Dragon Lee Fights Again is also called Big Boss II and pretty much doesn’t seem ashamed in going full force into the Bruceploitation genre from the start. The thumbnail/cover art on pause shows Chuck Norris and the actual Bruce Lee during their epic battle from The Way of the Dragon just to demonstrate the deceptive hook some of these movies would go in order to gain attraction. For myself, I have to admit that I am a fan of Dragon Lee, especially when he’s being directed by Godfrey Ho, as those movies usually are at the very least entertaining. Sad to say, this movie was not under master Godfrey Ho’s command but under a different director who did a few other Bruceploitation flicks. As a result, the movie is quite muddied to say it nicely.

Even though the director himself isn’t Godfrey Ho, he did seem to employ Godfrey Ho’s infamous “Copy/Paste” technique of injection scenes, grabbing pieces from Clones of Bruce Lee into this flick (mostly the fighting sequences). So we’d inexplicably get Bruce Le or Chiang Tao showing up out of nowhere without any context except to add a gratuitous fight scene that did not seem appropriate randomly here and there. I don’t think Bruce Le even got any credit for this movie.

The movie itself I think was mostly using a Korean crew except for Nick Cheung, who plays someone called Agent Q-101 (I wonder if he was a precursor to the T-1000 just because this guy is more wooden than a bamboo forest). But the premise is that Dragon Lee, also called “Dragon” here, is a police officer or special agent working for the Korean government on a special mission to infiltrate a bizarre religious group. The way he gets in is through some weak tests that more of less has him demonstrate his fighting skills and later a test of “loyalty” in effectively swearing to a code of silence with this group.

Along the way he meets the daughter of the Bishop for this organization. Both are effectively imprisoned in their rooms and find camaraderie for their disposition. Later, Dragon is told he will be able to fully join the cult by some strange ritualistic gathering that occurs only during a certain moon phase (I forget the name of this cult; something about the moon but who really cares about details in a film like this?)

To get to this cult, he must board a boat as this cult’s HQ is on some mysterious island or cave. Both Dragon and the bishop’s daughter embark while Agent Q-101 (who obviously is a secret spy) gets denied by other people on the board, leading to a gratuitous fight. Dragon and the daughter watch from afar as the goofs get tossed overboard but are thrown a line which they must hold onto the rest of the way to the docks. Naturally, Dragon and Agent Q-101 bond without explicitly revealing their identities but I’m sure that they knew exactly whom the other person was in this situation.

Once they depart the ship, they’re taken to the hidden fortress, which is just a cheap ass cave that someone probably found in the country side. The new recruits are given some sort of strange water that has a hallucinogenic. Agent Q-101 warns Dragon about the water while the daughter is forced to imbibe some. By the way, the cult does have some odd rules for joining, especially the women in which their only requirement is to be beautiful. Gee, wonder what these people intend to do?

The daughter is drugged and tries to get Dragon to drink while Agent Q-101 gets seduced by some of those “beautiful” women (saying that he didn’t like his). He gets brained by an unseen assailant then tossed into a cave where he overhears the real father of the bishop’s daughter talk about his imprisonment and making drugs but repenting. Afterwards, the cult tosses in some drugs at Agent Q-101 and he’s taken to the actual boss of the place to be interrogated. Fortunately, Dragon comes in pretending to still be medicated and is the one responsible for forcing Agent Q-101 to imbibe what I presume is more drugged water. They determine that Agent Q-101 is a Hong Kong police operative without any actual proof (or if there is proof, it’s nearly impossible to tell). Afterwards, he’s tossed into a cave to suffer.

Dragon is summoned to the bishop’s quarters along with other men who are told of their real purpose. But part of that includes “training” where we get another copypasta’d scene from The Clones of Bruce Lee where Dragon does his fight with Bolo Yeung. There’s some other fight scenes from that movie using the various training exercises, including one with Bruce Lee #3 from that movie. Like seriously WTF. He has absolutely nothing to do with the actual movie. From there, Dragon Lee returns to his room with the daughter and she asks, “What happened?” for which he responds, “I think they believe me.” This movie is just so fucking ridiculous. Believe Dragon for what?

At any rate, the daughter impels Dragon to save her father and Agent Q-101. Dragon goes to the caves with some of the men and talks with Agent Q-101, revealing his real identity and sending the agent a knife to free himself. At the bad guy’s machination room, they determine that the heroin being manufactured is poor so they want to get the son of the maker. They arrange a meetup but the cops show up, which leads to the bad men determining that a spy is involved. They think it’s the daughter and she gets exposed.

In the meantime, Dragon helps Agent Q-101 out of the cave. Agent Q-101 has a shitty looking fight with some henchmen and goes through a pool to escape. The daughter gets nicely gagged for her troubles as bait with Dragon getting ambushed. Also, the police infiltrate the island as things tighten up. They find the bound Dragon and father in the caves below. Of course, Dragon is determined to see this mission out until the end.

The fake bishop brings some money along and gets turned on because “he can recognize the foreigners” in terms of the main gang leaders. So they tie him up and toss him with the daughter and father characters. In turn, they figure on laying low but needing to leave the country soon. Agent Q-101 and Dragon split up momentarily with Agent Q-101 locating the three prisoners and Dragon starting a long ass fight with the rest of the crooks. There’s some bizarre ass 70s pr0n music that plays until Agent Q-101 shows up to handle the men while Dragon goes after the head honcho.

None of the fights are memorable and it’s just a long sequence of brawls. There’s a little humor like some of the men falling into water or one of the assistants getting tossed into the back of a trunk. But it’s not as crazy as a Godfrey Ho type of production. Despite all that, this movie actually has a real ending. The cops show up, Dragon takes the head honcho away in cuffs, the girl and Dragon decide to marry, church bells actually play and the new couple get some applause.

But what a dreary movie this was. The pacing was really uneven and the strange placement of The Clones of Bruce Lee clips made it seem this movie was under an even tighter budget. The picture quality for a movie supposedly made in ’82 is awful where it was comparable to my parents’ old dial TV that required an antennae. I’m sure this movie somehow got transferred from a VHS tape as there was occasionally Spanish subtitles.

As for the plot, it’s pretty simple and seemed more of a convention just to get to the copypasta fights. I suppose part of the attraction here was seeing Dragon Lee and Nick Cheung on screen together as a kind of buddy cop drama. But there really isn’t much chemistry between the two. The fights are unremarkable in general except for the awkward injections from The Clones of Bruce Lee movie, which already stunk, but are humorous because they come out of nowhere most of the time. Like they even had the crappy fight between Bruce Le and that weird pale faced jobber at the end of The Clones of Bruce Lee without explaining who any of those people were. I suppose one has to ask just how much copyright existed in those countries because they weren’t shy about ripping each other off in this case.

If there is one positive to this movie that I find as a guilty pleasure, it’s the 60s/70s pr0n disco music. I think whenever you get one of those “modern” (i.e. non period pieces) kung fu movies, you absolutely are required to employ that 60s/70s disco tunes. It’s probably the only real redeemable part of this movie. The violence isn’t really violent, the women aren’t pretty (despite the aforementioned “requirement” for the cult) and the bad guys suck ass. But I figured it’s worth checking out if you’re into any of the Bruce Lee impersonators. Just don’t expect this movie to be very entertaining and it’s a real slog to get through.

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