The Big Boss (Platinum Edition) (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Good
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	Bruce Lee, gory but funny fight scenes, some interesting extras, remastered picture and sound
Disadvantages:	You can tell that Lee didn't direct this .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This film was Bruce Lee's first starring role in a Hong Kong action film. He gained this role after his success in the American market with support roles in Green Hornet, Ironside and Long Street. Although this is my least favourite Lee film, it is still a worthwhile investment.

In this film, Lee plays the character Cheng, a country bumpkin type who leaves China to earn a living in Thailand. He is looked after by his uncle and accepted in to their family. A central aspect of this film is that Lee is forbidden from fighting as a result of a promise made to his father which is unseen. This means surprisingly that Lee doesn't kick into action until about 30 minutes into the film. Of course being an early 1970's film, this one is full of the usual cliches; over acting, shaky sets, bad soundtracks and dodgy editing cuts BUT it does allow Lee to demonstrate that he did intend to be an actor rather than just a kick and punch jockey.

Lee's family are workers at an ice factory which is actually a front for a drug smuggling business. Workers are treated badly by the gangsters running the factory and some disappear. Although its unsaid, you get the impression that this is due to them finding out about the drugs.

Lee only breaks into action when his family are attacked and this culminates in a massive fight in the factory. In this fight, Lee uses various tools as weapons including one famous scene previously cut out of all cinematic releases and early video, where he kills a gangster by whacking a massive ice saw into his head. Although this sounds incredibly gruesome, bear in mind this is 1971 Hong Kong special effects so it isn't exactly lifelike.... you'd see worse in Casualty on BBC 1 to be honest! Other little gems include Lee kicking someone through a wooden wall and leaving the exact imprint of they guy going through. Little snippets like these make it quite funny in parts and definitely aged.

In the end, and as in most of the Lee's film's there is the big battle with the big boss. Although a good fight scene compared to what was around at the time, this was nothing like the quality of choreography that we see when Lee himself took over the fight scenes completely in later films.

Lee hated being in Thailand for this film and grew to dislike the director Lo Wei very much. In a later interview Lo Wei stated that Bruce had threated to kill him with a knife to which Lee retorted that if he had wanted to kill him, he wouldn't have needed a knife, two fingers would have done!

The film runs for just over 95 minutes and comes with three soundtracks. Subtitled Cantonese, dubbed English and commentary. In contrast to what you may see elsewhere, its important to know that even the Cantonese version of the film is dubbed so there are problems with lip syncing. The film was originally scripted and shot in Mandarin which is not available on this disk.

The clarity of the picture is superb considering its age and lack of US production values and it still appears pin sharp on todays HD screens. The sound is available as either original mono or remastered Dolby Digital Stereo.

As this is the Platinum version, you get a fist full of extras. Some are good, some not so good.

There is the usual talk over about the making of Big Boss but unfortunately this isn't done by Bey Logan the Hong Kong film historian which is a shame. The replacement historians (including UK Bruce Lee historian Andy Statton) do an okay job but not up to the standard set by their predecessor. Nonetheless, some interesting information is to be had from these stories.

There is also a collection of publicity materials from the films release including the different trailers, lobby cards and promotional items which together give you a great period feeling of how Bruce was marketed over 30 years ago.

There is also the unavoidable interviews. All three of these seem somewhat misplaced in this edition. Two of the people interviewed discuss Bruce with reference the his later film Enter the Dragon (including Fred Weintraub who produced 'Enter' and Paul Hellier who was also a producer at Warner Bros. The third interview is with Tom Kuhn who, looking back, probably made a decision on par with a record producers decision not to sign the Beatles. Kuhn made the decision not to let Lee become Kwai Chang Caine in the US TV smash series 'Kung Fu'. How do you explain that one away? Well, he does. Actually all three interviews are quite interesting as they give a good idea of how Lee was viewed and what plans they had for his future.

As I said, this isn't my favorite Lee film in fact it's my least favorite but then again, it still puts its leagues ahead of similar films.

Overall, this is a great piece of history and an invaluable part of a Bruce Lee or Hong Kong cinema history. The film looks great and the commentary complements it well. The extras are good but as mentioned, somewhat alien to the film. Certainly seeing the period advertising gives you a good feeling if you were around back then.

It's important to remember that this was a milestone film in a lot of ways especially in Hong Kong. Prior to Lee, they concentrated on the sword flicks set waaay back in time and hosting loads of flying people on strings. Lee's reality based fighting with very little special effects was pretty unusual back then. Likewise the small amount of nudity was almost unheard of in mainstream Chinese movies. Lo Wei (the director) was making his mark with this film.