Blood Brothers (1982) Review
Originally, I was going to do a review for The Clones of Bruce Lee. Unfortunately, the movie apparently wasn’t available on Tubi at the moment (there was a very good quality version) and ended up checking this movie, Blood Brothers (1982). I had no idea who was in this movie but the stand out moment occurred immediately at the start when the theme used here was the stolen main theme from none of than Disney’s The Black Hole. I have no idea how or why this was allowed but it ironically attracted me just to see where this movie was going. However, this is not the same Shaw Brothers movie The Blood Brothers, which has Chen Kuan-Tai as well, so it might be a little confusing if you aren’t paying attention (except for The Black Hole music at the start)
Despite the oddly placed ominous overture from The Black Hole, Blood Brothers is more like a combination of The Godfather and The Blood Brothers. Believe it or not, there actually is a plot to this that doesn’t involve constant fighting and there is some character development. As a result, I found this movie to be reasonably watchable. But let’s get into the premise. Chen Kuan-Tai and Don Tao play two street thug type of characters who swore a blood oath, even though they aren’t actually related in this movie. The work at a casino for a shady boss who has them influence customers to bet in a certain manner.
However, Chen Kuan-Tai becomes greedy and overconfident in believing that a lucky turtle roll will win and bets a bunch of money their boss entrusts to them. Don Tao is the more level headed of the two and attempts to discourage his blood brother from placing down a bet neither can pay off. Naturally, they lose and figure on escaping. Their boss tracks them down and has them beaten up but they manage to escape and split up. From there, the story mostly follows Chen Kuan-Tai’s path as he tries to live a normal life.
Chen Kuan-Tai shows up at a brothel looking for muscle. Immediately, he is smitten by a young girl cleaning the floors but is admonished by the owner to avoid falling in love. Nonetheless, she hires him. The brothel tries to sell a new young virgin who turns out to be the young cleaning girl to a rough character. She’s forced to spend time with him. While that occurs, the owner receives additional payments from other customers to watch this live pr0n studio in action. Eventually, Chen Kuan-Tai can no longer stand hearing the cries of the young girl and rescues her. Of course, he’s fired but it’s clear that wasn’t a place for him to work anyway.
The young girl and he stay together at a kind couple’s home where they rent out a small room. Oddly, Chen Kuan-Tai tells the couple that the young lady is his sister but the couple aid them in various ways such as providing food and giving them work. Chen Kuan-Tai works with the husband of the home doing loading work at the docks. The town’s head honcho struts around but is a high target for his status against rival gangs. A sniper on a nearby boat makes an attempt for the boss’ life and Chen Kuan-Tai dives to save the man. In turn, the boss (played by Chan Sing) is grateful and gives Chen Kuan-Tai a gold pocket watch and makes an offer to employ him. However, Chen Kuan-Tai is content at his current job (and probably doesn’t want to get involved with the mob) so he humbly denies the request.
As Chen Kuan-Tai’s life normalizes, he and the young girl adopt the couple as surrogate and the couple encourage the pair to marry (they conveniently forgot the part about the two being siblings). In turn, they hold a private wedding ceremony. During the ceremony, Chen Kuan-Tai’s old boss (Peng Gang) learns of his location and decides to pay the family an inconvenient visit. The parents are murdered and his bride is almost raped but dies (suicide?). Chen Kuan-Tai attempts a futile comeback but he’s beat up gratuitously. Soon the cops arrive and find Chen Kuan-Tai still alive, taking him to the hospital.
At the hospital, the police attempt to figure out what happened and determine Chen Kuan-Tai’s identity because he’s wrapped up almost like a mummy. At this point, his old buddy Don Tao walks in and unveils that he now has taken up a career as a cop. He immediately knows the nearly obliterated friend but cannot get a response. However, he believes it’s Peng Gang who is responsible and swears to help his friend.
When Don Tao returns to visit his friend, he discovers that Chen Kuan-Tai has somehow checked himself out but leaves the illustration of a turtle, which confirms his identity to Don Tao given that it was the fatal symbol that started his downfall. However, Chen Kuan-Tai has other plans as he approaches Chen Sing’s lair and shows the gifted pocket watch. This time he accepts the original offer to work for Chen Sing and ask to help gain revenge against the murderous Peng Gang.
Peng Gang is at a pool hall where his members are shot up and Chen Kuan-Tai has the equivalent of a kung fu style pro-wrestling bullrope match where he gains revenge. From there, Chen Kuan-Tai’s position rapidly rises in Chen Sing’s organization as he participates in various underworld activities with a great deal of success. He ends up taking on high priced courtesan as part of his reward.
Thereafter, the gang works with a corrupt government official to deal with an opium trader and a rival gang. Chen Kuan-Tai proposes a better plan which helps increase the gang’s profits and furthers his standing in the organization. However, the police from Shanghai are onto them along with a rival gang boss. Don Tao accompanies this new group to confront Chen Sing as the gang rivalry heats up.
Chen Sing is assassinated at a live performance, setting up a funeral where both the rival gang show up along with the cops. Without a leader in place, Chen Kuan-Tai’s gang selected a new leader. He does not wish for the position and it’s given to the next experienced person. However, there is a growing schism within the organization where the other heads want to retaliate and they enact a hit against the rival gang and cops.
Chen Kuan-Tai heads down to aid his blood brother but gets hit in the shoulder (how the fuck this guy isn’t dead is a mystery in itself). He lets his Don Tao out but decides that the situation needs a resolution. He calls the other gangs to meetup to resolve the issue where he forms a special committee headed by himself to avoid the other gangs’ risking their assets. He wants to make the business legitimate in establishing this new business but is still under the suspicion of the police.
Don Tao’s boss (a foreigner) demands that Don Tao take the case and confronts his friend but Chen Kuan-Tai believes that he can legitimize these various operations under his new corporation. One of the underbosses running a prostitution ring gets caught by the police and later targeted for assassination by the more ambitious members of the organization. Little by little the old empire crumbles as the members are killed off. Soon it’s Chen Kuan-Tai’s turn as the rival gang seeks to control over the area. They kidnap Chen Kuan-Tai’s girlfriend, leading him to team with his old friend to take down the remaining rival gang. A terrible bike and car chase happens where the rival gang boss is killed. Of course, Chen Kuan-Tai is heavily beat up but says he’s going to survive while the police show up at the last minute.
You can see the heavy influence from Coppola’s movie had here. Chen Sing effectively is similar to the more honorable Vito Corleone while Chen Kuan-Tai is similar to Michael Corleone. I mean, Chen Kuan-Tai’s girlfriend gets brutally murdered/raped which sets off his vengeful mood. Also, the idea of legitimizing Chen Sing’s operations was similar to Michael Corleone’s goal with the Corleone empire. Also, Lung Fei plays the internal betrayer who gets overlooked much like Fredo, which leads him to frustration.
Because this movie is a clear copycat of The Godfather I and parts of II, the plot is reasonably coherent as far as a martial arts movie can be in this period. Don Tao’s character is the main odd man out in that there’s no real corresponding character in The Godfather series. But he does provide for a side character and moral anchor point that Chen Kuan-Tai can come back to later in the movie. The problem is that he’s pretty bland here where his main characteristic is that he “has no vices.”
Oddly, there’s not that many major fights in this movie compared to other movies that use any excuse to inject a kung fu movie (* cough * The Clones of Bruce Lee * cough *). I would argue that the fights themselves lack anything spectacular given the talent involved. There are quite a few recognizable names/faces in this film but the focus really isn’t on the fighting. However, some of the action sequences become downright outrageous such as the various motorcycle chase scenes. Probably, the most egregious is Chen Kuan-Tai having near infinite hit points. In one scene, he goes under a truck and survives getting nearly run over. Even if Chen Kuan-Tai can sell pain, it’s ridiculous on how he manages to survive everything in this movie.
The movie itself isn’t necessarily boring and it doesn’t overwhelm you with fight scenes to keep the plot moving along. So I liked how things would slow down and breathe a little to develop. I did think some of the violence was overbearing just like the action scenes themselves. Chen Kuan-Tai’s brutal beating was gratuitous and close to Robocop minus having his arm blown off. Because of how gratuitous those scenes became, I honestly preferred the non-action portions better.
As a stand alone movie/in isolation, it’s not a terrible movie. They did use The Black Hole theme a few times as well as another theme (maybe the hospital one?) which was humorous to me. But when you think when it was made and the various movies that came before it, Blood Brothers simply reminds you of being a cheap knock off. The main novelty was seeing Chen Kuan-Tai and Don Tao acting together. If you want to see a better movie, check out Chen Kuan-Tai’s The Blood Brothers, which is far stronger and more interesting with better character and plot development.