Bert Lenzi "Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave"

Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave

Synopsis

You Can't Keep A Good Man Down!

A lightning bolt strikes the grave of Bruce Lee. However, that is as much as Bruce Lee has to do with it. Then a kung fu instructor starts a quest to avenge a friend's death, and on the way has a romance with a girl with similar problems. He eventually finds the bad guys behind it all, and has several fights with them...

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Alternative Titles

Visitor of America, America Bangmungaeg

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Popular reviews

Unfortunately, Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave doesn't live up to the glorious promise of its poster. There's decisively zero Bruce Lee or rising from the grave, which leaves us with a bland and boring Brucesploitation film.

6/52 The 2021 Cult Movie Challenge: Brucesploitation Week
I'm not quite sure what's most cynical: cashing in on the name of the late Bruce Lee with this title, or the fact that the film has nothing to do with Lee other than the first scene. Like, at least it doesn't try to make him a character in the film and you'll quickly forget his whole "involvement". Overcoming that, 아메리카 방문객 (Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave) is… Not garbage. The cinematography looks like toilet-paper, but the fight scenes kind of work and through some really groovy music there's at least an attempt at a plot here.

Honestly, this isn't half as bonkers as the poster suggests, but it's kind of sad that this just ends up a thin, flat story rather than anything more wild and memorable.

My 2021 Cult Movie Challenge
The credits say Lee Doo-yong, though some sources claim that the movie was directed by Italian horror director Umberto Lenzi. With a title like that I certainly didn't expect much, or rather expected it to be crap with, hopefully, some entertainment value. But, despite the crappy image quality on YouTube, it was actually not that bad. Decent fight scenes, a decent story and a bunch of (unintentionally) funny scenes, enhanced by bad acting and bad dubbing. It stars Bruce Lee impersonator Bruce K.L. Lea, but beyond the genius opening scene in which Bruce Lee's grave is stuck by lightning, the title is a bit fat lie.
Dig that poster. The recently, tragically deceased Bruce Lee popping out of the grave to fight a winged demon. "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down!" If you look up "tasteless" in the dictionary, it's just a picture of this poster.

The film itself is actually fine, for the most part. The original South Korean title basically just meant "Visitor to America," and that's some truth in advertising. Tae kwon do master Jun Chong plays a man who flies to LAX to discover the truth behind his brother's death. He saves a woman (played by Deborah Dutch) from a shirtless rapist in the parking lot, which is what passes for a meet-cute in this type of movie. Together they embark…
2021 Cult Movie Challenge
Week 6: Brucesploitation Week

Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave opens with Bruce Lee look-alike, Bruce K.L. Lea, jumping out of Bruce Lee's grave. That's the only moment in the movie that comes close to living up to the amazing title and poster. The poster art is so great that they even show it on screen after the title card.

However, the story has nothing to do with someone returning from the grave and is lacking in winged creatures. Bruce K.L. Lea is also a very poor Bruce Lee substitute. He doesn't have the charisma, screen presence, physical skill or looks to pass for Lee for even a second of film. So we're just left with a cheap, inept kung fu movie with poorly choreographed and edited fight scenes. There's no way the movie could have lived up to that poster but it could at least have had more interesting fights scenes.
2018 Cult Movie Challenge - Week 27

Been absolutely gasping to see this since yer ol man Scullion wrote about this shiteshow in That Was A Bit Mental a couple of years back! Damn was it worth it... It's ludicrously bad in every possible aspect. The action is poorly choreographed, the editing is choppier than the naff kung fu on screen and the dub OH GOD the dub is dire. Despite all these pitfalls I kind of really liked it??? Could this be my new favourite worst movie ever? Quite possibly...
Much worse than the title and the poster suggests.
This is not about Bruce Lee rising out of the grave and fighting demons and ghosts. It's about some Korean coming to LA and fighting bad guys. Not even the fight scenes are good 😤
This was hands down one of the greatest bad movies ever had the pleasure to watch. Insane marketing strategy aside (since the movie has nothing to do with neither the title nor the poster), this film is also home to the world's most atrocious dubbing. The plot is impossible to follow, which may be a result of the horrible dub, but that didn't stop the actors from committing super hard to their roles. And as far as the action goes, some of it was actually pretty good (featuring window kicking galore), which was maybe the most surprising thing about this film

Cult Movie Challenge 2021 — Week 6: Feb 5-11; Brucesploitation Week
I guess the extremely low ratings for this movie have a lot to do with what people expected going into this, because the title and poster make it look like the holy grail of bruceploitation movies.

So, is the movie as awesome as the title and poster? Nope. It doesn't even have anything to do with the title or the poster, let alone with Bruce Lee. Besides starring kind of a lookalike there is no mention of Bruce Lee whatsoever.
Is the movie bad? Yeah, it's pretty bad.
But is it fun to watch? Fuck yeah. If you can get over the fact that there is no resurrected Bruce Lee fighting his way back from hell, punching demons off tombstones,…
I have a theory that Tarantino has seen this film and ripped some of it for Kill Bill. The movie itself has absolutely nothing to do with Bruce Lee and is apparently my introduction into the "Bruceploitation" sub-genre in which kung fu movies capitalize off the popularity of Bruce Lee and his unfortunate death through its marketing. I definitely had a blast with this, though.
Probably the most shameless piece of topical exploitation I've ever seen. It's incredible. I still have no idea what was happening, really. But it's incredible.