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This release couples together two classic films from legend Sonny Chiba: Fighting Fist and Soul of Bruce Lee.  Of the two movies here, I enjoyed Fighting Fist more.  Or at least I think I did.  You see, the synopsis appearing on the back of the box for Fighting Fist isn’t actually for the movie I watched.  The synopsis says the movie is about a female cop who is sent on an undercover mission to root out Yakuza in the universities of Hong Kong.  The movie I watched was about the friends and family of an assassin getting tossed into harm’s way, forcing the assassin in question to go on a search for revenge.  And because the title screen for the film wasn’t translated, I can only assume I watched Fighting Fist. It’s a fairly standard tale of a martial artist forced to take the law into his own hands, complete with a trip back to his Master’s dojo to put the finishing touches on a special technique: a move plucked right out of Fist of the North Star. While the fighting in Fighting Fist isn’t as good as it’s companion film, I found the story to be interesting and the characters enjoyable. 

Soul of Bruce Lee is a much harder film to follow.  It’s also a story of revenge, as Sonny Chiba plays the role of a student who watches his Master die, and swears revenge on his killer.  Chiba confronts his Master’s killer, but is defeated and forced to spend years recuperating and training using a machine to shock his body, increasing his strength.  At the end of the film Chiba again confronts his Master’s killer and defeats him.  Chiba’s Master then appears, telling him that the death was faked in order to avoid going to jail for running drugs.  Chiba is shocked and dies moments later, the training he had undergone to avenge his Master had weaken his body to the point that it could no longer go on.  It’s really kind of a downer:  I understand the message well enough. The movie is clearly a cautionary tale about those that would seek revenge, but it still rather sad to see the main character die a meaningless death at the end of the film.  The fighting scenes in Soul of Bruce Lee are top notch however, harking back to a day when action sequences didn’t have millions of dollars worth of CGI and wirework to fall back on. 

I found the production quality of the release to be lacking.  For example, the back of the DVD has the art for the films reversed:  shots from what I assuming is Fighting Fist appear next to the title Soul of Bruce Lee and vice versa.  This coupled with the mix up in synopsis really says a lot about the quality control of the DVD production.  At no point did someone who had actually seen the film take the time to double check the back of the box.  At no point did anyone say “Hey, we’ve got the screens from the films in the wrong order!” or “Hey guys, why does the Japanese language track switch over to English during the opening of Soul of Bruce Lee?” I understand that the films are old, and as such I won’t try to find fault in the video or audio fidelity, but problems with packaging are something they should have been fixed long before I ever sat eyes on this release. 

As it stands, both Fighting Fist and Soul of Bruce Lee are both fine examples of the classic Kung-fu movie, but both age poorly.  I hate saying things like this in a review, but if you already like old Kung-fu movies, you will probably like these old Kung-fu movies.  If you don’t already have a vested interest in the films, then you should probably pass on them. 

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