Written by Old Bluffer 2nd Jun 2005
Bruce Lee adminsters a seminal kung-fu beating to that most excellent of baddies, "Han".
Han is punched, kicked and slapped to within an inch of his life, and only manages to scratch Lee with his artificial clawhand before fleeing like a little girl. He desperately tries to fool Lee with a sneaky Hall of Mirrors set but fatally overlooks his quarry's ninja skills and is soon cinematically power-kicked onto the end of a spear.
Incidentally, the distinctive slashes that Han carved into Lee's chest with his Claw have arguably been immortalised as one of the iconic images of Bruce Lee at the height of his fame.
[Reviewer note - I'm aware that this writeup isn't of the same standard as the others for this film, I'll update it with screenshots and a rewrite soon]
If you haven't already made it, how do you feel about this as a rewrite:
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Han is a rogue Shaolin monk, deciding to go the wicked path of opium production and white slavery, as well as pursuing other things such as killing a fighter or two on the side.
Every 3 years Han holds a fighting tournament on his own personal karate island where he finds new guards, God knows he needs them as the ones he has can pretty much be put down with a punch or two to the ribs. This year, he has the honor of having Bruce Lee (his character is just named "Lee" in this picture) join his tournament for a myriad of reasons, including, but not limited to;
*The government wants to shut Han down, but can't use weapons on his island (Han hates guns BTW, he had an accident with one and now his hand is missing by ambiguous means)
*Han's henchman OHarra (q.v.) killed Lee's sister Su Lin (q.v.)
*Han is a former Shaolin monk, which Lee's sensei doesn't like
So Lee enters Han's tournament, sneaking out late nights to monitor Han's underground opium-plant cum white-slavery-chamber cum torture-prison cum tattoo-parlor cum base-of-operations. Unfortunately one night he just happens to kill or injure just about every guard in the place, which makes his presence known to the evil Han.
Lee is captured and is to be edified by fellow martial artist Roper, who Han has almost convinced to join him in his smuggling scheme. Roper, however refuses his order, and instead faces off against Han's man-mountain Bolo (q.v.), and wins.
Han is reasonably surprised that the "skeezy-looking-white-boy" character has beaten the giant executioner, and decides to try the slightly different tactic of sending his easily-dispatched guards after Lee and Roper. Unsurprisingly, they are beaten in droves by the duo.
Meanwhile, Lee's contact Mei Ling frees Han's underground prisoners at Lee's subtle command, they flee above ground and head towards the battlefield. Just in time, as Han eventually orders every single one of his no-names to engage Lee and Roper. A full-on battle ensues between Han's prisoners and Han's men.
Seeing that this is obviously going to be a hundredfold repeat of the "guards incident" last night, Han finally gets off his big-boss butt, takes off his default hand and replaces it with some lion claw thing by his side and joins the fracas, killing several unnameds.
Han eventually meets Lee face to face and a one-on-one ensues, consisting of Han ripping Lee's shirt and Han getting beaten up (which is a relatively minor precursor of what is to happen next). Eventually Han's weapon gets stuck in a wall after a powerful thrust. Knowing that this is not good as he was losing the fight anyway, he promptly detaches the claw from his stump and flees to his palace. Lee follows, leaving Roper and maybe Ling to command an army of malnourished drunks against Han's martial artists.
Han runs back into his museum of weaponry where he frantically manages to snatch another "weapon-arm" up from his glass case, just before Lee re-enters, calmly delivering the reason why he is going to deal Han the following brutal death;
"You have offended my family and you have offended the Shaolin Temple...". This is the last part of real dialogue in the film before lots of "HEE-YAH!"ing and one helpful voiceover occurs.
Even with Han flashing the much-more threatening "knife-claw-hand" The predictable beatdown occurs, consisting of Lee knocking effortlessly the stuffing out of Han, who manages to score a few painless but cool-looking slashes (which have arguably been immortalised as one of the iconic images of Bruce Lee at the height of his fame.) on Lee, but not doing much else. Of course it isn't long before Han is back against the wall, where he (listen, this is important) picks up a spear from a statue. Again Bruce Lee effortlessly dodges Han's swings before the latter stabs part of the wall with the weapon. The wall makes a mysterious sound like glass smashing.
Deciding he doesn't want to be faced with more humiliating martial-arts moves, Han this time flees towards the wall that the spear struck and reveals the metaphorical "revolving-bookshelf" entrance to a part of his "comic-book villain" lair not seen before; a giant hall of mirrors.
Lots of implausible-looking mirror tricks occur. Despite confusing the hell out of Lee, the mirrors don't exactly help Han, although he does get to slash Lee all to hell moreso than before (and make some quick mirror-assisted getaways before Lee can strike back). Lee does at one point administer a painful flying kick to Han, reflected times 10 in Han's maze.
Jump cut to Han still stalking Lee. Lee still being stalked when some quick voiceover by Lee's sensei helps Lee tremendously, and, according to chop-socky tradition, seals his victory.
"Remember, the enemy has only images and illusions behind which he hides his true motives, destroy the image and you will break the enemy"
Lee takes this specific piece of advice and begins breaking every mirror in the place montage-style, screwing up the reflections and making it easier to see.
Obviously, han has no tricks to top a hall of mirrors, and with the voiceover given it becomes apparent to us that the fight is just about over, Bruce Lee spots his nemesis, walking closer towards him in fighting position.
Han (obvously not spotting the foreboding spear still lodged in the exit, welcomely placed directly behind him, even with plenty of mirrors still intact enough to see into) decides it's best not to screw around with the mirrors anymore and stands face to face with Lee ready for a final exchange of blows.
Even though it would be childs play for Lee to do what he did before and beat Han to a pulp, Bruce decides instead that it is best to end the
angry"emotion-filled" staredown prematurely, and simply power-kicks Han backwards into the misplaced spear, which impales him through the chest and leaves him hanging off the door. Lee exits, spinning the door and making another cool mirror effect cutting between the dead Han and some piece of Oriental folklore that I probably haven't heard of.---------------------
(Also, you gotta mention the nehru jacket, you've just got to
You didn't mention how the lion-hand came off during the first part of the fight, after the claws get stuck.
Whoops! Funny as that is a key bit of info considering the credits run over it