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Me Bruce is gloriously stupid at times, just plain stupid at other times, and will inevitably play out uneasily and as outdated to some, as it does come from a different time and space - a fact which can be used to both arguably defend and legitimately prosecute it.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.
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.