A reply to the
baseless accusations of Lee Holmes of Clones of Bruce Lee.
I’ve no wish to draw
others into your attempt to create a spat, so I will not bother to cover all
the issues raised by your brickbat on pages I do not run regardless of how
obsessively you repost your rant on social media. Here no one else need be
involved, unless they chose to involve themselves. So let’s go through your preposterous
claims. You write:
“I must say I am
pretty annoyed at the reference to me in the book. The author seems to be
obsessed with trying to put down other writers who have delved into this genre
in some sort of attempt to make himself out as the more superior researcher.”
Here’s most of what I
have to say about you: “Within Brucesploitation and the related Chansploitation
phenomena, actors who copy and clone Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan make up one
strand of these subgenres, but their importance can and has been over-stated.
This is evident not just from the title of the book Here Come The Kung Fu Clones by Carl Jones, but also the UK fan
site Clones of Bruce Lee run by Lee
Holmes. Both Jones and Holmes treat Bruce Liang as a clone. My own view is that
when Liang appears as Bruce Lee in The
Dragon Lives Again (1977) he is there as an actor playing the Little Dragon
in the underworld after death rather than a clone; this is emphasised by
dialogue in the English dub addressing head on the fact that Liang doesn’t look
like Bruce Lee…. Movies such as The Black
Dragon’s Revenge (1975), with a narrative that revolves around a fictional
investigation into the death of Bruce Lee, belong to the Brucesploitation genre
without even featuring a clone so copyists are not essential to this film
category. Lee Holmes on his Clones
website at one time listed Black Dragon’s
Revenge supporting actor Charles Bonet as a Bruce Lee clone, but given this
martial artist’s karate leanings and rejection of kung fu, this is not a claim
I take at all seriously. I would further argue that those who see figures like
Bonet as clones do so because they approach Brucesploitation in thrall to the
misleading idea that copyists define it. Tadashi Yamashita, sometimes called
Bronson Lee after a character he played, is another example of a karateka I do
not accept as a Bruce Lee clone; despite Jones and Holmes – among others –
mistakenly asserting he is one.”
Seeing this any
intelligent reader will immediately realise that your claim that I want to pose
as “the more superior researcher” is based on a basic category error. The passage above is focused more on
interpretation than research and I certainly wouldn’t damn myself with feint praise by claiming to be a superior theorist to you because you are not a
theorist at all. Likewise your clumsy attempt at commentary on something you
failed to fully understand might be cited as evidence that I am a superior
writer to you; sadly your prose as quoted in the present paragraph is so clunky
that this hardly requires pointing out. While I may be putting you down now for
a ridiculously over-sensitive and stupid response to Re-Enter The Dragon, this was not what I was doing in the book when
I laid out the differences between my positions on Brucesploitation as a genre
and dominant discourse on it to date, of which your website simply provides an example.
If you don’t want your views of Brucesploitation to be met with anything other
than agreement then you’d be best advised not to air them in public, or indeed
private.
You write: “…who
doesn't think that Fist of Unicorn should be categorised as Bruceploitation?
This not some big revelation.”
Newsflash for Lee
Holmes, billions of people in the world have never heard of Fist of Unicorn or Brucesploitation, and
it is therefore extremely unlikely they think a film of which they are unaware
should be categorised as part of a genre they aren’t familiar with. However if
you look at what I say in regard to this in context then it is also obvious
that I’m not claiming this as some ‘big revelation’ but rather deploying it as
part of a broader argument: “I have seen it falsely asserted in a number of
places – including Wikipedia – that Brucesploitation movies attempted to
exploit interest in Bruce Lee after his death. Fist of Unicorn (1973) can and should be treated as part of the
genre, and it was made and released before Lee died on 20 July 1973…” In case
you want to check the Wikipedia entry, although it appears you don’t bother to fact
check anything very much (see below), there is an archived version of the page
here: https://web.archive.org/web/20181102091239/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruceploitation
Incidentally if you
think Fist of Unicorn is
Brucesploitation then you implicitly support my argument that the genre
predates the Little Dragon’s death, and Wikipedia - among others – was wrong to
claim it is made up of movies shot after 20 July 1973. Note that this Wikipedia
entry opens with various errors I am attempting to correct in Re-Enter The Dragon: “Bruceploitation (a
portmanteau of Bruce Lee and exploitation) refers to the practice on the part
of filmmakers in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan of hiring Bruce Lee
look-alike actors ("Lee-alikes") to star in many imitation martial
arts films in order to cash in on Lee's success after his death.” Alongside the
dating error in this opening sentence, there are the misleading assertions that
Brucesploitation is characterised by look-alike actors (or clones to use the
term found in the title of your website) and about the geographical areas that
produced such films (which, of course, also include The Philippines, Korea,
Indonesia, Japan and the USA). The claim that Brucesploitation movies are
‘imitation martial arts films’ is particularly silly; in my experience most of
those interested in the genre currently consider them to be actual martial arts
films rather than imitation fight flicks. That said, such a slippage does serve
to illustrate the damage the clone fallacy does to a proper understanding of
the genre.
Wikipedia entries are
highly ranked by search engines and are influential, therefore misconceptions
within them and the sources they draw upon and link to – including in the
instance of the one on ‘Bruceploitation’ your website - need to be challenged,
which is what I’ve been doing. I would also point out that this Wikipedia entry
has for some time contained a link to a review of the Carl Jones book Here Come The Kung Fu Clones that I
wrote and published in 2012, and that my understanding of Brucesploitation has
changed since then; although I would stand by the review’s premise that Jones
in his book was confused about the Bruce Le filmography - this is reiterated in
less detail in Re-Enter The Dragon.
You say: “I also don't
think anyone has ever said that Bruce Lee A Dragon Story is the first
Bruceploitation movie, it is the first Bruce Lee Bio-pic.”
The top two entries of
the web search I just did for Bruce Lee:
A Dragon Story (1974), both addressed the matter of it being the ‘first’
Brucesploitation movie. I got live links for Wikipedia and Hong Kong Movie
Database but I’m providing archived ones here:
“Bruce Lee: A Dragon
Story… is a 1974 Bruceploitation film starring Bruce Li…. The film is notable
for being the first biopic of Bruce Lee (it was released the year following his
death), the debut film of notorious Lee imitator Bruce Li, and the first film
in the Bruceploitation genre.”
“Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story is thought to be
the first entry in the extraordinary genre of what are known as
"Brucesploitation" films.” https://web.archive.org/web/20120710022900/http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/reviews.mhtml?id=9646&display_set=eng
You say: “…how do you
know my opinions on Bruce Leung Siu-Lung or Tadashi Yamashita and how they fit
into Bruceploitation? I've never published a profile on them on my site. If you
wanted my opinion on them, here is a radical idea, you could have just asked
me!”
I assume it is narcissism
that makes you think I’d be interested in your opinions. To
clarify, I couldn’t give a flying fuck about your opinions on Bruce Liang (AKA
Bruce Leung Siu-Lung), Tadashi Yamashita, or anything else for that matter. My
book dealt with Brucesploitation as a genre and that meant I needed to address the
discourse(s) that create and shape it, and unfortunately your website is
a part of this and is publicly accessible. On your site you have a page dedicated
to ‘lesser known stars of Bruceploitation’, where you mention three major
clones and go on to provide a list of others who were ‘impersonating The Little
Dragon’. You include both Bruce Liang (AKA Bruce Leung Siu-Lung) and Tadashi
Yamashita on this list and therefore effectively treat them as clones. It would
have been completely redundant to ask you about this because you’d already implicitly
stated your position online. In case you’ve forgotten what’s on your own
website here’s an archived version of the page: https://web.archive.org/web/20190819111923/http://clonesofbrucelee.info/enter-another-dragon/
You say: “And why
would anyone classify Mission Terminate as a Bruceploitation movie? It is only
included on my site due to the fact that it features Bruce Le and I cover his
entire filmography.”
If you cover Bruce
Le’s entire filmography why am I unable to find coverage of it all on your
site? For example I can find nothing about Treasure
of Bruce Lee or My Name Called Bruce.
When I use the search engine on your site for these films it produces no
results, see screenshots below. It’s claims like this, which I’m unable to
substantiate, that lead me to suspect you may be a habitual liar. Since I’ve
never been able to find coverage of ALL Bruce Le’s films on your site, your sorry
justification isn’t exactly convincing. There’s nothing on the page containing
the Richard Norton interview to suggest you see Mission Terminate as anything other than Brucesploitation. That
page is archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20190819112551/http://clonesofbrucelee.info/richard-norton/
Your homepage
explicitly states: “This website is dedicated to Bruce Lee exploitation cinema,
or ‘Bruceploitation’ as it has become to be known.” This is at the top of the
page in capital letters and it is therefore reasonable for anyone visiting the
site to conclude that anything on it - such as the coverage of Mission Terminate - you consider to be
Brucesploitation, unless you explicitly state otherwise. BTW: your sentence
construction is shockingly bad and you really ought to rewrite the dreadful ‘as
it has become to be known’ since this sloppy phrasing is very visible on the
page. In case you’ve forgotten
what’s on your homepage there’s an archived version of it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20190209093714/http://clonesofbrucelee.info/
You write: “I applaud
anyone who goes to the effort to bring out a book on this genre that I love I
just don't see why you think you had to include my name, and other writers
(e.g. Carl Jones) in such a negative way to try make yourself and your book
look better. As a fan and researcher of this genre for more than 30 years I
wouldn't see the need to try and put down you in anything I write. My research
into the genre consists of more than merely watching what i can find online or
purchased from the poundshop and writing a basic plot line and sticking it in a
book.”
This self-refuting passage
really made me laugh. You are attempting to put me down in your brickbat, and
it is something you’ve written, so why pointlessly contradict yourself within
it by rhetorically stating: “I wouldn't see the need to try and put down you in
anything I write…” You appear incapable of making or sustaining a coherent
argument or writing a well-constructed sentence. Likewise some of the absurd errors
on your part addressed here rather belie your claims to have been researching ‘this
genre for more than 30 years’. It would appear that what you call ‘research’
consists mostly of spouting the first piece bullshit that enters your head and
deluding yourself into thinking no one will notice you’re utterly clueless.
Likewise your claim that me ‘putting you down’ will make me or my book ‘look
better’ is ridiculous, since you’re a complete twit who is utterly incapable of
making me or anyone else ‘look better’ by comparison. I also hope it’s clear by now I wasn’t
putting you down in my book even if I am now. I’m doing that here to
demonstrate the difference between civil critical engagement with your website
– which is my stance towards it in Re-Enter
The Dragon – and personalised refutation with humorous insults, which as I trust
this reply illustrates is a style of address that I am also familiar with and
that I can deploy as and when is necessary. It would be great if this
eventually helped you to understand the difference between the two, although at
present that seems rather unlikely.
You say: “And one
final thought, I've never seen Bruceploitation spelt
"Brucesploitation". I've no idea where you got that idea from.”
I discuss the variant
spellings of Brucesploitation in Re-Enter
The Dragon and if as you claim you’ve been researching the genre for 30
years then you really ought to have seen the spelling I use elsewhere. Either
you’re lying or you haven’t done any serious research, or both. I’m going to
give you one example of the Brucesploitation spelling being used here but you can find
many more by doing a simple web search, assuming - of course - you’re not too
simple to use a search engine: https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/Brucesploitation
-->
