THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE is perhaps the ultimate Bruceploitation film, featuring no less than three Bruce Lee imitators (and two of those are the hard-working Dragon Lee and Bruce Le). It starts off with the depiction of the death of the real Bruce Lee, only to have his body claimed by a mad scientist (Jon Benn, who starred in CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER and WAY OF THE DRAGON) who proceeds to replicate three clones from it.This action-packed tale then follows each clone as he engages in training routines before being sent off on special missions, typically performing assassinations and the like. Eventually they turn on each other. The whole thing was brought to you courtesy of infamous exploitation director Dick Randall, whose CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER is a mini masterpiece of its type. THE CLONES OF BRUCE LEE isn't, but it's still a must for trash fans.There's no denying the slapdash nature of this film, which was shot in Thailand and the Philippines. While the plot is more involved than your regular kung fu outing, the fight scenes feel very laboured and predictable; the Bruce Lee imitators spend too much time copying Bruce Lee instead of showing much in the way of real skill themselves. I feel they did better work elsewhere. Still, on the other hand, the viewer does get treated to Bolo Yeung (DOUBLE IMPACT), gratuitous nudity, training scenes set to stolen ROCKY music, and a general air of ineptness and anything-goes cult appeal.

This movie is awfully funny, leaving one with an awkward sense of time warp. Secret British intelligence (as secret as unheard of ) summons brilliant scientist for an equally secret operation in a hospital. So the Bond guy calls the professor, they ride to the hospital...picture this, and when they arrive Bruce Lee has been dead for only 20 minutes! So the scientist engineers three morons supposed to be clones of Bruce Lee, but who look credible with sunglasses only, at not less than 20 meters distance. Here we have another common ploy similar to Remo Williams, 6 millions dollar man etc: disaster gives intelligence agency the opportunity to engineer superheroes, who are brainwashed using a pasta bowl & carnival electronic equipment (EG a €29,99 karaoke set ). They are trained by Bolo Yeung...mind this...the AAA+ secret underground facility looks more like the cellar of a third grade middle school in ruins, than a Bond-styled base. They learn awfully fast and are soon having conniptions while a slightly altered version of the Rocky music plays. One of them is dispatched to get rid of some gold smuggler working under the cover of the movie industry...needless to say the Bruce clone is an instant hit. Ultimate fight ensues in what seems a dump, and the thug tries to escape sailing away on board of a ship more attuned to XIX century China...where is Wong Fei Hung? The other two are dispatched to get rid of a thai drug kingpin-scientist whose AAA+ world-threatening laboratory is located in a barn and run by two hindu morons with hollow teeth, the answer to Dr. NO, Hugo Drax etc. This low-budgeter tries to cross the line with shots in Thailand. The evil scientists turns dozy Thais wearing ancient Japanese swimming suits into bronze warriors, but it is easy to open their mouth and stuff it with handfuls of grass, enough to kill them. Audio is out of synchrony, so they hit the bronze warriors and ten second later we hear "deng!". When the scientist who created the clones (the same man who played "boss" in the way of the dragon ) gets rewarded with a hefty "well-done" in front of the picture of a teen aged queen Elizabeth (this tells you how recent the movie is ), he goes berserk in resentment and wants to dominate the world with the best Bruce after a lethal combat between the three. Sympathetic nurse unplugs the brain-control machine controls and final battle ensues. Acting? Pardon? SFX? Pardon? Ten seconds of nudity with chubby thai sunbathers. Fights are very mediocre. Plot is paper thin & poorly stitched together. Image quality very mediocre.

I saw this film in the early eighties, so my memory of the plot details is pretty hazy. I do recall, however that the clones mentioned in the title not only didn't look very much like Bruce Lee, they didn't look like each other! Also, there was an army of overweight men in diapers who were covered with metallic paint and were supposed to be made out of bronze. Whenever these guys would get kicked or punched a metallic "bong" was heard on the soundtrack to enhance the illusion. The only problem that the effect was ruined by the way their flesh jiggled on impact. I went to a lot of lousy films in those days, but this one got by far the worst audience reaction of all of them(although the place was nearly full!). If they were dumb enough to think a film with a title like this would be good, they deserved to be disappointed. Personally, at the time I thought it was a lot of goofy fun.

This movie is actually so bad. (Direction, acting, effects, even the fighting) that it has reached some sort of cult status over here. You should check it out. It's funny as hell.