Legacy of Rage
Director:
Ronnie Yu
Year:
1986
Rating:
6.0
It is hard to watch this film starring Brandon Lee and not just feel sad.
He had so much potential, had the looks and moves to have become a real martial
arts star. Life is not always fair. This was his film debut after an appearance
in the TV show Kung Fu: The Movie co-starring David Carradine. It was also
his only film made in Hong Kong and it is directed by Ronnie Yu. Admittedly
before The Bride with White Hair by seven years. Yu is ably assisted by action
choreographer Mang Hoi, who also is in it. This is produced by D&B and
they bring on a fine group of actors to assist the young actor – Michael
Wong as a really nasty piece of work, Michael Chan, Shing Fui-on, Ku Feng,
Teddy Yip, Ng Man-tat, Ken Lo, Bolo Yeung and as his sweetheart Regina Kent
who hadn’t done much yet but in the next few years appeared in A Better Tomorrow
II, Project A II and Inspector Wears Skirts I and II.
I would like to say it is a great film, but it takes too long to get to Rage
and other than a few intermittent and quick action scenes it is mired in
drama and romance. When it finally reaches Rage at about the one hour mark,
it busts out all the action and budget of the film. More a Heroic Bloodshed
film – A Better Tomorrow had come out in the same year and it was all the
rage – than a martial arts film. I read a quote from Yu in which he said
that Brandon wasn’t all that versed in martial arts at this point – he had
studied acting – so that might explain the focus on gun-fu. Being marketed
of course as Bruce Lee’s son, that comes as a surprise. After the film, he
began studying martial art seriously.
His character Brandon works as a waiter at night and in a junk yard in the
day. He and May (Regina) are planning to get married. She works at the same
bar/restaurant as Brandon. Teddy Yip is their boss. His best friend is Michael
(Wong) who is the son of a triad head (Michael Chan). Clearly not a good
judge of character as Michael is a total psycho and obsessed with having
May. He gets nastier as the film goes along – by the end wearing bow ties
and thin framed glasses snorting cocaine by the truckload. When he is not
ordering his man Shing Fui-on to kill someone. The two of them set Brandon
up for murder and off to jail he goes for 8 years thinking his good friend
is a swell guy.
He is actually trying to rape May. When Brandon serves his time he
learns what has gone on and that May is in danger and finally he decides
to get mad. And to kill everyone. About time. He had a dust-up earlier with
Bolo Yeung and then in prison with some white knuckleheads. This wasn’t released
in the States until 1998 five years after his death. Brandon returned to
the states after this and it was five years before he had another decent
role in Showdown in Little Tokyo. He should have stayed in Hong Kong.
