Recently released by Code Red under its US title REVOLT OF THE DRAGON, THE BRAVE LION is basically everything I look for in a kung fu flick - lean, mean, and with great fighting and well staged action sequences. I'm not sure what everyone else here was looking for, but I really thought it delivered.The bare-bones plot involves two Japanese prisoners assigned to oversee a Chinese logging camp as a stay of execution. The (Chinese) owner has collaborated with the Japanese and allows these two to operate inside while keeping their oversight a secret. One of the workers eventually finds out (while falling in love with the owner's daughter) and foments a revolt.While the film is presumably set during the Japanese occupation in WWII, the mill workers' skintight jeans belie it as a product of the '70s - a plus for me, as I tend to prefer modern martial arts films to historical melodramas. To that effect, BRAVE LION is stripped about as lean and mean as possible, with its romantic subplot pared to a minimum and plenty of time left for kicks and fisticuffs. While the fighting is often poorly motivated (it's a wonder anything gets done at the mill, as guys start beating the crap out of each other the second anyone drops a hammer), it has an earthy looseness that's refreshing, a rough-and-tumble realism that finds the actors sliding down hills, rolling through the dirt and generally giving every scene their all. By the time the climax rolls around, featuring a jaw-dropping battle that careens onto a crane platform suspended over a gaping mountain abyss, it's hard for me to see how anyone could have lost interest. Like the best martial arts flicks, this one builds to a crescendo that leaves you exhilarated and breathless. Don't let the other reviews fool you – BRAVE LION is a keeper.

During the dark days of the Second World War, two Japanese prisoners of war are offered freedom if they are successful in managing a lumberyard in occupied China. They gladly take this opportunity and rule the yard with an iron fist, leading to an uprising lead by two of the oppressed workers.The Brave Lion was one of many chopsocky films to exploit the bad history between Japan and China. Like the others it predictably has evil Japanese baddies and heroic, downtrodden Chinese heroes. Like the vast majority in this genre though, it is very limited; which is partially down to a low budget but in all honesty is mainly due to its tedious nature. There is a lot of kung fu action, quite relentlessly so, but it's never very distinctive and all blends into one long fight after a bit. And there's not really much else on offer with a film like this. I thought it was a pretty bad film and can only be recommended to hard-core martial arts fans.

But then everyone has to start somewhere, I guess. The film is one of those anti-Japanese Chinese films (apparently the Japanese must have done some nasty things during the time because I used to have a Chinese friend who hated the Japanese, but was not even born when the conflict happened). The other unusual thing is one of the bad guys turns into a good guy (and gets killed in the process). Otherwise it's not as incoherent or non-sensical as other martial arts films, but there is the usual bad direction, editing, and out-of-focus photography characteristic of these films. So, nothing special here. And while some may consider Woo a good director, the only thing he was ever good at is action sequences, and most of these are so over-the-top as to be totally unbelievable (as are the plot devices in his films).