Smartt, I have just acquired on dvd, Jackie Chan in The Master With Cracked Fingers, plus Bruce Lee, The Man The Myth.
How high or low do you rate these films? The Cracked Fingers one is really shite at the start, but ends up quite good toward the end.
M Lyons.

"Cracked Fingers" is a re-cut of an old, old, OLD JC movie originally called "Cub Tiger of Canton" and released in 1974. The best DVD edition available is the one released by Xenon. Not a bad movie, but not a good one either. Mainly a curio, IMHO. It was the very first movie where JC tried to show his comedy skills (it even has Dean Shek in the cast!), until Lo Wei hired him and tried to make him the new Bruce Lee. Look for the cameo of a VERY young Yuen Biao.

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Jackie Chan in an old kung fu movie - isn't that always a good thing? Yes, and no. This is one of his earlier movies and does suffer a bit in various departments, but don't let that stop you from watching it. The combination of Jackie Chan and the ever popular beggar (Simon Yuen) must contain something good and it does.

The movie starts off with the usual kung fu practice scenes that contain a few jumps and pots are kicked, etc. We also get to see how the evil warlord kills Jackie's real father, which fits in with the story later on. Next, we get to see Jackie as a little kid watching kung fu classes and doing the moves by himself. After a brief argument with the instructor who doesn't want people looking without paying, Jackie goes to the woods outside town. Here he meets an old beggar who laughs at his kung fu ability. The beggar then agrees to train Jackie in secret, in the woods at night. The old man actually has the young Jackie taking off his clothes and puts him in a bag full of snakes, eek! Unfortunately none of the training scenes are very impressive, but there isn't much emphasis placed on them either.

Now, the fighting - and fun - starts after we get to see the older Jackie showing some moves to his sister. Their father happens to walk in on them, but lets Jackie get away with it. We also get that funny guy, Little Frog (Hon Gwok Choi ) from Dragon's Claws making his appearance at the restaurant where Jackie works. Soon after sitting down, Little Frog who is a pick-pocket gets roughed up by his employers and they also get in a fight with Chan over their food. Now, Jackie got himself involved with the wrong people and the real trouble is yet to come! A few moments later we see how Jackie's father forbids him to fight anymore, but only to be encouraged again by Simon Yuen's character. Finally when father gets fed up with his fighting he forces Jackie to thrust his hand into a pot containing broken glass (ouch!).

One of the funnier scenes is a fight between the beggar and the landlord who extorts money from Jackie's uncle. This must be seen and is worth watching the movie for! The landlord (Dean Shek) creates all kinds of styles off-hand and ends up with the old beggar's behind in his face! Throughout the fight the beggar makes jokes and they play these silly tunes which adds to the atmosphere. Another good fight scene later in the movie is when Jackie goes to the docks, posing as a worker and fighting against loads of baddies including the higher ranking criminals. The fight contains some acrobatics too as he jumps onto a docked ship and moves around on it. This is the only big fight in the movie and an entertaining one as such. As with his other movies, the use of wires are minimal which adds to the realism of the fights. The comedy found in most of his other movies is not present here though, but made up for by Yuen. The beggar then trains Jackie some more, including how to fight blindfolded which comes in handy at the end.

By the end fight we can see the Jackie Chan double fill in. All I know is that Jackie didn't finish the movie, the company ran out of money I believe. The final confrontation happens with both fighters being blindfolded. The fight is quite good. They start off fighting hand-to-hand but use weapons towards the end. The last image you get to see is that of the beggar and Chan standing in the middle of the fighting area, from a distance (probably to disguise the Jackie clone!).

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"Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth" is a decent 1976 biopic (although HIGHLY fictionalized) starring Ho Tsung Tao (a.k.a. Bruce Li, one of the best Leealikes) and Carter Wong.

Here´s Mark Pollard´s review:

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Over the years many films have tried to tell the Bruce Lee story and none of them have ever got it right. But the one thought by most to have come close is Bruce Lee: True Story, a biopic from legendary martial arts filmmaker Ng See-yuen. The film portrays much of Lee's rise to stardom and the circumstances surrounding his death while attempting to separate the myths from the truths. For the starring role, Ng put a relative unknown stuntman named Ho Chung-tao in the lead primarily for his resemblance to the late Dragon. It helped that this man who was billed as Bruce Li (a name that still sticks with him much to his chagrin) also had a well-rounded background in martial arts and gymnastics. This was to be one of his best performances, that added to Ng's semi-realistic direction and the inclusion of globetrotting location shoots, would make for a relatively respectful and entertaining film.

But even the best of intentions must give way to commercial interests, or so it appears in True Story. The film inflates Lee's few off screen run-ins with challengers to become a series of non-stop brawling all over the world. Fabricated fights include taking on black loan sharks and a karate master in Seattle and a Chinatown boss in San Francisco. The karate master follows him to California where he sends thugs after Lee in an airport. A fight with a crew member on the set of the The Big Boss was at least based in part on truth for he did have a hostile encounter that was resolved peacefully, but not so in this film. Interestingly, much of the fights in this film are carefully designed to loosely recreate Lee's fights in his films. In Rome where he is filming Way of the Dragon, Lee is accosted by a mafia boss who sends his qweilo karate thugs after him in an area reminiscent of the Coliseum. A planned fight with a supposed kung fu expert played by Chu Chi-ling has the look of the finale in The Big Boss, but with a comedic twist for Lee virtually ignores him.

Further straying from reality, Lee is portrayed using his onscreen fighting style with all of the growling, flips, and high kicks that he eschewed in real life. Speaking of real life, his family including Linda, Brandon, and Shannon are virtually non-existent except for a brief moment. The only authorized biopic, Hollywood's Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story would go on in better detail to portray his relationship with his family. True Story on the other hand, mostly steers clear of drama and focuses on the fictional action. The film wrongly puts the production of Game of Death as beginning after Enter the Dragon, when in fact Lee had already filmed nearly half of it before heading to Hollywood for what would become his forth release. Lee's personal training is poorly and inaccurately conceived. While the electro-shock therapy and weight training had basis in reality, the one-inch punch computer does not. Lee is shown shoving his fists and fingers into small holes in a giant computer that beeps and lights up as it registers the force of his hits.

Souring the experience further, the makers of True Story feel compelled to end it by focusing on the myths surrounding Lee's death. They initially show his death to be what most consider to be truth, but then they dramatize myths where he's supposedly killed by gangsters or living in exile. This last theory is tied in with a fortune teller who supposedly let's Lee know he only has so long to live and must fake his death to escape his fate. It's all nonsense and should not have even been entertained.

As actor, Ho Chung-tao nails down Lee's mannerisms, although they appear exaggerated. He is missing a certain intensity though. The voice is of course a lost cause since the dubbing is generic. As martial artist, Ho is not bad. He scores points for using a lot of short and quick movements that Lee might have used like low kicks to the shins and deflecting blows with a rapid counter-punch. Unfortunately, his own Taekwondo training comes out in some flashly high kicks aimed at the head. In addition, his follow through is never as forceful as Lee on screen and he doesn't use any grappling. Ho does perform a little nunchacku action that looks decent. But ultimately, Ho succeeds in getting Bruce down well enough by not trying to overdo it and by having the right combination of looks and skills.

As a film about Bruce Lee, True Story doesn't quite live up to its name. It presents plenty of truths but with an emphasis on contrived fights, it ends up being more of a mediocre kung fu movie within the framework of a biography of Lee. Much of who Lee really was is ignored. There is little mention of his philosophy and beliefs and almost nothing about his Jeet Kune Do schools, family, experiences working in Hollywood, his many friends, or his filmmaking process. The film itself also has bad acting, lousy dialogue, low production values (the Kato costume looks awful), and a narrative structure that glosses over most details. With so much missing, it is amazing to realize that True Story is still one of the better biopics of Lee. Most of the others stray even further from the truth to become nothing but poorly choreographed exploitation material with even less talented Bruce Lee clones. Even A Dragon Story which was the only authorized biopic based on Linda Lee Cadwell's biography injected fantasy into the story, in addition to having poor Jason Lee who went into the film with no martial arts experience and was charged with the impossible task of trying to play arguably the greatest real martial arts actor in history.

If you were only going to watch one biographical movie about Bruce Lee, I would still suggest Bruce Lee: A True Story because it has some of the best action that may not be true, but much of the remaining story is. Its not a great kung fu flick, but Ho Chung-tao puts in a worthy effort and it should still interest Bruce Lee fans.

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The dvd version I have is called The Master With Cracked Fingers.... I supposed racked would be right.
Thanks for the info'.
M Lyons.