Outside of NYC's Madison Square Garden, Adolph Caesar is told by karate expert Aaron Banks that Bruce Lee was killed by a Touch of Death. Adolph is covering the World Karate Championship inside the Garden and Bruce Lee's successor could be anoited. He is joined by Fred Williamson who is constantly being mistaken for Harry Belafonte. Using old film scenes, Adolph recount Bruce Lee's life. There are so many things wrong with this movie. It borders on being disrespectful to the dead. That's saying alot with so many Bruceploitation films floating around taking advantage of his name. This one has multiple issues. First, Bruce's dubbed voice sound foreign to the man. It sounds wrong when the man actually spoke perfect english. They obviously needed the dubbing to change some of the dialogue but they could have used a better impersonator. Second, the disrespect comes from the Touch of Death. If the movie insists on doing a conspiracy theory about his cause of death, the movie should probably drop the faux documentary production and stay solidly in fiction territory. Third, there is a constant confusion between Japanese and Chinese. While Bruce competed against other fighting styles, he was never dismissive of their cultures and he certainly never confused them. It's insulting to say the least. Lastly, the middle of the film uses scenes from other movie to portray Bruce Lee's early years and his family origins. It is a complete failure of confusion. Again there is bad dubbing. I don't follow the chaotic filmmaking. The only positive is seeing footage of a young Bruce Lee although having another guy play Bruce playing Green Hornet's Kato is a meta mind bend. I'm guessing that they couldn't license any Green Hornet footage. Despite the chaos and the incompetence, these are people who are actual friends and fans of Bruce. That is its only saving grace. They may be bad at making movies but their admiration of Bruce is never in doubt.

A big fighting tournament is taking place at Madison Square Garden. Many fighters are showing off their various skills. Why is this going on, you ask? It's because everyone is trying to find the "possible successor to Bruce Lee". Not the actual successor, the POSSIBLE successor. The event is MC'd by a man with a name that has interesting historical connotations, Adolph Caesar. In the audience for no particular reason (though we're happy he's on board) is Fred Williamson. As the fights in the ring go on, we're treated to a variety of clips from a myriad of different sources, trying to recreate the life of Bruce Lee, and people that knew him talking about him (and, not so subtly, talking TO him using horrendous editing). Is this film a crass cash-in exploiting the greatness of Bruce Lee and insulting his memory for a quick buck? Find out today! This movie is a crass cash-in exploiting the greatness of Bruce Lee and insulting his memory for a quick buck. Hopefully this saves you some time. Now, this isn't really a movie per se, as it's not linear, and is cobbled together footage from a patchwork of sources, with a few new bits filmed to try to glue it all together. All the old footage, which appears to have been re-dubbed, is boring and painful to sit through. The newly-filmed footage isn't without some merits, however flimsy...There are some cool NYC locations of the day which we always love seeing, and we even see some movie marquees that are playing Apocalypse Now (1979), Animal House (1978) and 10 (1979). Fred Williamson brings his charisma but he's obviously confused as to why he's there so he's on autopilot. But even The Hammer on autopilot is more entertaining than most actors. There seems to be an inexplicable running gag where people keep thinking he's Harry Belafonte. Why this is, no one can say. A funky score also underlines these scenes.But women jogging in the park and being accosted by street toughs and then being saved by one of Bruce's pretenders to the throne seems to be the sole bit of creative thought put into this trainwreck of a movie. Bill Louie plays "Kato #2". That's right, a guy dressed as Bruce's character, with the name "Kato #2". As mind-numbingly stupid as that is, Louie gets a pass because he was in one of our favorite movies, the awesome Death Promise. So all is forgiven. In these "saving the joggers" scenes, Ron Van Clief actually shines as well. You gotta love that winning smile. But though this movie technically (by default) has Bruce Lee, Fred Williamson and Ron Van Clief, they've got some stiff competition in Fred the Flying Fat Man.Ah, Fred the Flying Fat Man. He had such dreams. We'd love to be privy his thoughts. How a morbidly obese vagrant with sleep apnea and diabetes could think he could genuinely become the new Bruce Lee is beyond comprehension. Yes, this is real. If anyone out there has any information on said Flying Fat Man, do leave a comment today.But the big question here (especially when characters are talking to stills and spliced-together footage) is: WHO DID THEY THINK THEY WERE FOOLING? True Bruce fans aren't going to accept this tripe. Casual moviegoers won't care. So what was the audience here? Naturally, the Fred Williamson stuff is the best here, and after suffering through the footage of Bruce's "biography", we were screaming for Adolph Caesar and his famous voice to come back and save us all.So while there are a few decent moments in this plot less exercise, most of it is an endurance test that would test hardened bad movie lovers. If only they made an entirely new movie with Williamson, Van Clief and Louie, then we'd have something here. As it stands now, we really don't.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com

There isn't much to say that hasn't already been said about "Fist of Fear, Touch of Death". Take a screenwriter who has never written for any production before (or since for that matter) and has no knowledge of the subject whatever, several B-list or lower celebrities who need a paycheck, a few of the worst actors ever to grace a screen, unrelated and unwatchable stock footage then give the entire mess over to an apparently blind and deaf editor with some sort of palsy and call it a "Documentary". Calling this pile of garbage a "Documentary" is like trying to sell a small child's mud pies in a gourmet bakery.I must call special attention to the first fight scene in the movie. Bill Louie pulls an opponent's eyes out and "in a dazzling piece of showmanship" tosses them to the crowd. It's just one gut-bustingly funny moment in a movie full of them. Also of note is Hollywood Browde. In slightly more than 60 seconds on screen, she manages to pull of the worst bit of acting I've seen in a lifetime of watching and enjoying bad movies. She should receive a "Razzie Lifetime Achievement Award" based solely on this performance.There aren't words in the language to describe this thing. Film schools should show this as an example of everything one could do wrong while making a movie. You can't fully appreciate the depths of bad this movie aspires to until you have seen it. And you should. As a "Documentary" it's horrible but as a comedy, well, as a comedy it's GOLD, friends. Pure gold.

Fist of Fear, Touch of Death is a epic movie in the genre that exploited the consumer desire after the death of Bruce Lee. In the vernacular, this is a Bruce-ploitation movie. I have seen a few of these, with most bordering on the ridiculous and having little to do with Bruce Lee (except for the use of his name, image, words, etc). Some are enjoyable on that ridiculous level, but most are unwatchable. FoF,ToD is epic in the scale at which it seemingly exhumes and defecates on Bruce's image. I can safely add this alongside Orgy of the Dead, as the two worst movies I have ever witnessed.I don't know how to start. This movie is a multi-leveled disaster. On one level it tries to fake investigative journalism surrounding the "theory" of the pressure point death spot, a.k.a. Touch of Death, and whether or not it was the "secret" cause of Bruce's death. This is mostly done through the narration/"interviews" of NY actor Adolph Caesar (who most will remember for his role in Club Paradise).Other levels include staged martial arts exhibitions by Ron Van Clief, Bill Louie and Aaron Banks, all in tribute (of course). The Hammer, Fred Williamson, shows up as himself for no apparent reason as well. Yes I know he was one of Bruce's students, but that doesn't explain his purpose in this movie. Add another level, by showing two different movies and somehow linking them up. The first movie being an early, early, early black & white Bruce movie that resembles the Chinese version of Leave it to Beaver. That is somehow linked to a color, period-piece martial arts movie that does not star Bruce. The cherry topping to this turd cake are the dubbings, especially Bruce's martial arts fortune cookie-like sayings. It isn't even Bruce Lee's voice, it's much worse.Others have commented that even though this movie is atrocious, it still maintains a ridiculous humor. Sadly, I searched for any spark of humor, but was met with a dull, boring pain instead. The production value just screams of a VHS copy of someone's home video of their trip to New York being found in a dumpster and edited by one coming out of a weekend of chasing the dragon.All those who commented that they enjoyed this, did recommend not watching this by oneself. All I can say is that any fun derived from watching this with others, is laughing at your "friends" as they writhe around on the floor in agony. If Mel Gibson made a biography film based on Bruce Lee in a similar manner to the Passion of the Christ, this would be it, because you will feel approximately the same amount of pain that Bruce would have felt in death. Skip it. Don't say I didn't warn you.-Celluloid Rehab