User reviews

Bruce Le stars in and directs this fairly entertaining kung fu actioner in which he and his over sexed, play boy partner (Richard Harrison) undertake an assignment to recover a top secret formula that could potentially render all men on the planet sterile(!) Shock horror! To make matters more complex, the said formula has also aroused the attentions of a number of other unscrupulous parties including a group of communists led by the one and only Hwang Jang Lee.

Cue a plethora of impromptu fights, breasts aplenty (including a truly mesmerising topless tennis match!), some Bull-Fu(!) and enough testosterone fuelled rippling muscle displays to please even a Mr. Olympia adjudicator!

Yep, all in all, whilst certainly not a classic by any means, it's good harmless B-movie fun and well worth watching at least once.

Bruce Le (that's not a typo) stars in an action film, with a script by Bruce Le and Poon Fan. If you're not laughing yet, keep right on walking. There's nothing more to see here.

Still reading? Awesome: Fast cars, faster women, a stereotyped asexual martial artist starring along side a sex-addicted American super-agent named Richard Cannon. Seriously. The first time you see him, he's playing tennis against two topless women. Simultaneously.

Did I say action film? It's a softcore adult film. With kung fu. And Chong Li from "Bloodsport." The acting is non-existent, the dubbing is awful, and the plot has something to do with a formula that can make a man sterile, able to have all the sex he wants with no repercussions. Is that good or bad? I'm not sure. Neither is the movie.

THERE IS NO DOWNSIDE HERE. I saw this on accident, as it came as part of a double feature with "For Y'ur Height Only," starring 2'9" Filipino action superstar Weng Weng. For once, this was a double-feature with everything. And I think this movie was actually the better of the two.

Judge for yourself, won't you? You'll be glad you did.

I like the West German dubbing title "The Death Fists of the Karate Tiger" much better for this KungFu knockout cascade, which was created in 1980 in a co-production between Hong Kong, Italy and the USA.

Bruceploitation star Bruce Le consistently fights his way through an outrageous plot involving the formula for a super drug that makes people sterile. Oh right! From Malaga it goes via Hong Kong to Macao. At Brucele's side is senior schlawiner Richard Harrison, who, as a CIA agent, roams through all the beds and also likes to appear bare-chested outside of the bedroom. The two heroes have to deal with terrorists and a gang of criminals. As a result, Brucele in particular gets into fights with different opponents.

Bolo Yeung, the Chinese Hercules, is crushed by Brad Harris as the super-cool bodyguard. In a particularly bizarre scene, the Czech heartthrob Josef Laufer doesn't belt out one of his schmaltzy songs, but lets his powerfully shaped chest muscles dance impressively, which is of course immediately punished by the good Brucele. Brad Harris's ultra-cool sunglasses are his undoing. But the brave Brucele gets an equal opponent in Jang Lee Hwang for the big final...

A wonderful piece of trash fun for all fans of the Bruceploitation genre!

Bruce Le (not Lee) teams up with Richard Harrison to solve an international crime that takes them in many different location filled with stock music (from major films), nudity, and fight sequence. This is another Dick Randall production that took Lee away from Hong Kong cinema to the heavy schlock cinema. Brad Harris plays one of the bad guy in an unremarkable role. Interesting seeing two former Hercules (Harrison/harris) in one film, and also fun seeing Italian gladiator actor Harris star opposite to Bruce Le. The plot is weak and action star Harrison comes off as a weak agent. The film was called something else, but when Gymkata entered the video arena, it was retitled to this title. Not recommended.

After the death of Bruce Lee, several studios hoped to fool the unsuspecting public into seeing their crappy films. This is because Lee died so young and did so few films that people were clamoring for more. In one case, they took outtakes and old clips and a stunt double and made a 'new' Bruce Lee movie. In another, his name was in the title but the movie was just an opportunistic mess by one of his ex-girlfriends. In MANY others, studios just re-named their actors with names that looked or sounded like Lee's! Actors such as 'Bruce Li' and 'Bruce Le' (from this film) were rechristened for this sleazy purpose--but not a single one of these films I have seen is worth seeing--even if you are just curious. Will "Challenge of the Tiger" be any better?

So how is Bruce Le (Chung Tao Ho) in the film? Well, he is not without talent--his martial arts moves are pretty good--even if his blows often don't even come close to connecting! However, you'll never mistake him for Lee with that mop haircut and aside from being Chinese there's not a whole lot of similarity to the great Bruce Lee. Apparently I am not the only one to think this way, as his career as Le faded and he later dropped this moniker and became a stuntman. I also wonder if perhaps the film might have done better if they'd made Le's helper in this film, Richard Harrison, the star as he was an incredibly handsome man and looked like a Marlboro Man! Sure, he probably didn't know any martial arts but when did that stop some actors in way too many martial arts films?!

This film finds Le in a typical sort of role--a secret agent. And because of this, he's able to travel the world (or at least go to as many places as the small budget allowed) looking for a missing secret formula. Naturally, along the way he gets into a lot of fights and fortunately the baddies never figure out that it would be a heck of a lot easier to just shoot Le and be done with it! So to answer my question about whether or not the film is worth seeing, the answer is no. The film looks amateurish and aside from the nudity (see below), the film never gets very interesting.

As I was just saying, in addition to the Bruce Lee knockoff, this film also features the most gratuitous use of nudity I have ever seen in a movie. During one sequence early in the film, about a dozen topless and completely naked women danced about (often in slow-motion) for no particular reason (get a load of the one drinking from the fountain). I guess the film makers were just trying to give the audience what they thought they wanted! If only they'd considered giving the films excellent plots, good martial arts action and quality directing, writing and acting!

Movies like this have a reputation of being made up as they went along. This movie takes that concept to a higher level. They just filmed a bunch of scenes then after everyone went home a few stayed behind to figure out how to edit those random scenes into something resembling a movie.

Richard Harrison is in this movie. All of his movie appearances have the same thing in common. He can be cut out from every scene he is in, just erase him, and it would make no difference, you would never notice anything missing.

I believe this movie came out in a DVD pack along with the Filipino star Weng Weng. That is a good match because Bruce Le is only a few inches taller than Weng Weng.

This movie is one of many Bruceploitation movies starring Bruce Le as a secret agent along with his partner Dick Cannon. Yes, that's his name. The movie has with bad acting, bad plot, and the plot itself is conveyed very incoherently. Sub-plots come and go at will, characters make decisions that don't impact the plot at all, and characters are kidnapped for no reason. With all these problems you may be asking why I gave this a four and not a one? Well, that's because as bad as it is it's still a fun entertaining movie, with nudity and a plot that makes no sense. I would recommend this movie if you're looking for a good time.

Cheesy 80s trash kung fu classic CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER (1980) is available on a double-bill DVD with bizarre midget/spy movie FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY (1979). I've as yet been unable to track down a cheap enough copy of this amazing disc (it retails for far more than I'm willing to pay), so when I saw an old VHS copy of the film at a car-boot sale for 25p—that's about 50¢ US—I just had to stump up the cash.

Starring kung fu 'legends' Bruce Le, Hwang Jang Lee and Bolo Yeung, and ninja movie regular Richard Harrison, CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER is a poorly written and badly directed mess; and this is precisely why it is such wonderful film.

After the opening scene, in which two scientists are gunned down and their secret sterilisation formula (capable of rendering men infertile) is stolen, we are introduced to the film's heroes; top chop-socky fighter Huang Lung (Bruce Le) and perfectly coiffured mustachioed playboy Richard Cannon (Richard Harrison). Lung deals with the men, delivering flurries of kick-ass kung fu moves and Cannon deals with the ladies, seducing them with a flick of his hair and a twitch of his Magnum PI-style 'tache. As top CIA agents, it is their job to retrieve the formula before it can be used to blackmail the world!

The formula eventually ends up in the hands of tasty Spanish totty Maria (played by soft-core star Nadiuska) who, despite being seduced by Cannon, delivers it to her boss Antonio, who plans to sell it to the highest bidder.

Meanwhile, a Viet Cong bad-guy (Hwang Jang Lee) and his team of lackeys (which include Bolo Yeung and Chinese HK babe Yue Fa Booi) are also trying to lay their hands on the formula. They deliver a map of Antonio's stronghold to Lung and Cannon in the hope that the agents will break in and attack, allowing the Viet Cong to sneak in and help themselves to the formula.

With tons of female nudity, some pretty good fights, lousy dubbing, an awful script and plenty of unintentionally funny scenes (check out the badly dubbed dog), this movie is a hoot from start to finish.

Richard Harrison is brilliant as stud Cannon.When we first get to meet him, he is playing tennis with gorgeous topless women—in slow motion. Then he ambles over to a pool—full of naked babes! No woman in this movie is safe from this testosterone-charged hunk's charms, and practically all of them receive a good seeing to from him. Le, on the other hand, is content to kick ass. In one jaw-droppingly silly scene he goes fist-to-horn with a bull, cracking the charging beast on the head with a crushing blow, and towards the end of the film he goes up against a whole heap of baddies, including the legendary Hwang Jang Lee, who gets to display his amazing kicking skills.

I thoroughly recommend fans of schlock martial arts movies to seek this one out— and if you can afford it, get the double-bill DVD ( I haven't seen it, but FOR YOUR HEIGHT ONLY looks just as crazy!).

I'll finish this appraisal of CHALLENGE OF THE TIGER with some of my favourite snippets of dialogue. Enjoy!

RICHARD (after just meeting Maria): Can I come home with you?

MARIA: It's very hot in here. I'm going to take a bath. RICHARD: I don't want to stay here alone. Mind if I come with you?

RICHARD (In the bath with Maria): Nice little ears.

LUNG (sat at a table with Richard and a sexy female CIA agent): That tea smells good. RICHARD (looking at woman): Hmmm, so does she. LUNG: Huh, you bandit!

RICHARD (to waitress): Coke please. WAITRESS: None left. RICHARD: What else have you got? WAITRESS: Beer.

After two scientists are killed and their formula--which can cause infertility for entire male populations--is stolen by a neo-nazi organization, two CIA agents by the names of "Huang Lung" (Bruce Le) and "Richard Cannon" (Richard Harrison) are sent to Spain to retrieve it from a woman named "Maria" (Nadiuska) who has it in her possession. Unfortunately, she manages to outwit them and so they then have to proceed to Hong Kong before she can give it to her superiors who intend to sell it on the black market. To further complicate things, the Vietnamese government also wants to get their hands on this formula and so they send a agents after it and the CIA agents as well. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this movie had the potential for being a solid "secret agent/martial arts film" in that it had a decent overall plot and some nice locations to back it up. It also had some fairly attractive actresses in May Hong (as the female Vietnamese agent), Sharon Shira (as "Anna") and the aforementioned Nadiuska to further brighten the scenery. Unfortunately, the overall production values were extremely low-budget, the scripts were laughably bad, and the scenes were much too disorganized and convoluted to merit any rating higher than what I have given. Below average.

The Late Great Dick Randall, who also produced the film, leads an all star cast in this international spy thriller. Dependable Richard Harrison is the womanizing CIA agent (Richard Cannon) who is ably assisted by agent (Huang) played by the diminutive Bruce Le as opposed to the original Bruce Lee. Huang is quite a karate fighter who is in the habit of beating up a legion of bad guys while Richart is scheming on the ladies and only fights when he must. The third member of the CIA team is pretty Sharon Shira (Anna).

They are opposed by the ruthless Viet Cong led by surly Jeong-lee Hwang (Comrade Yang) and (Comrade Asian Girl) played by May Hung with an unfortunate unattractive hair do. The third group is a little less defined with multiple nationality's in the gang although they did through in a Sieg Heil so we would know they are definitely evil. This group is led by (The Boss) Tito Garcia and his partner in crime Dick Randall. Randall's character goes by the name of (Dick) to keep it simple I guess.. They have a fem fatal working for them the exotic (Maria) played by Nadiuska who was fine in the role but was probably better suited for her day job as a Super Model.

Each of these forces were desperate to get their hand on the, you guest it, Secret Formula. Challenge of the Tiger is a solid "B" movie in any language as the plot roles right along with members of all three teams getting, how can we say, neutralized with regularity. The portrayal of violence is perfect with it not being to graphic. A big shout out to Brad Harris who played the Boss's henchman (Leopard) with a lot of menacing intensity. At 47 years old the former great Eurospy star still looked buffed at around 235 lbs or so. Unfortunately, he lost his test of strength to our hero the 115 lbs Huang because Huang knows Karate I guess.

The film would rate a couple of points higher if it stuck to the cute nude scenes, of which they are thankfully many, and dispensed with the simulated sex scenes that almost turned it into a soft core film which bogged it down a bit. The ending could have also been a bit more thought out to tie up a couple of loose ends, but all in all this one's a winner. Thank's Dick.

Then it must be because you have not allowed yourself to experience the amazing piece of cinema that is Gymkata Killer. I would hate myself too. I was once like you, and then I saw what can only be described as the best movie, EVER! It's so horribly, terribly, frighteningly bad that it cannot be taken seriously. Once the movie, like a horrible, disfiguring train-wreck, careens forward through the opening scene, you understand that it's actually a dadaistic masterpiece - it is truly a movie whose 'brilliance' is housed in its irrationality and negation of the accepted laws of cinema.

It's like looking through a peephole into a post-apocalyptic world in which a nuclear bomb did NOT go off.

(Cutting edge special effects... On par with the TV's Batman & Robin! -- the live action 1970s series, not the cartoons)