THEY CALL ME BRUCE

US, 1982, 86 minutes, Colour.
Johnny Yune.
Directed by Elliot Hong.

They Call Me Bruce is American matinee material - quite pleasant and inoffensive in its way. It stars Korean-American? comedian Johnny Yune under the direction of Korean-born director Elliott Hong.

The film shows Bruce as an ordinary young man in the employ of the Mafia - who mistakenly saves a man from being robbed and is considered to be a Bruce Lee look-alike. There are many visual tributes to Bruce Lee, his martial arts films and his influence (and some jokes about Americans and Orientals). The screenplay borrows from routine American plots and ranges in its characters and spoof situations from the Californian way of life to the Mafia, westerns and the open road to New York and a religious revival for blacks. There are constant allusions to films especially by music: The Godfather, Saturday Night Fever, Urban Cowboy, Fame. The film is, eventually, another routine variation on the little man who becomes hero. The supporting cast includes attractive martial arts actress Pam Huntington and in her first role since Lipstick, model Margaux Hemingway - who is photographed as unflatteringly hefty.

A moderately entertaining (for the widest of audiences) example of '80s American popular films.