IL COLPO MAESTRO DI BRUCE LEE

Italian one-sheet, late 1970s

This Italian poster is a great example of how martial arts films were marketed in Europe after **Bruce Lee’s death in 1973—and why that era is so fascinating to me as a film historian and collector.

The title translates roughly to “The Master Stroke of Bruce Lee.” Despite the name and the artwork, Bruce Lee is not in this film at all. The movie is actually the 1979 Taiwanese kung fu film The Crippled Masters (Tian Can Di Que), which was retitled in Italy to ride the wave of Lee’s continued popularity around the world.

In the mid-to-late 1970s, Italian distributors were especially aggressive about rebranding martial arts films with Bruce Lee’s name. New poster art would be commissioned specifically for the Italian market—bold illustrations, motion echoes, exaggerated strikes—designed to suggest Bruce Lee without ever explicitly claiming he was involved. It was marketing by implication, and it worked.

What makes this title interesting is that The Crippled Masters isn’t just a throwaway cash-in. The film tells the story of two kung fu practitioners—one without arms, the other without legs—who adapt, train together, and ultimately fight as a unit. It’s a genuinely inventive martial arts film, and one that has earned real respect over time, regardless of how it was marketed overseas.

The artwork on this poster was painted specifically for Italy and, like many exploitation posters from the era, the artist remains uncredited. That was common practice at the time, especially for genre releases produced quickly to meet demand.

For me, this piece represents more than a single movie. It captures a moment when Bruce Lee had become something larger than any one film—a global symbol whose name alone could redefine how a movie was sold across borders. That cultural afterlife is part of what makes collecting posters like this so compelling.

Met Bolo at a comic book convention and got a signed Shoot Fighter poster as well as these pictures from behind the scenes of Enter the Dragon.

In the original script, Roper (John Saxon) was supposed to have died instead of Williams (Jim Kelly). But John Saxon was a more recognizable face to movie audiences than Jim Kelly or Bruce Lee at the time. So they switched the fate of those two characters.

It was also rumored that Lee (Bruce’s character) would fight Bolo instead of Roper. The powers that be felt they needed to even things out so both heroes would get their day.

This was the very first issue of Fighting Stars Magazine. This first issue coincided with the premiere of Enter the Dragon. This magazine would continue for several years profiling martial arts movies and actors who either practiced martial arts or performed them on screen.

A good friend of mine was working for an Ad Agency who was shooting a commercial with Shawn Kemp back in the day. He got Shawn to personally inscribe this card to me.

Met Jackson Browne at Amoeba Records in Hollywood a while back, when he was promoting his then-new album Time the Conqueror. I brought that CD along—and also had him sign his classic Running on Empty.

The real treat was that he took the stage and performed songs from Time the Conqueror for about 30 minutes. Afterward, he sat at a table and met everyone one-on-one. No rushing, no pretense—just fully present, gracious, and genuinely engaged in conversation. An incredibly human experience with an artist whose work has meant a lot over the years.