My summer job at that Thai ice factory (THE BIG BOSS, 1971)
This was Bruce Lee's first action movie, shot after his role as Kato in THE GREEN HORNET TV series had made him amazingly famous in Asia. THE BIG BOSS (retitled FISTS OF FURY in the West) is the film he had the least input on, and it's a lot like most of the shoddy Hong Kong flicks of that period - indifferently directed by Lo Wei and Wu Chai-Wsiang, shot like a home movie in the miserable Thai village of Pak Chong, THE BIG BOSS would be just another title lost among the hundreds of 1970s kung fu fodder if not for the charisma of its star.
(In fact, if you want to see how this flick would play without Bruce Lee, watch the first half hour again. James Tien as Hsu Chien seems to be the hero, fighting off bullies and lending money to the old man cheated by crooked gamblers. Now, imagine if the movie had continued this way, with Hsu Chien doing everything Cheng was to do. THE BIG BOSS would be okay in a bland generic way. Actually, I suspect this was the original storyline and Cheng was written in to showcase the new rising star.)
Not only is the fight choreography uninspired (Lee himself is not really shown to good advantage), but there are way too many cheesy moments. A casual standing jump up over an eight foot high fence, knocking an opponent through a wooden wall and leaving an exact cut-out of his outline in the wall, dropping on your back to kick a thrown knife back into the guy's stomach.....! This sort of stuff might work okay in a movie which has a fantastic or whimsical tone, but THE BIG BOSS is mostly pretty grim, even depressing.
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A young man named Cheng Chao An is shipped away from Hong Kong for getting into too many fights (much as Lee himself was as a teen-ager). He is sent to stay with relatives in a dreary run-down village in Thailand, there to labor in an ice factory, and to hopefully stay out of trouble (he has sworn a solemn oath on his mother's locket never to fight again). Well. Bruce Lee vowing to not get into fights... eh, somehow I sort of doubt that's going to work out.
As it turns out, the factory is just a front. Inside the blocks of ice are packets of dope, which is where the Big Boss really turns a profit. (Imagine the surprised customer who gets the wrong shipment!) A few unlucky workers learn too much and mysteriously disappear; when Cheng starts asking too many questions, the boss tries to co-opt him with a promotion to foreman, as well as plenty of good food, booze and hookers. Well, it would work on me, but Cheng isn't going for it, and there's an inevitable bloodbath on the way.
The strong point of this flick is the heavy build-up of tension before the explosion. It's like the release of a thunderstorm after a long hot muggy day. Cheng is manipulated by the boss and misunderstood by his co-workers. His frustration at the outrages is so visible that the audience is practically pleading with him to break his vow and break a few heads, as well. Still, even though we watching enjoy all the action, it doesn't really solve matters for Cheng well at all. Everyone in the cast except his cousin Chao Mei (Maria Yi) ends up slaughtered before the police haul him away.
It`s worth noting that, in this film as well as FIST OF FURY and WAY OF THE DRAGON, that Lee goes to help a group of expatriate Chinese living in oppression by foreigners. This is another reason why his movies had such galvanizing effect on Chinese audiences - he showed a champion standing up for his people.
One big drawback to the film is that there is no single opponent who can really give Cheng a workout. He takes on the thugs in groups of six or seven, plowing through them without anyone landing a solid blow on our boy. The final showdown with the Boss suffers from the same flaw as the duel with Han in ENTER THE DRAGON - Lee's character is up against an older man who is obviously no match for this muscular young tiger who has literally just killed at least twenty men.
THE BIG BOSS is a lot bloodier than Lee's following films, with knives being used freely. Cheng himself has a pair of daggers strapped to his shins under his pants legs, pretty suspicious for a guy who has sworn to stay out of trouble. The introduction of the nunchaku in the next movie would allow the fights to be exciting without blood being shown. This gives the illusion of the action being less brutal than it actually would be in real life.
In addition to the infamous cut scene where Cheng slams a saw through some sucker's head, another grisly moment was edited out. Reportedly, after the Boss deftly catches the knife with his stomach (ow), Cheng closes in and sinks his fingers through the villain's body; when he yanks them out, blood sprays out from the holes in that lovely arterial red. Admittedly, this a bit excessive. As the scene plays now, Cheng seems to lunge in and grip the Boss around the ribs for no real reason. [This has been restored in recent DVDs].