Overrated

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Jackie Chan's first leading role is in this disappointing follow-up to Bruce Lee's FIST OF FURY, although sadly it bears little resemblance to the former movie. Instead it is a long-winded and slowly paced movie, with a threadbare plot dragged to boredom point at frequent intervals. The story involves the Japanese ruling over the Chinese in Taiwan, but for the first hour and a half there is little action to recommend things and the production values and dubbing are as terrible as ever.However, things do definitely pick up for the film's finale, which is the only saving grace really. It sees a newly-trained Chan battling against various Japanese killers and assassins. The finale does indeed offer plentiful violence and lots of cool martial arts moves, and to make things better there's a twist ending which comes totally out of left field and will make your jaw drop to the ground. Other than that, this is threadbare entertainment indeed, and the stuffy direction from Lo Wei makes it a really hard watch.

Somewhat a sequel (really in-name-only, although there are minor character references and the dangerous title name method gets used without the same affect) to Lo Wei's "Fist of Fury" that starred martial arts legend Bruce Lee, Wei would go on to direct having Jackie Chan on the main mantle, in what is a virtual remake in the political theme of China vs. Japan and certain story plots. Chinese academies fighting to stay alive against Japanese martial arts school. Spirited, but the impact and charisma of Chan just doesn't feel right. A young Chan is quite raw, in a more aggressive and vengeance-filled role. But it's far from a Jackie Chan vehicle, as he doesn't really come into play until midway through due to his character's reckless and carefree attitude that sees him constantly being beaten up. Still there are some outstanding martial art sequences, namely the final long-winded confrontation where it's brutal and bloody (and those nun-chucks get a work out) with an out-of-the-blue payoff that tries to be as iconic as the film it's wanting to be. Pacing can be a little uneven (excluding those kung-fu slow-motion shots), but director Wei keeps the story straight-forward adding enough interest and tension with Chan Sing making a terrific deadly opponent for Chan and Nora Miao is good too.

I've watched this movie for three reasons. The first one is, because this movie is a sequel to Fist of Fury (my favorite Bruce Lee's film). The second one is because Jackie Chan is in this movie. The third reason is because I wanted to see some good Kung Fu fights. I wasn't disappointed. This movie is not a remake of Fist of Fury (not like I expected), it's a real sequel, even Nora Miao and her character returned in this film. Jackie Chan was pretty good. The fighting scenes were great, though the real fights begun only at the second half of the movie. This movie has a similar plot with Fist of Fury, but I think it's good, I would be disappointed if this movie was very different from it's prequel.

(this text is from an email i wrote immediately after watching the movie)Wow Nate, I just watched a Jacky Chan movie called New Fist of Fury. This movie is the sequel to Bruce Lee's Chinese Connection (known in Asia as Fists of Fury, I think?)!This is another one of those Jacky Chan movies that is not so funny at all. Actually the movie was downright depressing and infuriating. It's a great movie; it takes the Bruce Lee classic one step further. Just watching the Japanese disrespect and even kill the Chinese made me so upset during the whole time that I just started to lift weights and work out as an outlet for the hurt I felt.It's hard watching racial discrimination on this scale... the setting here was Taiwan and the Japanese were in total control of the island. It's hard to believe but the prejudice in this movie was even worse than in the Chinese Connection. The treatment of Chinese in this movie was brutal, to say the least. Jacky Chan turned in another passionate, violent, un-humorous performance; the kind of which he is not known for nowadays. I highly recommend this flick.On another note, at the end of the DVD they had a bio of Chan and it said he moved to Australia at a very young age, and he studied martial arts there! I had no idea; I find that amazing.