I lost track of Duel of the Iron Fist‘s plot about halfway through; I understood that Tuberculosis Guy had betrayed the hero, but only because the shot set-ups made it obvious from the moment he appeared onscreen, speculatively sucking on his cigarette holder between bouts of coughing, that he had suspect intentions. At least he can act a little (the mild resemblance to Jackie Earle Haley is weird, but not displeasing); the love interest cannot, and the time spent in these flicks on the romance subplot is usually earned back when the girl gets in the fight. That doesn’t happen here, so the hero’s endless (and smurfy) explanation of his amateurish (and smurfy) butterfly chest tattoo bugs — with no payoff. Okay, it’s kind of hilarious that the tat looks a bit different in each shot, and that it starts to run down his nips when he’s all Vengeance McGlarypants in the rain before the final showdown. Alas, that “fight” is 15 percent “high school production of Fiddler” blocking with staffs and 85 percent dark-destiny cello and brooding exposition.

Plot isn’t critical to the genre, of course, but Duel of the Iron Fist has little else to offer. The fighting is mostly melee-style, edited to disguise the players’ merely ordinary skills, and the presence of knives daubed with red paint doesn’t up the suspense. It just goes on too long. By the time the wounded hero arrived at a cathouse to recuperate, I’d given up.

Blood of the Dragon started out promisingly, certainly just in contrast but also because the viewer is thrown straight into a long-sword fight in the desert, scored with Bionic Man synth. I haven’t had the best luck with Jimmy Wang Yu product in the past, but I kept an open mind.

I wouldn’t watch it again, but it’s pretty good: entertaining wire work; crazy wig-ness (it’s like RuPaul’s Kung Fu up in here); deliciously stilted dubbing (“I can’t remember all. The men I have. Killed. I. Am sorry“); a love interest who can hold her own during a raid. The obligatory kid who tags along with our hero, hoping to learn the fight trade, begins poorly — my notes read “’70s wuxia equivalent of Jaden Smith” — but he improves as the film goes along. Jimmy looks foxier and less like a tween piano prodigy than usual, despite facial hair that looks drawn on with eyebrow pencil. Come for the convoluted vengeance plot; stay for the murky, beautiful day-for-night shots and the jumping on and off roofs.

The last flick on the disc, The 36 Crazy Fists, is sometimes called Jackie Chan’s Bloodpact, and marks Chan’s directorial debut — I think? Or it’s his debut as martial-arts coordinator? The gaseously overawed voice-over wasn’t entirely clear on that, though Lord knows it had enough time to explain; a full seven minutes was devoted to grainy footage of Chan, in micro-jorts, running actors through fight rehearsals while “Welcome to the Motor Court of THE FEEYOOTURE”-type music plays. This is not in fact uninteresting, but the transfer quality is horrendous. Imagine watching a social-hygiene filmstrip about bullying, starring Dustin Hoffman’s hair from All the President’s Men, through a screen door.

At last, after the narrator intoned that “Jackie explains that because he is bound by a contract, he is unable to act in this film, and hopes that you’ll excuse him,” an abrupt cut to the “Pong”-ishly fonted title card, and the film proper got underway. The transfer improved slightly, but the aspect ratio was still all dicked up, and the Cockney accents on the dub had me expecting a few tunes from Oliver! instead of paying attention to the plot.

Er, “plot.” 36CF is a competently choreographed but tedious variation on the “bullied scrawn is refused Shao Lin instruction; learns kung fu from unlikely/’outsider’ master; saves Shao Lin abbott; group hug” theme. The fighting is technically proficient, but feels more like a dance concert than a fight film, and while it’s interesting to note that evolution on the part of Chan’s composition, and to compare this 1977 work with later and more kinetic and suspenseful Chan films, the movie itself is stale.

None of these is a movie I’d recommend watching on your own, though the last two could make good fun for a peanut gallery. Blood of the Dragon is probably the best of the lot; it’s nearly 40 years old, and from a martial-arts-film historical standpoint, it’s worthwhile. And I did learn that there’s an Alaskan metal band called 36 Crazyfists, which is fairly rad. Still, I’m obligated to give the trilogy a flat C overall.

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