Return of the Tiger (1979)

Plagued by Extremely Long and Ridiculous Action Scenes This film begins with a young woman coming into a gymnasium and proceeding to beat up the men training there. When some members from management enter and ask her the reason for her actions a man from the bleachers named "Chang Hung" (Bruce Li) appears and says he wants to talk with the overall boss known simply as "Paul the Westerner" (Paul L. Smith). As it turns out, Chang Hung and his unnamed "female partner" (played by Angela Mao) are involved in a game of intrigue between two rival gangs who deal in drugs and he's playing both ends against the middle in an effort to eliminate the two of them. Now from what I understand this film is a sequel to "Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger" with Bruce Li trying to fill the void resulting from the death of Bruce Lee. Yet, while the first film suffered from mediocre acting, this film languished due to action scenes which were extremely long and utterly ridiculous. That being said, I was not impressed with this particular film at all and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

This is one of the better Angela Mao movie from the late '70s. Since she stopped starring in Golden Harvest's movie, her movies weren't as well made or distributed. She seemed to be more focused on her domestic life, which probably was the right move since pure kung fu action movies were starting to be passe around the time this movie was made. Bruce Li is probably the most type cast actor of all time, but he's a good actor in his own right, holding on screen presence with his handsome good looks, and good martial arts skill.Making this a one of a kind movie is that both stars are starring together in this movie. What's amazing about Taiwan producers and directors is the way they fail to capitalize on the on screen talent of their stars. They'd rather stick to their pat formula for making movies, rather than exploiting the often great talent of their stars. This movie is no exception and it just drags on with boring scenes of the bad guys talking to each other, then more talking, and then more, ......and more. Another thing is that the movie has no atmosphere to it at all. The scene goes from a cheap office to a dirty alley, to a worn down warehouse, and the likes. There's not a single beautiful scene in this entire movie.Anyways, if a movie of this caliber is above average, you can surmise how bad some of the other Taiwan made Angela Mao movies are. Don't expect too much from this movie, as you see little of Bruce Li, and even less of Angela Mao.There are better movies made of Angela Mao from Golden Harvest in the early '70s. They are recommended far more over this one.

Hello action movie fans!!! This is your Martial Arts movie extrordenair DANIEL KAHN NELSON!!! Here to offer you true martial arts movie fans a real critical view of Hong Kong and Japanese cinema!!! In the next couple of weeks I will be commenting on movies that have been under-rated and not judged carefully enough so be sure to watch where I strike next!!! This was actually a pretty good film. There was however one cheesy but cool moment, that being when Bruce Li put on oil to make himself smooth and slippery during a fight with the drug lord's body guard. In fact it was quite funny. But the fight seens involving the female assistant were well choreographed and the final fight seen was awesome yet left something to be desired. All in all a well earned 8 out of 10.

The most brutal action packed martial arts battle of the decade, Bruce Li, The Roaring Kung Tiger, faces his deadliest enemy.. the vicious and sadistic torturer from The Midnight Express. The Hoover Night Club in Bangkok is used to coverup the operations of the international narcotics group headed by an American, George Cross. A rival gang, run by a chinese, also tries to dominate the drug market in southeast Asia. Handsome professional killer Chang Hung, accompanied by his female assistant, arrives in Bangkok and smashes a Kung-fu school run by George. Tseng Tse-chan, leader of the chinese group, approaches Chang to eliminate george, but his price is too high. Unknown to him, Chang was hired by George to infiltrate Tseng' racket. The girl's job is to play the 2 rival gangs against each other..