They Call Me Bruce?

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shoeless j B movie with charm. Was part of HBOs old rotation. Piece of 80s nostalgia. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member My brother and I have vivid memories of wandering into the theater in 1982, watching They Call Me Bruce with our mom, and laughing hysterically as only small children best know how to do. Fast forward to 2019, and I can report that perhaps They Call Me Bruce - while retaining some dicey and goofball Reagan-era charm - hasn't quite weathered the storm of time as well as my love of nostalgia may have hoped. They Call Me Bruce is a slapstick-heavy kung fu film spoof; a satire of the heavily-dubbed film imports of the 1970's coming straight out of the Hong Kong film marketplace. At its best, it borrows successfully from the wonderfully inane parody vibes of Zucker and Abrahams' Airplane, Naked Gun, and Top Secret. At its worst, it borrows unsuccessfully from the same places. The story itself plays out like the title directly implies it might: There's a guy running around who "they" call Bruce (Johnny Yune). Because in the distinguished opinions of the mostly white secondary characters, Yune's character looks a lot like Hong Kong-American film star Bruce Lee (he doesn't, which makes it all either more egregious or more rad, viewer-depending). It's a film premise that if it first appeared today wouldn't have to withstand our modern Cancel Culture upon release, because absolutely no studio would have green-lighted its production in the first place. In trying to avoid a constant rekindling of the today-versus-yesterday cultural spat between dismissive GenXers and accusatory Millennials, let's stipulate that there's a lot of stuff we've learned since 1982 that leads to more sensitivity in recent film, while also agreeing that it's tough to take a thing from its original context and solely apply current values to it as if it were conceived today. They Call Me Bruce is gloriously stupid at times, just plain stupid at other times, and will inevitably play out uneasily and as outdated to some, as it does come from a different time and space - a fact which can be used to both arguably defend and legitimately prosecute it. Is it still fun in the end? The answer here is yes, but not without contingencies. Now go find out for yourself. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/18/23 Full Review Audience Member Funny, if dated, Mafia/Martial Arts spoof that throws you every stereotype it can think of. Rating is more for nostalgia and sentimental value since I'm guessing most of us who love it saw it when we were young Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member Naive Korean man, who is repeatedly mistaken for Bruce Lee, is hired to make a delivery for Italian mob with undercover police monitoring. Jokes are hit and miss; worth a watch now but remembered it being funnier when I was younger. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Audience Member Unfunny on every level. However, it's not quite as bad as its sequel. Yes, it actually got a sequel. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Funny ! Love to see this again it's been so long yet after all these years it's still in My warped memory as a fun movie ! Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Read all reviews

They Call Me Bruce?

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