Sadly, this film does not attain the heights of cheese to which it could so attain. No topless kickboxing, no dorky soft-focus dinners where seductive older man with the receding hairline suddenly has to fight off ninjas. The three women with guns and in bikinis on the back of the box do indeed go topless, but they never fire the gun. Bummer.
Although the titles are in English and Chinese, none of the dialogue is subtitled and all of it is in Chinese (I presume that there's a French or English dub of the film, boring some poor soul even as I write this). Nonetheless, the movie would seem pretty plotless even if I could understand it. From what I could piece together, it goes something like this: Kung-Fu Leung is recruited to go to Paris to defeat some rich bad-ass who's no doubt a drug-lord or gun-runner or stamp collectoor who licks the back of the stamps before he puts them in their albums or something. Leung agrees to go and, flipping through the dossier on the airplane, sees a picture of his and the French guy's ex-lover Emanuelle (Supposedly the actress's name, although she's one of those unformed young German chicks who's real name is probably Frau Hauschlept). The director then captures an Emanuelle staple perfectly: the reflective staring out the window scene, intercut with all sorts of soft-core flashbacks. Thanks to the miracle of pirated soundtracks, I've dated this movie as being released in 1980 or 1981, although the fashions makes it seem much older. When Kung Fu Leung (in a jaw-dropping, blue-denim leisure suit) and Emanuelle stroll around the garden and flirt, it's to the main theme from Richard Rush's The Stunt Man.(1981). When they make love and are caught by the jealous French guy, the soundtrack appropriately uses the 'Destruction of Krypton' music from Richard Donner's Superman (1978) to catch that cataclysmic moment (which the movie, in it's not-enough-footage way, goes on to use four or five times). I was disappointed that the filmmakers didn't use, say, the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind for the scene where Kung-Fu Leung fights the guy dressed like Evil Knievel by the side of the highway.
Other touches throughout endeared me to this film. There are the standard dramatic zoom-ins on the villain's face, except here the cameraman framed the shot wrong, and so zooms right by the face entirely. With the exception of the airplane and the leisure suit flashback, Leung goes everywhere-- cafes, restaurants, saunas and cemetaries-- in his white Karate work-out suit with running shoes. And the movies has him get poisoned by drinks served by seductive naked women no less than three times! (Or is this some subtle commentary on the quality of European drinking water?) Overall, Kung-Fu Leung Strikes Emanuelle serves as a perfect summing up for an entire decade of international exploitation.
Postscript: I was actually able to find a little more information just recently on imdb.com. Kung-Fu Leung is played by the intringuingly named Casanova Wong. The release date is listed as 1982, which is close enough for me to wear my Hardy Boys' badge with honor. I may try and get them to link their page to this review, since I have perhaps more information than they do (since I've actually seen it, alas).
All written material on these pages is © 1997 by Jeff Lester. With the exception of non-profit distribution, all other rights are reserved.