The Big Boss (1971)

Tagline: KARATE KUNG-FU! The new screen excitement that gives you the biggest kick of your life!

Curiosity: I wanted to see Bruce Lee beat up drug dealers.

Plot: Looking for work, Cheng (Lee) moves in with his cousins. His cuz Hsiu Chen (James Tien) gets him a job at an ice factory. But the ice they sell… IS LACED WITH DRUGS. When Hsiu investigates, he ends up dead. But how can Cheng avenge his beloved family member when he swore an oath against fighting to his mother? Maybe he’ll come around once the drug dealers kidnap his crush Chiao Mei (Maria Yi)… who is also his cousin (which is gross and weird and gross!)

Thoughts: Big Boss is all types of crazy. It’s crazy because of the incest. It’s crazy how many people the drug dealers kill in an attempt to cover up their dealings, yet nobody ever calls the cops. It’s crazy how many people Lee defeats via nardular destruction. Also it’s crazy that for the first half hour or so, Lee is actually the comedic sidekick.

Tien gets all the fight scenes for the first 30 minutes, something I did not expect when I bought this film as part of a Bruce Lee box set. While Tien beats up bad guys something fierce, Lee is reduced to making faces at a necklace his mama gave him while lullaby music plays to remind that fighting is wrong. I like to think that he’s just a very sleepy Bruce Lee.

Which makes it all the better when he loses his shit [fast-forward to 1:15 if you want]:

Also enjoyable: Watching Lee stagger around after downing a bottle of Hennessey. Dude was cool.

Big Boss isn’t perfect. There are long stretches without action or plot advancement – this could have been a tight 90 minute flick, and I definitely could have done without the love story. But the fight scenes and shockingly abrupt ending are so perfect that they buoy the film overall.

Reflection: Just once, I would like to scream like that at a customer.