Bruceploitation

When Bruce Lee died in 1973 at thirty-two with an unfinished film, he left the most profitable brand in Asian cinema and no star to fill it. The industry's solution was one of the strangest episodes in film history: hire lookalikes, give them near-identical names, and make dozens of films implying a connection that did not exist.

The clones

Bruce Li (Ho Chung-tao) was the most prolific and the best. Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, Bruce Lai, Bruce Thai and others filled out a whole subindustry. The names were chosen to be mistaken for the original on a poster or a video shelf.

The genre eats its own subject

Many bruceploitation films are about Bruce Lee's death. The Clones of Bruce Lee has multiple Lees. Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave is exactly what it sounds like. Game of Death, which Lee left unfinished, was completed by Golden Harvest with a double, body-doubling scenes with a cardboard cut-out and footage of Lee's actual funeral, which is bruceploitation committed by his own studio.

Why it is catalogued

It is a genuine data point about how an industry handles the death of a brand, and some of the films (especially Bruce Li's) are decent kung fu pictures in their own right once you stop waiting for the real thing.

Where to start

The Clones of Bruce Lee, for the full deranged commitment to the premise.