Had the (mis?)fortune to catch this one on IFC on demand for free; it's still free until 12/10 for those who have the service.
This is a seminal Brucesploitation film, rushed into production after Bruce's untimely and mysterious death in then unknown actress Betty Ting's apartment in 1973. The script is based on Betty Ting's memoirs, stars none other than Betty Ting in the Betty Ting role, and focuses on her supposed affair with Lee.
It begins in the aftermath of Lee's death. Ting is ostracized in Hong Kong by Lee fans who blame her for Bruce's death. Old ladies point and laugh at her in the supermarket, and a gang of nunchaku-wielding men taunt her and follow her to the bar where she finally scurries to drown her sorrows. After the barman pushes the gangsters out, she tells him her sob story.
Betty always wanted to be an actress, but producers only saw her as a "sexbomb" (apparently she had the misfortune to only run into legally blind movie producers). One of them gives her a mickey and takes pictures of her in her underwear, then threatens to blackmail her with them when she refuses to strip in her first movie role. Betty goes back to her apartment and is about to kill herself with liquor and pills when a talking candle tells her she has a lot to live for and to go to Hong Kong. (The talking candle was by far the most naturalistic actor in the film).
She flies to Hong Kong where the movie goon finds her and has his thugs beat her up. Bruce Lee (portrayed by Danny Lee) wanders by and rescues her, but won't take her home with him when she asks and only gives her some money. Soon enough, Betty has become a rich escort in Hong Kong who never sleeps with her clients--rich foreigners just pay her to have dinner with them, for the pleasure of her company. (What little credibility Betty might have had just flew out the window). One day she sees Bruce at a nightclub and gives him back the money he owed her.
Predictably this makes him fall madly in love with her, although he makes it clear he loves his unseen wife and family too. They flirt with each other for a long time without having sex while Bruce finds a few opportunities to beat up random innocent people. Betty gets addicted to gambling and loses everything; Bruce promises to get her a part in ENTER THE DRAGON. After he slaps her around a bit on a beach for being whiny, they go back to her apartment where they make love and he promptly keels over, dead from a brain embolism.
Back in the bar, the gangsters break back in and are about to beat Betty to within an inch of her life. To the audience's dismay, the portly middle-aged bartender, inspired by knowing the truth about Betty, whips the five young men.
Danny Lee does look quite a bit like Bruce Lee, minus Bruce's amazing physique and fighting skills. He did master Lee's mannerisms. But the portrait of Lee given here is totally unsympathetic. Lee is obnoxiously cocky, jealous, unfaithful, xenophobic (he repeatedly claims to hate foreigners and beats up a nightclub doorman because he won't admit a Chinese with no jacket after admitting a Caucasian without one), and occasionally drunk.
Of all Bruce's faults in the movie, however, none looms larger than his horrible taste in women. Although Betty is trying to portray herself as an innocent misunderstood victim, she comes across as a whiny, self-absorbed opportunist. There's nothing about her that's particularly fascinating, and we can't see any reason for Bruce (who could have any woman he wanted) to fall so madly in love with her. I guess we're supposed to ascribe it to the "Yoko Ono effect." As for being typecast as a sexbomb--well, Betty's somewhat attractive, but she ain't all that and a bag of chips. There are a couple of extras in this film (Bruce sleeps with one) that are far more beautiful than Betty.
Of course, this romantic melodrama with scraps of kung-fu is done in the Shaw Brothers style, with bad dubbing, incredulous foley work, and exaggerated facial expressions. It's really bad, and it drags Lee's good name through the mud which infuriates many. While it wasn't close to good, and only sporadically campy, I found it watchable as a curiosity.
EDIT: Fixed link to trailer
