Aka - Last Strike (HK title)

Aka - Tiger Strikes Again

Dubbed - widescreen

Soul Brothers of Kung Fu was clearly titled for the 42nd street crowd but not completely made up as it stars Carl Scott in it. Scott was a very young black man - one source has his birth year as 1961 making him sixteen or seventeen when he appears in this. Fighting against Ku Feng in one scene! How that hell did that happen? From what little I can find out about him on the Internet, he studied martial arts since he was a young boy and when the film Bruce Lee, the Man, the Myth was made in 1976 some of it was shot in San Francisco and Scott was chosen to be one of Bruce Lee's students. Lee was played by Ho Tsung-tao, better known to many as Bruce Li. He made a bunch of Bruce Lee exploitation films and when he made this (which really didn't strike me as one of those), he invited Scott to come to Hong Kong. Having a black martial artist in a Hong Kong film was still unusual even after Enter the Dragon. He is terrific in this and very much looks his age. He was only to make two more films - both in Hong Kong - Sun Dragon (1979) and Kung Fu Executioners (1981) - and both with Billy Chong. After that, I don't know too much other than he became a Grand Master, ran a martial arts school. He passed away in May 2025.


This is filled with action - old fashioned kung fu of hard jolts, fingers into your heart and no mercy. Nothing fancy. No flying. Mainly hitting and somersaulting. A number of the fights are with a group of people and those are acceptable, but it isn't until Li takes on Lee Hoi-sang, Peter Chan Lung and some fellow only called Alexander individually - and of course Ku Feng that the film rises itself above average. They are all terrific and nicely choreographed by the great Yuen Cheung-yan and Hsu Hsia. The final thirty minutes is nearly all action and death.




For a refugee, Hong Kong is a tough town. Three of them survive an arduous journey on the open sea in a small boat - Bruce Li, Lo Meng and a woman, Susanna Au Yeung Pui-san. Once they make it to shore, they have to take low wage jobs as waiters or dock workers. One day at the dock, they see a group of men beating up a young black kid and jump to his aid. Some good knuckle crunching and after beating the hell out of them, they take Scott in and Li begins to teach him kung fu. He is a fast learner. Ku Feng is the main villain and when he hears about this, he needs to teach them a lesson. Many fights ensue.


At some strange point, Li goes off to a tournament and wins but it has nothing to do with the film. There is the inevitable falling out between the two friends when Lo Meng falls into the clutches of Yum Yum Shaw, a bar girl with a heart of a cash register. This is not all ice cream and popsicles - in one scene Susanna is savagely raped by Alexander while Peter Chan holds her down. That was a shock. Chan was soon to hook up with Sammo and become part of his retinue - seeing him as a nasty bastard was unsettling - but we also get to see that he knows his kung fu. To defeat them all, Li has to learn the Iron Finger - for those at home it is simple - thrust your hand through a small circle surrounded by iron sharp blades and smash bottles coming at you with your finger. A couple nifty shots later of the damage it does to the heart and balls from inside.  Both Yuen Biao and Corey Yuen are in this as extras, but I have to admit I didn't pick them out. It is directed by Hua Shan (Super Inframan, Kung Fu Zombie, Bloody Parrot, Portrait in Crystal).  

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