"The Big Boss" was the now legendary Bruce Lee's first major film, and it made him a superstar all over Asia.

To watch "The Big Boss" today, it seems dated and lack-lustre alongside more modern Kung Fu classics such as Jackie Chan's "Drunken Master II", although the fights are classics, and Lee himself has an almost mezmerising screen presence that no other Kung Fu star has captured.

But it is helpful to remember that when "The Big Boss" was made, the now cliched "revenge" plot was actually completely new. Before Lee, all Kung Fu movies contained gentle, benign old masters such as Wong Fei Hung, and the concept of pure rage and revenge did not exist.

And boy, did Lee exact rage in spectaculr style! The fights are still amazing today, if only because of Lee's electric, magnetic, hyperkinetic presence, and his uncontrollable, snarling rage.

(8/10)