SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

bensonmum2 I agree with the other reviewer who wrote that there's a good movie buried here, but with Al Adamson at the helm, it was never going to appear on screen. His incompetency as a filmmaker is astounding. How can you make so many mistakes? For example, you have a good set of kung-fu actors who know how to stage a fight, but you'd never know it watching East Meets Watts or Dynamite Brothers or whatever you want to call it. The fight scenes are horribly shot. Add to that a plot that makes absolutely no sense, ridiculous dialogue, stilted delivery, and a lack of any technical acumen, and you've got one very poor movie. I think one of my favorite bits in the movie might have been the character named Stud Brown - how awesome is that!One of the things that amazed me as I watched East Meets Watts was how in God's name did Adamson convince Aldo Ray and James Hong to be in this pile of dung? Both are very accomplished actors who deserved way better than this.

lemon_magic But sadly, we'll never get to see it. Adamson once again demonstrates that he doesn't know how to pace a dramatic scene, frame a fight scene (featuring some pretty good stunt men) or a shootout, get a rookie actor to deliver a decent line of dialog, write dialog, or even tell a story that makes sense. There's a lot of potential to this one (a kung fu flick AND a blaxploitation flick), but about 30 seconds into the opening credits you know it'll never come together.The kung fu guy really doesn't have any personality on camera to speak of (I blame a lot of this on his ESL skills and the lines he's given to work with). The black guy (tellingly named "Stud Brown", what a giveaway) is reasonably smooth and presentable, but his character is just a cardboard stand-in for the Jim Brown flavor of the month. The movie tries for a soul vibe (most obviously with the character of "Smiling Man") and a bohemian hipster vibe and several other changes of pace, but it's all just going through the motions. Watch for the scene where the kung fu guy leaps out through a 2nd story window when a henchman pulls a gun (actually a pretty good idea) shattering glass and wood, and then lands outside without a mark on him. Watch for the stunt scene where the two handcuffed protagonists jump off a supposedly moving truck and one of them rolls in the wrong direction as they land. Also look for the scene where the kung fu guy is tossed into a cave and a rattlesnake is tossed in after him, and the movie tries to ignore the fact that there is obviously plenty of room for the guy to get out of the cave without ever going near the snake. And that's just the stunts, mind you. The whole movie has that characteristic "I just point the cameras and let them roll" feel, and it doesn't look as if there were a whole lot of 2nd takes or unused footage. On the other hand, this is still way better than "Brain Of Blood" and actually has better performances (Aldo Ray is actually pretty decent in a thankless part), so from now on I will remember this director as an "incompetent hack" rather than "an idiot behind a camera".

MartinHafer Considering that this movie was made by the schlock-meister, Al Adamson, it's no surprise that the whole things comes off as cheap and unwatchable. Aside from lousy camera-work, an annoying soundtrack and cheesy stunts, this film suffers from horribly dull acting and dialog. To say that the main characters are dull and unappealing is an understatement--balls of lint have much more charisma than these two idiots.The film is about a Chinese guy who comes to America looking for his brother. He meets up with a black man and for a while they are handcuffed together like Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in THE DEFIANT ONES, though there's no way you could mistake the two movies! A bit later, the two become separated and both have various dull adventures where there is a lot of bad martial arts and cars that explode for no particular reason. Frankly, the plot didn't seem that interesting, so I won't bother to elaborate further on it--you just won't care once the movie gets going.The only surprise, and it's a mild one, is the presence of a good actor (Aldo Ray) in the film. He isn't that bad but it's sad to see a decent actor like Ray in this and other crap productions in the twilight of his career. It must have been very hard on him taking on such rancid roles for hacks like Adamson.Overall, the film is an inept mess. Sadly, it's not even a film you can laugh at or enjoy on a camp level--it's just craptastic and dull from start to finish. The martial arts aren't even that good, as the cameraman, I suspect, was a lemur. Plus, many of the fighting scenes were just dumb--such as the guy with the nunchuks who swung them incessantly without even trying to connect or threaten the hero. I think in the end he was just so tired of swinging them that it was easy to beat him! By the way, for the sensitive viewers out there, there are a lot of politically incorrect racial slurs in this film. If you are easily offended, then try watching another film--this one WILL tick you off completely.

cfc_can This is a very cheap 1973 actioner which pits a black man (Brown) with an Asian man (Tang) who is searching for his brother in LA. The two spend a period cuffed together and dealing with racist morons before they eventually meet up with the main villain. Tang, an Asian martial arts star, has no real personality and the fight scenes have obvious sound effects added on which doesn't help. Other stunts in the movie look obviously fake and are almost amusing. The film was originally titled "Stud Brown" (after Brown's character) and was billed as a blaxploitation film but that was misleading as Tang has more screen time and deals with most of the action. Ray,a former big name star, plays a corrupt cop. He appeared in scores of cheap features throughout the 70s but at least here, he has a half decent character and actually gets to emote a little. As expected, there are some amusing hairstyles, sideburns, sunglasses, funky instrumental music and slang like "That's where it's at baby!" The video box tries to convince that the 1998 big budget actioner Rush Hour was derived from this film but that's like comparing a penny to a quarter.