Lama Avenger (1979)
Welcome (back) to the Clones Cast. We have gone audio, and video, so make sure you take a look: TheClones Cast on YouTube
This episode we have the badass “Lama Avenger”. Bruce Li, Mike, and the toothless wonder Choi beat up Llamas, I guess. Oh, and there are briefcases.
Just a massive thank you to Matthew and Michael for “The Clones Cast”. It has been brilliant discovering the podcast and finding out that I am not alone in my strange adoration of Bruceploitation. Like so many I was introduced to Bruce Lee via my father buying me a copy, on betamax (I still have it, of “Enter the Dragon”. It was pre-cert so it has the nunchaku scenes intact. I studied, Judo, Karate, Wing Chun, Sombo, Savate Kickboxing, Escrima/Kali and JKD over the next 40 years and even got to train with some of Bruce’s 1st generation students like Guru Dan Inosanto and Larry Hartsell in the UK and LA (my mother lived in LA for over 20 years). I really enjoy listening to the two of you discuss each Bruceploitation film and it is like being in the familiar company of good friends. I had followed Michael’s career a little and have now returned to some of his classics off the back of the show. Quick question to Michael – is the kick in the head in “To Be The Best” in the ring scenes near the end a homage to Bruce with Han in ETD, holding an opponent in a headlock at waist height and then flicking the foot back into the face?
The lockdowns have forced us to reflect on our past freedoms. As a father of two teenagers I know I spent many years, at their age, getting on my bike, trains, the tube and buses (and planes!!) to seek out another Bruce/Dragon related video from a different video shop in London and Hollywood. I made my father drive me to Palace Video in central London just to rent “Dynamo”. I even convinced my mother to drive and stop on the way to LAX at each video store so I could find the “Chinese Stuntman”. On the podcasts you have recaptured that wonderful sense of curiosity, adventure and “shot in the dark” fun that came from renting a movie that you knew nothing about apart from what was on the lurid cover, which always promised so much. I look back very fondly on those times with my friends when we would rush home or I would invite pals over to see “The Tiger Strikes Again” ( aka Soul Brothers of Kung Fu) or “Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last game of Death” and then laugh together and cheer along as the fights began…altogether now “He’s the King of Kung Fu, King of Kung Fu, King of kung Fu , let him show what he can do…”. Keep up the great work and thanks for the brilliant back catalogue. I am training for a half marathon and I listen in to you both on every run I go on. I cannot wait for Michael’s Bruceploitation Bible book and documentary.