Reviewed by: steve_cole1 Date: 10/16/2007 Summary: Not a bad film Not as bad as i thought it would be as i had low hopes for this film .The fight scenes were good and Jackie looked good in most of it . I was half expecting him to transform into Bruce like the clones Bruce Li e.t.c but this never happened which was good. But otherwise it was pure rubbish as in the story e.t.c Reviewer Score: 5

Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 11/01/2005 A shameless attempt to cash in on Bruce Lee's corpse. In this sequel to Fist of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection) Chan plays Lee's brother who isn't interested in fighting until a group of Japanese start terrorizing a local Chinese fighting school. Nothing spectacular and really slow-moving at times, but Chan and Miao put on some decent fighting sequences. [review from www.hkfilm.net]

Reviewed by: Masterofoneinchpunch Date: 06/06/2005 Summary: Comeback film for Chan After co-starring in Hand of Death, Jackie Chan was forced into an early retirement because of the shift in consumer tastes in movies. The Hong Kong audience was dissatisfied with the action films after the death of Bruce Lee, leaving an ever-widening amount of unemployed stuntmen and bit-players. Since Jackie was one of these casualties he retired to Australia to be with his family. There he did construction in the day and worked in a Chinese restaurant at night. Then he received a telegram from Willie Chan wanting him to work in a new film called New Fist of Fury – a sequel to the beloved Bruce Lee film Fist of Fury. He told him that the movie would be for the newly formed Lo Wei Productions and that the film would be directed by Lo Wei himself. Jackie would receive 3000 Dollars (HK) per month for acting (he would later receive 9000 for being the stunt coordinator.) Little did anyone know that this unknown actor would become a big boon to the industry; though, this would not happen for a while and would not happen (directly) because of this film. New Fist of Fury is typical of a Lo Wei film, it lacks cohesion and character with an overuse of plot elements. The film starts after the destruction of the Ching Wu School in Shanghai. The remnants of the school, led by the delightful Miss Lee (Nora Miao), are forced to flee to Taiwan to avoid persecution from the Japanese. She will stay with her grandfather Su Onli who is the head of a martial arts school. Unfortunately, the Japanese are ubiquitous in Taiwan too. When her group arrives, they are the target of a thief Helong (Jackie Chan) and his companion Old Chin (Hon Siu). Helong (Ah Lung in some translations) steals a wooden box containing the prize weapon of the late Brother Chen (Bruce Lee in the superior Fist of Fury) – nun-chucks. Later, after Helong is found in a ditch beaten half-to-death by the students of Chin Ching Kai, he is found by Miss Lee's group and is nursed back to health (with the help of his prostitute mother's money, whom he does not know.) For all of this help and their forgiveness of him stealing their property, he refuses to learn Kung Fu so he can continuously be beaten up. Miss Lee has bigger problems than trying to get Helong to learn Kung Fu – the Japanese occupancy. Akumora (played by the muscular Chan Sing) is the Japanese provincial leader who wants to combine the Chinese martial art schools under his Di Wah school. There is a great scene with him catching a knife in his teeth and then throwing it from his mouth killing an attacker. It is so hard to take this scene seriously, but it reminded me what Ed Wood might have done if he directed a Kung Fu film. Akumora is an interesting character that starts off semi-decent and then ends up completely anti-Chinese ("I kill Chinese, just like I kill dogs.") This is another annoyance with the film; it is completely ethnocentric with one-dimensional Japanese characters. This annoyance is especially evident when Akumora challenges a staged Kwong Gung, stating that the Japanese heros are much better than Chinese's heros. This infuriates Master Su during his 80th birthday celebration and leads to his death (when he jumps over a large crowd of people and apparently has a heart attack.) With the death of Master Su, Miss Lee decides to revive the Ching Wu School. This leads to an obvious clash with the Di Wah School. One of the biggest problems with this film (yes even worse than the ever-yelling Jen Da So, the kiai spewing daughter of Akumora) is that Jackie is misused and miscast in this film. He constantly gets beat up by both Japanese and Chinese and yet refuses to learn Kung Fu. He does not get a decent fight scene until at least three-fourths of the film is over and yet he obtained his skills in just a few days (it is amazing what anti-Japanese sentiment can make you accomplish). When he does fight, his skills are quite evident. Jackie is very acrobatic and his fight scenes flow well though he is relegated to using actors who are weak in martial arts (with a few exceptions like Han Ying Chieh) and they slow down many of the action scenes. I am a fan of Jackie Chan (and many of the HK films of this era), but this is not a film that rises above mediocrity. While it is not worse than many films during the 70's it has a few negative attributes that will doggedly follow it -- New Fist of Fury followed one of the most beloved of Bruce Lee films with a weak sequel and misused a future Hong Kong Superstar. Useless Tidbit: look for a small cameo role for Lo Wei where he portrays an inspector. Reviewer Score: 5

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 03/18/2002 Summary: Mildly entertaining - or at least interesting After Bruce Lee has been killed by the Japanese in Fist Of Fury, Nora Miao and some of his other friends flee to Taiwan. Taiwan is also under Japanese occupation, however, and they soon learn that the Taiwanese are getting just as rough a deal as they were in Shanghai. The movie is even less ambiguous in its message than the original Fist Of Fury - Japanese very very very bad, Chinese patriots very good. Chinese traitors very bad. The Japanese don't *actually* carry around babies on a leash so they can beat them with a stick, but you get the impression they kind of want to. There are 4-ish Martial Arts school in the particular Taiwanese town they end up in, including one run by Nora's uncle and one run by a Japanese karate master. There's lots of " Japanese martial arts are superior to your Chinese martial arts" and "No, Chinese Kung Fu is the best!" type discussion going on. Eventually the Japanese (referred to throughout the subtitles as "Japs" challenge Nora's uncle's school, leading to his death - seemingly through apoplexy, since nobody actually hits him. Nora decides she must set up her own school, "New Jingwu Mun", so that the spirit of Bruce Lee may live on. Jackie Chan has been lurking around throughout these developments, as a Taiwanese boy that hates the Japanese. He's head strong and courageous, but refuses to learn Kung Fu, despite Nora's best attempts to change his mind. Eventually he snaps though, and signs up to Jingwu Mun - where he inexplicably becomes their most accomplished fighter in a few days. Nora is so impressed, she agrees to teach him Bruce's secret style - The Fist Of Fury. This comes in handy when the Japanese decide it's time to crush the rebel spirit and challenge all the Taiwanese schools to a martial arts tournament. Nora, Jackie and 4 of the other best fighters in Jingwu Mun take up the challenge. Phew, that's a lot of plot detail, but it's not an easy one to condense. The 2 hour movie takes its time unwinding, and building up the characters and the situation. It's certainly not just 10 minutes to each hour of fighting, as is the case with many old school movies. This is probably just as well, as most of the fight scenes are really really bad. You can almost see them stopping to discuss... "OK, so you're going to hit me here, where do you want me to stand. OK, and I'll do a forward somersault a second or two later". There's one or two moments where the fights improve - notably in the final reel, when Jackie finally gets off his ass and starts fighting. The plot is obviously extremely racist/nationalist, and tries too hard in many places to make you think of Bruce Lee, in the hope you'll forget he wasn't in the movie or something. Especially it tries to make you think "Hmmm, this Jackie Chan fellow might be the next Bruce Lee"... of course it wasn't until they stopped trying to push this idea that Jackie had any success. Despite its flaws, however, it is quite an enjoyable tale. The sets & scenery are all quite atmospheric, and the way the situation develops is quite well paced - the story is well told, I guess. Certainly not a masterpiece - especially not of kung fu - but quite interesting to watch. A very odd choice for Columbia Tristar to give the anamorphic treatment to though, as I'd say it's for genre fans only - certainly not going to make a positive impression on the average DVD buying American. It is nice to have such an old movie on DVD though - previously I think it was only available cropped & English dubbed in the US, or on HK VCD. They haven't made any attempt to clean the print up - lots of scratches and speckles, and night scenes are totally lacking in detail, but that kind of works for the movie - with a genuine anamorphic print it still looks good. Audio options are English & Mandarin - I'm guessing Mandarin was the original language, as it works for the movie well. Subtitles are pretty good for the most part, except some dubious translations of names... e.g. Jackie's "Ah Lung" character is persistently called "Helong". Not a big problem - if you know the significance of "Ah Lung" as a name, then you will probably realise that's what they're saying anyway. Overall verdict - hmm, cautious recommendation. Certainly not one to pick if you're new to or don't like old school or Jackie Chan. Certainly nowhere near the same league as movies like Fearless Hyena and Young Master. Not even close to the original Fist Of Fury. But... kind of watchable Reviewer Score: 5

Reviewed by: Inner Strength Date: 01/12/2002 Summary: Another one New Fist Of Fury, is pretty much as the title says...NEW Fist Of Fury. It's one of the many films based on the same story that Fist Of Fury did, the Chinese protecting themselves against the Japanese. It is supposed to be a sequel in a way to the original Lo Wei movie starring Bruce Lee, and a few bits in the film are reminding the viewer of that. This movie is one of the worst quality though that Lo Wei was responsible for. I have seen both the original Chinese version, and the English dubbed version. Both as as bad as each other. The story in itself is a good one I beleive, although after seeing the same plot over and over before, it always ends the same way. Not a classic in anyway at all, but as far as the Lo Wei movies go, this is not that bad at all I guess. Jackie Chan takes the main role here, but don't expect anything great from him, it's nothing special. One more thing I will say, the ending on this is so abrupt, I knew something like that would happen, but not so dramatic. If you have seen it, you will know what I mean. Rating: 2.5/5 (This rating is based on the year & genre, so don't think it's based as a comparison on new releases etc.)

Reviewed by: hkcinema Date: 12/08/1999 Set during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan Jackie plays a bum who has no interest in learning kung fu. Meanwhile a Japanese kung fu master is wiping out the existing martial arts schools. When Jackie is beaten up he decides to learn martial arts and leads the fight against the Japanese. A sort of sequel to Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury it is really a tribute to him. (5/10) [Reviewed by Dave Warner]

Reviewed by: hkcinema Date: 12/08/1999 A pickpocket becomes a hero during the Japanese WW2occupation of China, when his girlfriend's martial arts school is destroyed and its master murdered. (2/5) [Reviewed by Elliot's Guide to Films on Video]