sorts to Enter the Clones of Bruce. It’s charming and a nice inclusion.
Three trailers are included.
Enter the Clones of Bruce is probably my favourite of Severin’s recent forays back into the UK market. An incredible selection of extras for a great documentary, this home media release will please fans of martial arts cinema or those intrigued with the crazy Bruceploitation genre.
Disc/Package:
