A 1985 Blaxploitation/Kung-Fu movie, in which the pious martial arts student Leroy Green (AKA "Bruce Leroy") who, having practiced and studied for years under his Master's patient tutelage, finally attains the pinnacle of skill possible while a student. To finally achieve his pursuit of "The Glow", a manifestation of perfect kung fu, Leroy must leave his master's supervision and go out into the world and reach this "final level" on his own. Along the way he saves the local distressed damsel, and goes up against the villainous duo of Sho'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, and white business mogul Eddie Arkadian. Quite enjoyable, in an utterly brain-dead over-the-top kind of way.Not to be confused with the novel Last Dragon.
Badass Boast — "Who's the master?! Sho'Nuff!! Shogun of Harlem!!"
Battle Aura - Leroy spends the movie trying to understand how to call upon "The Glow". He is more than a little surprised when Sho'Nuff summons it without effort.
But only in his hands. A true Master's entire body glows.
Beware the Nice Ones: Leroy is generally a kind, respectful, and mild-mannered guy, but harm innocent people or his loved ones and he'll make you pay for it!
Bond Villain Stupidity: Sho'Nuff and his gang insist on martial arts beatdowns. The media-obsessed Arkadian's desire to "put on a show" is more important to him than immediately winning; he even stops one of his henchmen from shooting Leroy during a big staged fight. Once the show is over, however..
Brick Joke: Not really a joke, but when he first meets Leroy Sho'Nuff mocks the stories he's heard of him, including that he "catches bullets with his teeth! Nigga please." At the end of the movie, you can probably guess what Leroy does.
Delivery Guy Infiltration: Leroy succeeds only because the guards are all drunk and stoned. It's not that they're too blitzed to recognize him either, it's because they had the munchies and he was carrying a pizza.
Dumb Muscle: Rock is an odd variant, in that Arkadian uses him like this in spite the fact that he's an absolutely terrible fighter. He also gets in a few good lines.
Foreign Culture Fetish Leroy is decidedly an Asian-phile; wearing stereotypical "rice paddy" garb, speaks Chinese and eating everything (including movie popcorn!) with chopsticks. He's taken it so far that he no longer fits in with his own culture at all, but would probably be perfectly at home in China.
Leroy isn't the only one. Consider the Chinese guys who run the fortune cookie factory. They dress and act sterotypically black and speak jive turkey slang. Leroy runs into them part way through the movie. When they meet it could also be considered a Stereotype Flip.
Groin Attack: The signature attack of Leroy's little brother. His attempt to take on the baddies is abruptly ended by a Mook with the foresight to wear a cup.
Eddie Arkadian's girlfriend? That's Faith Prince. She's had a bit of a side career on Broadway.
Sho'nuff went on to play Lord Bowler alongside Bruce Campbell in Brisco County Jr.
High Heel Face Turn: Angela Viracco (who was Good All Along) pulls one of these while delivering a genuinely badass verbal beatdown to Eddie Arkadian.
Informed Attribute: Sho'nuff allegedly all but controls Harlem. However his gang consists of about five people, and even though he has a reputation, no one seems particularly intimidated by him until he starts beating people up.
When Eddie recruits Sho'nuff at his dojo, a lot more of his pupils/lackeys can be seen.
Informed Flaw: Angela isn't as bad a singer as she's supposed to be, especially considering this is the 80's.
Considering her actress has had a mildly successful career on Broadway it's probably Stylistic Suck.
N-Word Privileges: "Catches bullets, WITH HIS TEETH?! N*gga Please..."
Non-Actor Vehicle - Vanity remains better known as a singer than an actress
The movie centers around Taimak's martial arts skills. He had never acted before in his life and it shows, though his odd delivery actually works pretty well for a guy as socially-awkward as Leroy.
Oblivious to Love: Leroy's a bit too eccentric to pick up on Laura's interest in him, at least until she grabs his head and plants one on him.
Offscreen Teleportation: Thinking he's knocked out Sho'Nuff, Leroy turns his back on his body. Then there's a yell of "Leroy!", to which Leroy turns around to find Sho'Nuff gone.
Oh Crap: Arkadian and Sho'Nuff when Leroy awakens to the Glow.
Leroy also gets one when Sho'Nuff gets The Glow.
Power Glows - According to the movie, a true master of Kung-Fu literally lights up when he fights.
Screaming Warrior: Johnny, one of Leroy's students, theorizes that people are naturally afraid of screaming Asian guys — and discovers that intimidation works better when you don't explain exactly how it works in front of the guy you're trying to scare. Later when he gets dangerous, he incorporates a lot of kiais into his fighting.
Urban Fantasy: The Glow is what pushes it over the top.
Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: As mentioned above, Rock's about to shoot Leroy, but is stopped by Arkadian, who doesn't want all the effort he put into his Carnival of Killers to go to waste. Later Arkadian decides to shoot Leroy himself, but by then Leroy actually can catch bullets in his teeth.
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