Black Belt Jones (1974)

Directed by Robert Clouse
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Warner Bros)

It's undeniably entertaining and steeped in 70s nostalgia, but resorts to kung fu action cliche in a long and boring second half. Jim Kelly gives a poor Bruce Lee imitation, right down to those funny noises that Lee makes. The flick started out strongly, actually had me interested in the plight of the karate school, and was funny at the right times. However, the action becomes more and more implausible until it was almost like watching a cartoon and I stopped caring. In particular, a long car chase that ends up in a car wash and some fighting among the suds was just plain silly. The soundtrack by Dennis Coffy is for the most part good, though some early disco starts to creep in to the mix.