This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Blistering performances.

'Fist of Fury' (also known as Chinese Connection) is second major movie of Bruce Lee. More serious in tone and more depth in story than his previous hit 'The Big Boss'. Besides his amzing martial arts skills Bruce Lee now has the chance to show more of his acting skills as his character is more layered. This time his character is still the man who opposes unnecessary violence (he usually gives the people not involved chance to walk away, but they never take the chance), but his anger and need for revenge for his teacher is blinded him somewhat, so his actions seem irrational. Might not be as fun as 'The BIg Boss', but it is defenitely better movie altogether as there is no camp and the film is better paced.

I'd never seen a Bruce Lee film before, maybe bits and pieces here and there, but this was the first one I just sat down and watched all the way through. I was expecting to be a little bit bored by a bunch of fake action events and no worthwhile plot. I soon found however that the movie was quite intriguing from the start, and for more reasons than one. First thing is, I didn't know that Bruce Lee could ACT. He's got this charisma, which on one hand goes part and parcel with the intensity of fierceness during the fight, yet on the other hand, he's no one-dimensional character either, and there are a lot of good dramatic scenes between characters in between the fights. Actually on-screen drama time is quite a bit more minute for minute than fight scenes, which I was happy to discover. Oh, there is definitely enough fighting, but not to the detriment of the story which grows and develops suspensefully.'Fist of Fury', set in colonial Shanghai times, is the story of a Japanese martial arts school trying to shut down a Chinese one, to which Lee belongs, after killing their master, and is the basis for a lot of very good fight scenes and just a touch of humor as Lee goes fugitive and then evading the law and donning a variety of disguises, single handedly takes them down one by one (and sometimes all together at the same time). This synopsis however doesn't do justice to the atmosphere of the story, the resonant feeling of 1970s "old Shanghai", rich in violence and Japanese/Chinese historic background. I can see now why Bruce Lee is still revered as the icon of bad@ss 70s cool - but his personality carried very well into scenes beyond the fight, unlike say Jet Li.

*Spoiler Alert!* OK. I won't lie. I liked Fist Of Fury. I really did.Well, that is - I liked the wild, over-the-top fight scenes that were, at times, a literal frenzied roller-coaster ride of grunting, groaning, snapping, leaping, screaming bodies flying this way and that.Yep. Bruce Lee (with his perfect coordination and his precision timing) really did a mighty fine job of royally kicking some serious ass.And, in the lull between all of the Kung Fu action, I also liked the priceless "Geisha-Girl" striptease. (nudge-nudge-wink-wink) Now, that was a hoot-and-a-half! And, I also got a really big kick (pardon the pun) at the moment when Bruce Lee's character who (not being able to put his opponent down with any of his deadly kicks or chops) actually resorted to (get this!) sinking his teeth into this fierce, unstoppable brute's foot. (I ain't kidding!) Believe me, from where I was sitting, this was a sheer delight to watch. This sort of conduct from Bruce was a real slice of pure slapstick comedy, straight out of an episode from The Three Stooges.This film also contained a helluva lot of outright prejudice and antagonism towards the Japanese. I certainly won't go into any great detail about it here - But, I will say that the Japanese were all depicted as being a truly despicable bunch of pseudo-Nazi types.When it came to this picture's overall action sequences and the wonderful choreographing of its fight scenes, I was really quite surprised when I came to realize just how often these very scenes have been lifted and blatantly used, over and over again, in such films as The Matrix Reloaded, Kill Bill, and other such films.Anyways - In spite of all the wooden performances, the laughable dialog, and the terrible dubbing that prevailed, it was undeniably Bruce Lee, the ultimate master of martial arts, who shone magnificently throughout this very film that literally started the whole Kung Fu movie-craze over 40 years ago.

I always swap between this film and Enter the dragon being my favourite Bruce Lee Film. ETD is slicker but the few fight scenes that there are in this film are among Bruce Lee's best in my opinion. The reason is that he is acting while fighting. He is supposed to be this crazy guy who is driven mad by his masters murder and this sure comes through in the fight scenes. Two in particular are when he kills the guy involved in poisoning his master ( acted by the same guy who was the Big Boss in the first Chinese Martial Arts Film Lee did ) 'Why did you kill my teacher then?' and then at the Japanese school when he says ' I will allow you to leave, Scram, Scram, Scraaaam!' Pure magic. Also the fight against the Russian allows Bruce to show off some excellent Kung fu skills ( apart from the silly hand waving scene,what was that supposed to be about? ) When Bruce switches styles from Kung Fu, Karate and Western Boxing to confuse the Russian it is Bruce showing Jeet Kune Do at it's best. The film has it's silly comic elements, like the rickshaw throwing scene, but this was probably Lo Wei's (Director) idea. And the love scenes with Nora Mao are too long and unnecessary. All the other fighters in the film look really amateurish compared to Bruce with one or two exceptions. The scene where the Japanese boss flies through the wall after Bruce kicks him is actually a young Jackie Chan as a stunt man. Jackie mentions in his biography that he was the only stunt man willing to do that scene as it involved landing on his back. Jackie is also the stunt man who has his neck broken by Bruce in Enter the Dragon. All in all I still enjoy this film having watched it probably over 30 times.