Disc Reviews

Fist of Fury Blu-ray Review

• 1st Dec 2023

Bruce Lee’s second film as a star is a vast improvement on the work that he and Lo Wei did with The Big Boss.  Fist of Fury is a much more ambitious story with stronger characters and a political background.

Set in Shanghai 1910, Chen (Lee) has returned home after years of study only to find that the leader of his Dojo has died under mysterious circumstances.  Suspicion falls on a rival Japanese Dojo and, well, you can guess where it goes from there.

The action essentials are similar.  You have your sets of good guy and bad guy characters faced off against each other. The bad guys have the upper hand. Fights break out amongst the characters and Lee eventually gets unleashed and hands the bad guys their internal organs on a plate before they knew they were missing them.

Fist of Fury is in every way a strong step in the right direction for Lee’s early (and albeit, short film career). Lee has more to do on screen, more emotions to play with, more bad guys to beat up and bigger set pieces to play with.

This Blu-ray is perhaps the best the film has looked but there are still issues with the look of the film. Panning shots in particular have some very noticeable motion blur. But, static shots look beautiful.

The audio suffers from the time it was made; all audio is dubbed. There are the two Chinese audio tracks and one English dub

BONUS MATERIAL

There is a fairly decent package here in terms of new material made for the release.

2 commentaries

Jonathan Clements – Author of A Brief History of Martial Arts. His credentials speak for themselves. Clements states from the get go that he is going to tear down the history inaccuracies throughout the film.

Brandon Bentley – This commentary is just as fact filled, focussing much more on the actual film itself and is spoken over in a more affably jolly time. Bentley knows when to make fun of the film as he watches it whilst delivering the facts.

English export cut

Legend of the dragon with Tony Rayns – Critic and Commentator Rayns charts Lees life from birth to death. At 80 minutes, this is a deep dive on Lee’s history – particularly his slow rise through showbiz and eventual arrival in film.

Visions of fury – A 35 mins look with various talking heads at Lees collaboration with director Lo Wei and cinematographer Chris Chen on The Big Boss and Fist of Fury. A fascinating study: Various experts and moguls have a look at the shotting style, choice of frames, shots and even Lee’s own performance on both films.

New fist, part two fist – Brandon Bentley video essay on the sequels for over 7 minutes.  It’s short but no less in depth as it looks at the “supposed” sequels that came out after Fist of Fury.

Archive interviews

Us opening chits

Trailer and image galleries

Bruce Lee fans won’t want to miss Fist if Fury looking this good and there is a good extras package for anyone who wants to delve into the history of the film and Lee’s career. It is all retrospective and commentator work from others, but that’s largely all we can hope for these days.

Steven Hurst