Look! Up in the sky! It's... Jim Kelly?!?! I didn't know he could fly!
Welcome back to Martial Arts Month. Today, I’ll be looking
at a few movies that starred the man known as Jim Kelly… and no, I’m not
talking about the football player! For those who don’t know about the man,
here’s a quick bio on his career. Kelly got his big break when he starred in
the 1973 movie, Enter the Dragon. Because of the success of that movie, Kelly went on to
star in a lot of movies during the 1970’s. He mostly starred in Blaxploitation movies which were flourishing during the 70’s. After the 70’s,
he wasn’t in much if anything at all. I remember reading that he took up a
career in tennis during and after his stint in the movies.
The last thing I remember seeing him in was a deleted scene
from the movie, Undercover Brother. I’m just wondering what idiot had that scene
deleted because I loved it. He recently died last year due to cancer at the age of 67. My liking of the guy stems from Enter the Dragon and my dad who also
likes martial arts movies and grew up in that era. I actually found a DVD set with some of Kelly’s
movies at Wal-Mart and and I got it for my dad’s birthday. I also found another movie
(The Tattoo Connection) at this used book store in Murfreesboro. Kelly had recently passed away at that time and I got into a little conversation with the
owner of the store about it.
Most of the movies I’ll be talking about come from the set
from Wal-Mart. They are Black Belt Jones and Three the Hard Way. I was going to
look at Hot Potato, but there’s only so much I can put myself through. In other
words, that movie was bad. The last movie I’ll talk about is called The Tattoo
Connection, but it is also known by the names of Black Belt Jones 2 and The
Black Six Million Dollar Man.