The Tattoo Connection
Director:
Lee Tso-nam
Year: 1978
Rating: 5.5
I wish I had watched this in a theater
on 42nd street forty-five years ago because this has Grindhouse written on
it like bright flashing neon lights. In a full theater of rabble-rousers,
petty criminals, pimps and degenerates, they would have yelled at every kick
and punch, cheered every time Jim Kelly showed up on the screen, made ribald
remarks when the sleazy women get naked, laughed at the terrible and badly
dubbed dialogue and probably gone to the bathroom to snort cocaine during
the tedious melodramatic parts. It would have been great fun. That is the
way to see this film but those theaters are long gone and so we have to watch
it on our TV in our sterile living rooms. And it's not the same. This is
a Hong Kong production directed by Lee Tso-nam who was responsible for some
mildly insane films such as The Woman Avenger, Lunatic Frog Woman, A Life
of Ninja, Kung Fu Wonder Child and Magic Warriors. Kelly was still a hot
commodity in Hong Kong after Enter the Dragon and with him in it, the film
was very exportable.
He is teamed up with some terrific martial
arts actors - Dorian Tan Tao-liang, Chan Sing, Bolo Yeung and Lee Hoi-sang
- and the action scenes are quite good. In particular at the end when Tao-liang
and Chan Sing have a wonderful brouhaha and then as the cherry on the top,
Kelly joins in with his very cinematic high leg style. It is a beautiful
ten minutes. There is some solid action before that, but nothing as good
as this. The problem is though that when they aren't fighting, a sense of
lethargy sets in and the awful dubbing doesn't help. It begins with a fight
as Tao-liang takes on a gang including Hoi-sang with his splendid high rapid
kicks and takes them out. He is the right-hand man and enforcer for Chan
Sing but a soft-hearted enforcer in love with a prostitute who is being shared
with his boss. She wants him to take her out of the life, but he is loyal
to his boss. Till he isn't.
Chan and his gang - including Bolo - steal
a shipment of valuable diamonds from America. The insurance company turns
to the man. Jim Kelly. Go to Hong Kong and kick some ass. And flirt
with the ladies. Visit the nightclubs and strip tease acts. And oh, bring
back those diamonds. The film bogs down at times with the love and sex nonsense
and Tso-nam would have been better served by cutting this out and adding
another action scene or two. Between the action it is pretty lackluster but
when they get to beating each other up, the film comes alive. It is choreographed
by Bruce Leung and he sticks to all martial arts with no gun play. Old School.
