Challenge of the Tiger (1982) Review

“Challenge of the Tiger” Theatrical Poster

AKA: Gymkata Killer
Director: Bruce Le
Starring: Bruce Le (Huang Kin Long), Richard Harrison, Nadiuska, Hwang Jang-lee, Kong Do, Bolo Yeung Sze, Brad Harris, Dick Randall, Pei Ju-Hua
Running Time: 86 min.

By Ian Whittle

(Note: Every online source I’ve seen says this film is from 1980, which is contradicted by 1982 being mentioned in the dialogue, and a sequence taking place at an event that took place in that year!)

Although it features no martial arts, the opening sequence of Challenge of the Tiger must rank as one of my favourite martial art movies intros ever. Two scientists discover the secret of making men infertile, declare that it must not be used for the wrong purposes, then embrace passionately. Seconds later, masked men burst in and shoot them.

Genius. I defy any film to top that!

Challenge of the Tiger is the third of three films Bruce Le made in Europe for producer Dick Randall; the others being Le starring in Ninja Strikes Back, and Le’s bizarre cameo in the bizarre slasher Pieces, which is, let me assure you, very bizarre. Le also wrote and directed Challenge, so you know exactly who to thank/blame. Le plays agent Huang Lung, assigned to track down the missing formula. Because this is an international movie, he can’t do it without a white guy, so we have agent, Richard Cannon (yes, Dick Cannon) played by Richard Harrison. 

Harrison is a funny case. Originally a 50s pinup model and muscleman, he started making films for AIP (you can see him, topless naturally, piloting Vincent Price’s airship in Master of the World) and married the daughter of AIP’s head honcho James H. Nicholson. He later ended up in Italy starring in sword-and-sandal movies and spaghetti westerns (allegedly turning down Fistful of Dollars) and by the 70s ended up in Taiwan appearing in two films for Chang Cheh: Marco Polo and The Boxer Rebellion. His appearance in Challenge of the Tiger is probably also an one-off, but only a few later he was stuck making endless ninja movies for Godfrey Ho, immortalised forever in that clip of him using a Garfield telephone in Ninja Terminator.

And if you thought John Saxon got an unfair share of the action in Enter the Dragon, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Harrison’s first scene is him arriving at his palatial mansion to be greeted by a LOT of naked babes, some of whom play slow motion tennis, and accompanied by the strains of “Montego Bay” by Jon Stevens. Throughout the movie, Harrison will sleep with every lady going, whilst barely lifting a finger to help fight-wise. Which is good because I really don’t fancy seeing Harrison getting the best of Hwang Jang-lee, never mind Bolo!

So our heroes start off in Spain… where Bruce Le does not one, but two Sonny Chiba tributes: he fights a bull (ala Karate Bullfighter) and smashes its skull, represented with crude x-ray animation (ala The Street Fighter). Harrison gets friendly, if you know what I mean, with Miss Spain 1982 Maria who is in possession of the formula and is a secret agent played, not by the actual Miss Spain 1982 Ana Isabel Herrero García (can you tell I had to look that up?) but by Nadiuska, who played Conan’s mother in Conan the Barbarian the same year. Meanwhile, Bruce tries to distract her dog, which growls like a cat. Yes, you read that right!

Oh, right, the formula! So Le retrieves it from Maria, only to discover it’s Spanish Fly. The real formula is en route via Hong Kong to a international cadre of villains (headed by Dick Randall, appropriately enough) whose assortment of hired goons includes HK regular Chiang Tao and Brad Harris, the latter of whom can best be described as a Western version of Bolo Yeung… who is also in this movie as a member of a group of Vietnamese freedom fighters/terrorists/I’m really not sure which and neither is the movie. The Vietnamese group is headed by Hwang Jang-lee, in a rather subdued performance for him, and they also want the formula. And one of their number is a gorgeous lady (Pei Ju-Hua) who’ll be all over Richard Harrison like remoras on a shark. I could question why all these girls are ignoring Bruce Le, but then here, more than ever, he looks like Mowgli from Disney’s The Jungle Book on sterioids. Richard Harrison may not be Dolph Lundgren, but yeah, I’d be going for him too given the choice!

Just when you thought, OK this movie is pretty wacky, you realise you underestimated it. Le and Harrison end up in Macau, at The Macau Trotters’ Association’s Second Anniversary celebrations no less. And for some reason, US tv vets Jack Klugman, Jane Seymour (hey, Dr Quincey and Dr Quinn in the same movie!) and Morgan Fairchild were in attendance there, so of course footage of them chatting with Le is stuck into the film in the same manner Bruce Lee was into Fist of Unicorn! I can’t say whether such shenanigans are typical of Dick Randall’s non-HK product, but I wouldn’t have put it past him, and god bless ‘im for it.

On the martial arts side of things, Le shows considerable improvement from his earlier movies with more dynamic kicks and less of the silly Bruce-isms. I also give the film credit for not trying to pass off Harrison as a martial arts master (unlike, well, a lot of other movies!) so he relies more on his fists, and takes a heck of a lot of blows to the groin! Who needs a formula to make men infertile when Hwang Jang-lee can do that with his feet? Disappointingly, Le doesn’t get to fight Bolo here, and the final fight between Le and Hwang is curtailed unnecessarily shortly in a car chase, but hey, thankfully we got Enter the Game of Death and Ninja Strikes Back to address those issues respectively. And as a madcap combination of the best HK and Euro exploitation had to offer in the 80s, this madly entertaining flick is well deserving of more attention.

And just what was Bruce Le saying to Jack Klugman?

Ian Whittle’s Rating: 7/10