Bruce vs. Bill (1981) – A Movie A Day 2021 #53
Bruce vs. Bill (1981) – A Movie A Day 2021 #53
Continuing my multi-day kung fu movie marathon, today’s movie is Bruce vs. Bill. This is another of the movies I found for $1 at my local used DVD store, and like Kung Fu of 8 Drunkards, it’s a cheaply produced, dubbed, full frame, bad VHS rip onto a bare-bones DVD. This version of Bruce vs. Bill even has a fair amount of distortion on the top of the screen for about three-quarters of the movie from the VHS that was used as the source material. Just the way I like it. The cover art on the front of the DVD box and screen grab on the back aren’t even from Bruce vs. Bill, and I’m pretty sure the people pictured aren’t in the film either. But, there’s a guy wearing a yellow and black tracksuit like the one Bruce Lee wore in Game of Death on the front cover, and that’s 100% why they used the image. Though it’s late in the cycle, Bruce vs. Bill is still considered a Bruceploitation movie.
If you’re unfamiliar with Bruceploitation, the word itself is a portmanteau of “Bruce” (as in Bruce Lee) and “exploitation.” It’s a sub-genre of martial arts movies that emerged in East and Southeast Asia after the death of Bruce Lee in 1973. Bruce Lee was (and still is) an icon, and his impact on the worlds of martial arts, film, and martial arts films cannot be understated. After his tragic death, many filmmakers began to capitalize on Bruce Lee’s worldwide popularity by making movies using actors who looked more or less like Bruce Lee (Lee-alikes), many of whom adopted some variation of Bruce Lee in part or in whole as their stage name. There are a wide variety of Bruceploitation movies out there, some blatant rip-offs of Lee’s movies, some adapting parts of his life whether real or completely fictional, and even movies that have nothing to do with Bruce Lee other than having a guy that looks vaguely like him in one of the starring roles. Bruce vs Bill falls into that last category.
Bruce vs. Bill stars Bruce Le (not his real name, of course) as Chang, and Bill Louie (which I believe might be his real name) as Wang Chiao. Wang Chiao is a dishwasher at a restaurant, and he is highly skilled in martial arts. One night he stumbles across a man getting attacked by multiple thugs, so, being a good guy, he intervenes. The old man gets killed, but before he breathes his last breathe, the old man hands Wang Chiao a set of keys and asks him to deliver them to a man named Sung Kung. See, the keys open a safe containing one million dollars raised to help the citizens of the country, and the old man was going to pass the keys off to Sung Kung (who I think is in the government) the very next morning. Being a good guy (again), Wang Chiao promises to honor the dying man’s final request, but there are dangerous men who want the money for themselves. That makes Wang Chiao a target.
During one of many scenes featuring Wang Chiao fighting off groups of thugs trying to get the keys, Chang mistakes Wang Chiao for the aggressor. Just like in pretty much every superhero crossover story ever, misunderstanding leads to our two heroes battling over and over until they finally realize they’re actually on the same side. Sort of. Wang Chiao wants to do the right thing and get the money to the people it belongs to, but Chang doesn’t want any part of it. It’s too late though. Now Chang is also a target, and he and Wang Chiao must work together if they want to survive.
I think it’s funny that the movie is titled Bruce vs. Bill even though neither actor is named Bruce or Bill in the movie itself, not even in the English translation. I Google translated the original Chinese title, and it came out as Fight for Hegemony which makes a lot more sense. But Bruceploitation is all about getting people to pay up to see the movie, and Bruce vs. Bill with a Bruce-Lee-alike on the cover probably worked well on English-speaking audiences. I mean, it worked on me. For $1 and about an hour and a half it worked.
I thought the movie was pretty good. The two leads are charismatic, and the fight scenes are a lot of fun. The main villain is an ambiguous “foreigner” (as they refer to him in the movie), and he has a wonderfully terrible fake moustache. Like, it’s real bad. I love it.
All the double and triple-crossing throughout the movie was fun as well. With one million dollars up for grabs to whomever can get their hands on the keys, it seems like almost every character could potentially double-cross anyone at any moment. Many of them do, but some of them don’t. I enjoyed trying to guess who would and wouldn’t turn, and who would live long enough to enjoy the fruits of all their punching, kicking, and some stabbing.
I also quite enjoyed the villain’s henchman using small axes as their weapons at times. I’m sure the axes were inspired by the real like Axe Gang from Shanghai, but here it reminded me more of movies like the great Kung Fu Hustle. Bruce vs. Bill wasn’t the first movie to have an axe gang in it, and it certainly wasn’t the last, but I always enjoy a good fight scene with an axe gang versus one or two weaponless fighters.
Overall I give the title of the movie and the artwork for the DVD I bought a good fist shake with a head shake that says “you got me this time,” and for the movie I give it a solid recommendation for fans of cheap and generic kung fu movies. Bruce vs. Bill isn’t a great movie and it breaks no new ground, but I enjoyed it for the whole hour and a half I watched. Oh yeah, the Bruce Lee guy, Chang, also has a pet bird that will occasionally narrate what’s happening with a word or two. So if you were on the fence about checking out the movie, that surely pushed you one way or the other.
I couldn’t find a trailer, but this is the full movie streaming (apparently) legally on YouTube. I’m pretty sure this is the exact same version of the movie I just watched. It even has the same distortion at the top of the screen.