The four real-life members of the punk band, Crying Nut perform at Drug, a popular club near Hong-Ik University in Seoul, the most popular area for underground music in the country. While the band members, Kyung-rok, Sang-myun, Sang-hyuk and Yun-sik live about their lives, a series of bodies are found dead near their part of Seoul. A long-haired exhibitionist who went about revealing himself to high school girls and a girl who had been to one of their concerts, are found dead. Strangely, a picture, object or symbol representing Bruce Lee is left behind at the crime scenes. For this reason, the murders are named the "Bruce Lee Virus". Kyung-rok, the bassist for the Crying Nut, decides to become a detective to solve this mystery. On his quest to solve this case, Kyung-rok runs into many strange and bizarre characters that lead him on a crazy adventure...... In other words, the crew of Crying Nut involve themselves in a slew of silly hijinx that go nowhere.
Looking For Bruce Lee has almost nothing to do with Bruce Lee. What little there is to Bruce Lee is merely just shots of his face popping up here and there once in awhile. Well, that’s what I’d like to think of the movie at least, but there’s actually an underlying plot which involves a series of deaths. Each body that is discovered is found with a picture of the man himself. Kyung Rok decides to find out what’s going on, and this connects Bruce Lee to this movie’s synopsis in a way. The lead of Crying Nut somehow ties with Bruce Lee in his journey to stardom. In one part of the movie, the lead assumes the role that Bruce Lee played in Enter the Dragon in the mirror scene. He’s told that he will become great in his vision. Uh, yeah buddy… And that’s what leads to a concert finale with a bunch of fans in a stadium.
The whole movie is just a bunch of silly situations one after another. Most of the segments are the Crying Nut crew doing some stupid things that get them caught, and we get to follow them running away from the hand of the law. The first one is amusing, but after awhile, it just turns into an overdone joke. Other than that, we have a guy in a trench coat who pretends to be a public flasher, which results in a monk of some sort chasing him out of nowhere. The majority of what happens in this movie doesn’t seem to go anywhere, and seem to just occur for no reason at all… even though some of them do connect to the underlying Bruce Lee virus story. Aside from that, this movie has no point other than to show that these guys are idiots. I can’t even begin to figure out how or why the idea for this movie was passed by the producers. Maybe it was just to cash in on Crying Nut’s newfound fame, or something entirely different, but the movie’s just one big waste of time.
Another point of the movie is their performances. These range from a small underground club to arena concerts. These are the only events that break up the boredom and tediousness of the movie. Yet, I can’t seem to get into their music. Being a punk/alternative music fan, I could’ve enjoyed the music, but I just didn’t. So what could have otherwise been a redeeming factor for the movie, Looking For Bruce Lee is just a big pile of crap that should definitely be overlooked.
The DVD is crap. Video is 1.85:1 letterbox widescreen. Quality is terrible. Much of the film looks like a red filter has been placed over the lens, and grain is present in large amounts. Audio is a standard Dolby Digital 2.0 and sounds muffled for the duration of the movie. Extras are as follows.
About Film
1) Synopsis
2) Director's Note
3) About Crying Nut
- Puchon Fantastic Film
1) Festival Cine Rock Concert
- NG Collection
- Making Film
- Theatrical Trailer
- Music Video
- Still Gallery
- Original Poster
- Wall Paper : Only DVD-ROM
The second disc is an audio CD of a select few songs from Crying Nut.