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Black Belt Jones

Black Belt Jones is a 1974 film from the USA, directed by Robert Clouse, running 87 minutes. reelscum files it under blaxploitation and martial arts.

Poster for Black Belt Jones
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Year
1974 · 1970s films
Country
USA
Runtime
87 min
Updated
10 Aug 2026
Obscurity
cult (41/100)

Defined in the glossary: Blaxploitation, Martial arts

Jim Kelly karate-chops the mob to save a Watts dojo. Blaxploitation meets kung fu, joyfully.

Jim Kelly, fresh from Enter the Dragon, headlines this fusion of blaxploitation and kung fu, playing a martial-arts master who defends a Watts karate school from the mob. It is fast, funny and built entirely around Kelly's charisma and afro, climaxing in a fight in a car wash full of soap suds.

Made by Enter the Dragon's director Robert Clouse, it delivers exactly what the pairing of genres promises. Light, energetic and enormously likeable, it is the definitive blaxploitation martial-arts crossover.

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The cycle in depth

  • Blaxploitation, 1971 to 1975

    Melvin Van Peebles caught gonorrhea on his own set, filed a workers' comp claim, and bought more film stock with the settlement. Four years later the studios had mined the audience out and moved on.

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