Right after dropping dead at some whore’s house, the body of film legend Bruce Lee is taken by ambulance to the hospital, where an enterprising professor creates three duplicates from him using a machine that looks as complex as Milton Bradley’s handheld game Simon, wired to a spaghetti colander.

Although they look nothing like Lee, the prof christens them Bruce Lee 1, Bruce Lee 2 and Bruce Lee 3. (Eventually, one will go by the name of Chuck to avoid confusion.) They’re played by Dragon Lee, Bruce Le and Bruce Lai. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you … The Clones of Bruce Lee!

After training with Bolo Yeung and working out to the swiped strains of “Gonna Fly Now,” the trio is set out on secret missions. First, they bring down an “unscrupulous” gold-smuggling film producer. Then they are sent to Bangkok (Oriental city), where they must eliminate a doctor who has created a serum to turn humans into metal bronzemen, but only after ogling all the totally naked Thai whores. When the professor hears about the doc’s undoing, it angers him, so he attempts to pit the three clones against one another, in order to find the best fighter so that he can rule the world.

Despite all the kicking and full-frontal nudity, Clones is mind-numbingly repetitive and tough to follow. Although the concept might lead you to believe otherwise, this is not Bruceploitation at its most enjoyable or its most outrageous. —Rod Lott

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Al Adamson movies often mean slapdash editing, piss-poor blocking and lots of offscreen overdubs. Black Samurai has all that, plus Enter the Dragon’s Jim Kelly as the most-certainly-black-but-to-be-honest-technically-not-a-samurai Black Samurai.

As an agent of D.R.A.G.O.N. (which could refer to Adamson’s pacing problems: “drag on,” see?), Kelly ends his Mexico vacation early when fellow agents inform him of the kidnapping of his Asian girlfriend Toki (as in “token,” I guess). She’s been nabbed by an evil white guy who’s deeply into the occult and the black arts. Kelly seeks to infiltrate this dude’s immense castle fortress, and his move of choice seems to be inflicting pain on other people’s scrotums. Seriously, I haven’t seen this much ball-kicking since Sly Stallone made that soccer movie with Pelé.

Strangely, the occult guy has a high dwarf population among his teams of henchmen. I counted six of the little guys. And while it’s not fair, politically correct or even logical, it sure is funny! To infuse a bit of Bond-age, Kelly gets a great scene where he jetpacks through the sky. He also romances the ladies, like the mean prostitute named Synne (subtle!) and gets his own theme song, although this one sounds created at a piano bar.

Black Samurai gets so ludicrous, Kelly ends up trading punches with a giant bird! And then there’s some rattlesnakes thrown in for good measure, as well as vintage Adamson touches like the sound effects of an owl in a scene of broad daylight. All the while, you’ll be laughing and scratching your head, asking yourself, “Wait, this was based on a novel?” —Rod Lott

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Should you happen to find a basket floating in the river containing a baby with no eyes, arms or legs, don’t freak out — it’s probably just Hyakkimaru! As created by manga master Osamu Tezuka (Black Jack, Astro Boy) in the late 1960s, Hyakkimaru is a samurai whose real flesh was stolen by 48 demons. With each one he kills via the blade that subs for a left arm, he gets back some of that skin and those limbs, one piece at a time, be it an ear or the liver. Don’t ask — just go with it.

Fully grown, Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) roams the countryside with wisecracking sisterly sidekick Dororo (Kô Shibaski, One Missed Call), looking for demons to slay. Among those they find include a spider-crab creature, girls who morph into oversized caterpillars, a woman who turns into some sort of witch butterfly, a living lotus tree with stretchy neck, something akin to those damned flying monkeys, a pair of talking monster dogs and one hopping devil on horseback. Our heroes gain an ally in a giant ghost baby.

Most of these beasts are all-CGI, but some come in the preferred form of dudes in rubber suits. Given the source material and the country that created kaiju cinema, I much prefer the latter. Regardless, the monster-slaying portions make Dororo quite a kick, but the more Hyakkimaru questions his origins, the more Akihiko Shiota’s epic slows considerably, eventually staying stuck in a 20- or 30-minute lag.

Even today, Tezuka’s Dororo enjoys a page-turning pace; this often-too-serious adaptation could have done that by ditching the dramatic introspection that wasn’t so heavy in the books and stick to the ghost-busting. It’s overlong at two hours and 19 minutes, and ends with no true ending, as Hyakkimaru has two dozen hellions left to stab. If a sequel gets made, I’d certainly like to see him do his thing, but I hope Shiota drops the music score that sounds like you’re being serenaded by a mariachi band in a Mexican restaurant while you’re trying to apply just the right amount of honey to that sopapilla. —Rod Lott

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It’s hard to hate a movie whose first scene depicts a tough guy trapping a Filipino midget in a phone booth and throwing it into the bay. As the box goes splash, the film freeze-frames to announce its awesome title: The One Armed Executioner. That’s so promising, I forgive it for not including the hyphen it so sorely needs.

Said title refers to Ortega (not related to the taco shells), a man who seems to have it all: a job with Interpol, a good head of hair, both arms, and a blonde American wife (Jody Kay) who writes children’s books, sleeps with a doll and basically acts as if she’s been kicked in the head. Yes, for Ortega (Franco Guerrero), life’s a pretty sweet fruit. Then coke-dealing, Caucasian crime boss Edwards (Nigel Hogge) wants his diary back from the cops, and orders Mrs. Ortega dead; his pantyhose-masked minions stab her fatally, then take Ortega’s left limb just for shits and giggles.

As spoiled by that title, Ortega isn’t about to take his handicap lightly. Trained by the Philippines’ equivalent of Tommy Lee Jones, he becomes a ruthless warrior, albeit one with a sleeve flopping around. Ortega then goes hunting for Edwards (“What balls!”), whose boat bears a swastika and who keeps a henchman on staff whose sole purpose is to act as a human thesaurus. (His lone African-American henchman is dubbed by a redneck.)

In this thrilla from Manila, everyone points and looks greasy sweaty. On one hand (pun not intended), it isn’t exploitative like, say, Hong Kong’s infamous The Crippled Masters, because in real life, Guerrero doesn’t park in handicapped spots. On the other hand (pun still not intended, pinky swear), one wishes it were, so it’d be a ton more fun. As is, it’s just a-little-more-than-passable fun. —Rod Lott

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From the box: “Fighting Life is a remarkable film rejoicing the spirit of life. It is the dynamic tale of two brothers who overcome immense physical and emotional handicaps, and become vital members of society. The two stars of the film are both physically handicapped and truly prove that everyone can make it. Starring: All Star Kung Fu Cast.”

In reality, Fighting Life is a decent film rejoicing in the fact that they got the two stars of Crippled Masters together again for a couple hundred yen. It is the generic tale of two brothers who drive around in a specially built vehicle that looks like a combination of Fred Flintstone’s car and a Rube Goldberg contraption. The two stars of the film are both physically handicapped and truly prove that moviegoers can only take so much of the one guy’s Thalidomide flipper-nub flapping around before they get visibly ill. Starring: Two Guys I’d Be Hard-Pressed to Name, Other than “Dude with No Arms” and “Dude with Almost No Legs.”

Sometimes found retitled as Crippled Masters 3, this isn’t as good as the original Crippled Masters because — and I hate to say this — it’s not as exploitative. Instead of graphic scenes of blood and gore, you get elongated employment searches. If you’ve seen one kung-fu flick with Frankie Shum and Jack Conn — real-life guys who get all the best parking spaces — you’ve seen them all. —Rod Lott

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