Recently released by Code Red under its US title REVOLT OF THE DRAGON, THE BRAVE LION is basically everything I look for in a kung fu flick - lean, mean, and with great fighting and well staged action sequences. I'm not sure what everyone else here was looking for, but I really thought it delivered.
The bare-bones plot involves two Japanese prisoners assigned to oversee a Chinese logging camp as a stay of execution. The (Chinese) owner has collaborated with the Japanese and allows these two to operate inside while keeping their oversight a secret. One of the workers eventually finds out (while falling in love with the owner's daughter) and foments a revolt.
While the film is presumably set during the Japanese occupation in WWII, the mill workers' skintight jeans belie it as a product of the '70s - a plus for me, as I tend to prefer modern martial arts films to historical melodramas. To that effect, BRAVE LION is stripped about as lean and mean as possible, with its romantic subplot pared to a minimum and plenty of time left for kicks and fisticuffs. While the fighting is often poorly motivated (it's a wonder anything gets done at the mill, as guys start beating the crap out of each other the second anyone drops a hammer), it has an earthy looseness that's refreshing, a rough-and-tumble realism that finds the actors sliding down hills, rolling through the dirt and generally giving every scene their all. By the time the climax rolls around, featuring a jaw-dropping battle that careens onto a crane platform suspended over a gaping mountain abyss, it's hard for me to see how anyone could have lost interest. Like the best martial arts flicks, this one builds to a crescendo that leaves you exhilarated and breathless. Don't let the other reviews fool you – BRAVE LION is a keeper.
The bare-bones plot involves two Japanese prisoners assigned to oversee a Chinese logging camp as a stay of execution. The (Chinese) owner has collaborated with the Japanese and allows these two to operate inside while keeping their oversight a secret. One of the workers eventually finds out (while falling in love with the owner's daughter) and foments a revolt.
While the film is presumably set during the Japanese occupation in WWII, the mill workers' skintight jeans belie it as a product of the '70s - a plus for me, as I tend to prefer modern martial arts films to historical melodramas. To that effect, BRAVE LION is stripped about as lean and mean as possible, with its romantic subplot pared to a minimum and plenty of time left for kicks and fisticuffs. While the fighting is often poorly motivated (it's a wonder anything gets done at the mill, as guys start beating the crap out of each other the second anyone drops a hammer), it has an earthy looseness that's refreshing, a rough-and-tumble realism that finds the actors sliding down hills, rolling through the dirt and generally giving every scene their all. By the time the climax rolls around, featuring a jaw-dropping battle that careens onto a crane platform suspended over a gaping mountain abyss, it's hard for me to see how anyone could have lost interest. Like the best martial arts flicks, this one builds to a crescendo that leaves you exhilarated and breathless. Don't let the other reviews fool you – BRAVE LION is a keeper.
