Adventures in Movies: Dirty Deeds (“The Coffee Table”, Bruceploitation)
This week, things get nasty with a horror film touted as deeply disturbing and a 1970s film that exploits Bruce Lee’s legacy.
The Coffee Table
The first movie we reviewed this week was The Coffee Table.
Critics’ quotes discuss how uncomfortable it will make audiences feel. The director has stated he wanted to make a “cruel” film. And it definitely succeeds on both accounts. But does that make it good? It is one thing to make people watching a film rethink their positions on things; it is something else entirely when the goal is just to make people feel ugly.
It can be argued that Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave (America bangmungaeg) is just as disgusting, though for completely different reasons. Released just three years after Bruce Lee’s death, the U.S. distributors added a tasteless opening and title that have nothing to do with the actual plot. This was simply about capitalizing on someone’s death in the most crass way possible.
The fact it stars Bruce K.L. Lea (aka Jun Chong) may be the most sensitive part of it all.
The actual movie has nothing to do with Lee or anything supernatural. It is a straight-up action movie about a man trying to find his missing brother. It is filled with the wackiness expected of a martial arts movie from the 1970s. Unsurprisingly, it does not live up to anything done by Bruce Lee.
The question is, should you spend an hour and a half of your life with it?
Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave (1976)
You can watch Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave on Tubi.
You can rent The Coffee Table on Amazon Video.
ABOUT THIS PODCAST:
Every week AIPT Movie Editor Nathaniel Muir and his cinema partner in crime Blake Heath discuss indie and genre movies you have have never heard of, the ones you cannot hear enough about, and the ones you never want to hear about again.
Episode 369: ‘Find Your Friends’ (2026)
Aside from Art the Clown, what has Damian Leone contributed to horror? We also come dangerously close to gatekeeping while we discuss what extreme horror is. Plus a discussion on the 28 Years franchise somehow leads to a talk about The Bride.
We spend a good amount of time talking about Find Your Friends. About 98% of it is spent on the film’s writing. It does not take long to realize this is not a good thing. There have been plenty of movies that have led to a discussion about the writing. There has been nothing like this one.
The movie clearly deals with sensitive subjects. But it does it in a way that downplays the circumstances, the victim, and its heady themes. It is so bad that we have to constantly reiterate how we are not shitty men. (Who knows? Maybe we are. But that’s a different matter.)
How bad was the writing for Find Your Friends? So much so that we were constantly filing in story beats to make it make sense to us. And even then, we were still frustrated by what we had seen. This movie had all the ingredients to tell a powerful story about how women are treated. It instead was content to erratically work towards its admittedly wild finale.
Adventures in Movies! is a part of the Morbidly Beautiful Podcast Network. Morbidly Beautiful is your one stop shop for all your horror needs. From the latest news and reviews to interviews and old favorites, it can be found at Morbidly Beautiful.
Adventures in Movies! is hosted by Nathaniel and Blake. You can find Nathaniel on Instagram at nathaninpoortaste. Blake can be found on Twitter @foureyedhorror and on Instagram at foureyedhorror. You can reach us personally or on Twitter @AdventuresinMo1.
Music in the background from https://www.FesliyanStudios.com
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Adventures in Movies! is hosted by Nathaniel and Blake. You can find Nathaniel on Instagram at nathaninpoortaste. Blake can be found on Twitter @foureyedhorror and on Instagram at foureyedhorror.
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