Bruce's Deadly Fingers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

Bruce's Deadly Fingers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 2, 2018

Anyone who picked up either or both of the weirdly enjoyable Severin releases Kung Fu Trailers of Fury and/or Return of Kung Fu Trailers of Fury may have been surprised by the sheer glut of so called “Brucesploitation” films that arose in the unexpected and untimely death of Bruce Lee. The trailers themselves are often hyperbolic shorts that ably document the almost bizarre number of actors who had at least a passing resemblance to the late and lamented Lee, and who were “assigned” names that were about as close to plagiarism as you could get if names could be copyrighted. For those wanting to experience and actual full length Bruceploitation outing, MVD Visual and VCI have brought out Bruce’s Deadly Fingers, but my hunch is many diehard fans of the actual (and one and only) Bruce Lee may be giving this film a singular, solitary finger, as in flipping the bird.

Kind of unbelievably, Bruce’s Deadly Fingers is almost brazen in its references to the “real” Bruce Lee, and in fact a lot of whatever “plot dynamics” this weird film has revolve around a supposedly top secret book Lee wrote about fighting techniques before his untimely death. The major villain of the piece is on the hunt for the missing Lee tome and decides kidnapping Lee’s former girlfriend is the way to get it. Meanwhile, Bruce Wong (Bruce Le) finds out his sister is also a hostage and that leads to the expected (ostensibly) bone crunching showdowns. It’s all relentlessly silly, and even the fight sequence don’t really have much “snap, crackle and/or pop”.

Bruce's Deadly Fingers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bruce's Deadly Fingers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual and VCI with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.37:1. The back cover of this release states that the transfer was "produced from a new 2K scan from the original 35mm negative", but the results here may well not satisfy even casual fans, let along diehard Bruce Lee (and/or Le) aficionados. On the plus side, the palette has quite a bit of vividness, though the negative appears to have faded, and at times there are kind of sickly green undertones skewing things like fleshtones in somewhat "alien" directions. While this is reportedly sourced off the negative, it appears that very little (or at least not enough) restoration has been undertaken, and there is still a lot of very noticeable damage on display throughout the presentation. Pretty major frame instability is noticeable, and there are some rather large and long lasting scratches that show up, some recurrently along the right side of the frame. The worst thing about this transfer for some videophiles will be the obvious filtering. While there is grain to be seen here, it's obviously been scrubbed, at least at times, leading to some really waxy, smooth and featureless moments throughout the film. While probably a source related issue, there's also some peculiar (and intermittent) anamorphic warping, especially on the very ends of the frame, where things look almost comically squeezed when compared to the center part of the image.

Bruce's Deadly Fingers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bruce's Deadly Fingers features a surprisingly robust, if pretty boxy sounding, LPCM 2.0 mono track providing the perhaps inescapably funny English dub. Putting aside things like "loose sync" and voices that don't really seem to match characters at times, dialogue is pretty turgid throughout this film, but makes it through the gauntlet of age related wear and tear pretty well overall. The film also has a kind of fun and spritely funk-ish score that sounds fine, if a little bright and brittle in the upper registers at times.

Bruce's Deadly Fingers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:37)


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 6:21) offers scenes snipped from the United States release.


• Bruceploitation Trailers (1080p; 13:11)


• Photo Gallery (1080p; 6:16)


• Bad Kung Fu Dubs (1080p; 6:35) are almost as funny as the actual dialogue in the film.


• Commentary is by Michael Worth and can be found under the Setup Menu.

Bruce's Deadly Fingers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

VCI's history with the Blu-ray format has been problematic for a lot of videophiles, but at least they're in there trying to provide fans with odd little cult items to add to their collections. The video presentation here is far from ideal, but audio is generally okay, and the supplemental package kind of bizarrely enjoyable, for those considering a purchase.