Black Belt Jones served as a surprise spiritual successor to Bruce Lee’s martial arts masterpiece, Enter the Dragon. Lee’s final completed film before his death in 1973, Enter the Dragon was a culmination of the work that Bruce Lee was doing in Hong Kong with films like The Big Boss and Fist of Fury.
A combination of the growing popularity of martial arts movies and the actor in particular led to Bruce Lee getting his own Hollywood martial arts film. Being afforded a bigger budget than his previous films and a strong cast helped Enter the Dragon turn into an international success and inspire an even greater interest in martial arts movies in the 1970s.
In addition to its wider influence on the movie industry, Enter the Dragon also led to similar projects from those involved with the movie. Because even though Enter the Dragon was essentially a vehicle for Bruce Lee, it was also a boon to the talents of both its director and the cast. Many members of the cast and crew went on to enjoy a lot of success after Enter the Dragon. One example of this is Black Belt Jones, which was an immediate follow-up to the 1973 movie and a collaboration between two of its most integral players.
Black Belt Jones Is A 1974 Cult Classic From Enter The Dragon’s Director And One Of Its Main Cast Members
Black Belt Jones Sees Jim Kelly Try To Emulate Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was obviously the main attraction of Enter the Dragon, but the film’s story was designed to follow three different martial artists on the island, with the other two being John Saxon’s Roper and Jim Kelly’s Williams. Jim Kelly’s involvement with Enter the Dragon prompted the studio to sign him to a three-movie contract, which resulted in Kelly getting a starring role in Black Belt Jones.
Black Belt Jones, now regarded as one of the films that fueled the Blaxploitation side of the martial arts genre, reunited Jim Kelly with Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse. Like Kelly, Clouse was riding a wave of popularity set off by the 1973 film.
Jim Kelly played the тιтular hero of Black Belt Jones, a movie that saw the actor play a martial arts master who makes a living as a mercenary
In what was his first starring role, Jim Kelly played the тιтular hero of Black Belt Jones, a movie that saw the actor play a martial arts master who makes a living as a mercenary. In the movie, Black Belt Jones takes a job that requires him to defend a dojo from gangsters trying to seize the property by scaring off its occupants.
In this way, Black Belt Jones comes across as a Blaxploitation take on the story of a completely different Bruce Lee movie, Way of the Dragon. In the movie, the goal of Bruce Lee’s character is to protect a cousin’s restaurant from thugs.
In 1975, Robert Clouse and Jim Kelly worked together on Golden Needles, though it was not a martial arts film.
Like Bruce Lee’s movies, Black Belt Jones depicts Jim Kelly’s character as a force to be reckoned with. After showcasing some of Kelly’s martial arts talents in Enter the Dragon, the director takes this to the next level in Black Belt Jones, allowing the actor to get his hordes of enemies to plow through.
Its martial arts choreography, embrace of campy elements, and the way in which it made use of its star’s martial arts background helps it easily stand out as one of Jim Kelly’s best movies – arguably his second-best after Enter the Dragon.
Both Robert Clouse & Jim Kelly Continued To Make Martial Arts Movies After Black Belt Jones & Enter The Dragon
Jim Kelly Starred In Several 1970s Martial Arts Movies
After Black Belt Jones and Golden Needles, Robert Clouse and Jim Kelly went their separate ways, but continued their ᴀssociations with the martial arts genre. Jim Kelly stayed relevant throughout the 1970s, appearing in multiple Blaxploitation martial arts movies, including H๏τ Potato and Black Samurai. Unfortunately, Kelly’s time as a martial arts star proved to be only a short-lived phase that didn’t extend into the 1980s.
Robert Clouse, for his part, remained active in movies for years, occasionally pumping out a martial arts film between his other works. In 1980, he notably directed one of Jackie Chan’s earliest efforts to make a splash in America, The Big Brawl, and was also behind the notorious attempt to finish Bruce Lee’s Game of Death. 1992 saw the director helm his final movie. Similar to Black Belt Jones, Ironheart allowed Clouse to once again direct one of the cast members from Enter the Dragon, who in this case was Bolo Yeung.
