This is my review of Enterbay's latest addition to the Bruce Lee line, Fist of Fury Bruce Lee. Do take note that I ultimately did not purchase this figure (reasons in the review) but did spend enough time dressing, taking pictures, and playing with it to write an informative review.
I had always wanted a Bruce Lee figure. I am a BL fanatic. Being an English educated Chinese myself, I can relate a lot to BL growing up and loves his movies (still do) as a kid with Fist of Fury being my favourite. When I got older, I got into martial arts and The Tao of Jeet Kun Do has been and still is an important reading material for me. I tried learning the nunchaku but failed miserable (as I always hit myself).
I have a poster of him in my room and I considered him my teacher in martial arts philosophy and philosophy of life and I even got a serious mullet going on (even now). Every Chinese New Year I wear a costume very similar to his dark blue traditional Chinese costume (the proper term is sam-fu translated literally as shirt and pants) that's in pretty much all his movies.
Hence, this figure has been one I have really anticipating with high expectation mainly due to the hype and price. It's the most expensive Bruce Lee figure so far with an edition size of 5000 and also the most hype, with aabout two years into the making and release.
So confident are Enterbay with this Bruce Lee that they were already taking pre-orders from customers long before we even get to see a single full pic of the prototype. In fact, pics were only released like a few weeks before they started shipping them out.
When my local toy shop finally got theirs in early December, I went to the store to check it out. Being a regular there, I get to dress Bruce Lee up and pose him for the store's display.
First impression is the box. It's huge, heavy, mainly white except a black and white film still of BL from FOF on the cover, and has a carry handle.
When it comes to packaging, Enterbay's packaging always has this elegance to it. It's a lot more subdued than other companies in general and does give the feeling that this is something really rare and high end in contrast to other companies more consumer friendly and 'louder' packaging.
I was however disappointed that the edition number is just a sticker at the back of the box. For such an elegant packaging, the sticker at the back kinda kills the illusion. You also run the risk of that sticker falling off or goes missing in the long run.
Let's start with Bruce. This is essentially a 2 in 1 set. You get one body but two headsculpt and three hair pieces. You also get two full set of costume, one the white one (the default costume for this figure) he wore in the beginning of the movie and the other one his more classic iconic dark blue costume. My local store has a great promotion going on, they throw in one extra BL body (your choice of 2.5 or 3.0) at no extra charge when you purchase their FOF BL. Buying at their store greatly lessens the damage to your wallets and makes this set more worth your money.
I will start with the body first. This is a body specially developed for the BL line and shaped exactly like BL impressive physique. It has way less joints than the average 301, or TT, hell even less than a SS Buck but it's easily the best looking body out there. It looks very realistic because of the minimal exposed joints and works best for the no shirt/exposed chest look that I am sure a lot of Bruce Lee fan will be going for. It's not the most articulated body out there but enough to pose BL in his iconic poses.
The construction for the body is also top notch. Seam lines are very well hidden or sealed, and there is quite a heft to it which could be good or bad, good because it helps with the impression of quality but bad because it might worn out the leg joints faster than other bodies.
The joints are tight and they hold poses well, so well that you will be confident posing him without a stand. A slight drawback is that a number of customers reported missing magnet at the neck post. BL head uses a magnet system to attached the head to the body and with a magnet missing, the body will be practically useless cause the head will only be dangling on. Insist on checking yours before collecting from the store.
We do get quite a few set of hands and they are all different from the hands included in the separately sold BL bodies. The hands are really expressive and you have more than enough variations. I have two gripes however.
Firstly, the hands do not have a ball joint system (no doubt to eliminate the unsightly ball joint look on the wrist common with 12 inch) and that kinda limits how you can pose his hands. But with so many hands included (if you buy another body) you will be able to find a comfortable compromise.
My second problem is that all the hands are too huge. Thankfully not monkey hands huge but still not proportional to his body. But I can hardly blame Enterbay. All 12 inch companies have problem with hands, either too big or too small. Only once in a while they got it right.
Next is the headsculpt. We get two and I am only really a fan of one. The neutral headsculpt is the better of the two but has the slight problem is slightly huge and long chin/jaw.The other head, the one with the more expression is where Enterbay misses their mark.
First, as evident in the pic, they sculpted that head with really huge and long chin/jaw. Couple with the choice of expression, it makes Bruce look like he got stung by a bee on the chin. I am also not a fan of the expression. It looks like they were trying to capture the look that you can see on the film still under the cover of the box and they didn't quite got it 100% right.
Many collectors I spoke with voiced out that they would have prefer the expression at the final scene during the freeze frame. That's my preference too as it embodies BL more.
It's also evident that something got lost from prototype to final product. The sculpt looks the same but the paint job for the prototype is noticeably better.
It's a clean paintjob but lack any skin detailing that HT have in spades these days. They also painted BL eyebrows too thick. It looks like there are two caterpillar on his face. Correct me if I am wrong but apparently this one has some synthetic skin covering but I sure can't see it.
Enterbay has a changing hair piece system going on with BL (and I believe they are the only one that has this system) and we get three different hair piece. We get three different hair piece, one slicked back hair and the other two standard (similar yet different). The slicked back hair piece is a nice extra but will probably be the less use of the three (His hair was only like that for like not even 5 minutes of the movie). The other two will no doubt find the most time on Bruce's head.
The changing hair piece gimmick is a really interesting thing, giving you the option of a few looks with just a hair swap but comes at a slight cost. Because it is essentially a wig, it makes Bruce looks like he is wearing a wig sometimes. You just can't get natural hairline with these. Other Enterbay's product without the removable hair have much better and natural looking hair line.
The other cool gimmick is the moveable eye. You basically pop Bruce hair off and inside you can turn his eyes left or right, up and down and this adds basically an endless amount of posing opportunity. No more are we limited to only a single line of sight.
It does however comes with a drawback. It makes BL wide eye. No doubt for the system for work properly, they have to sculpt his eye socket larger to accommodate the eyeball inside and also paint his iris larger so it will fill the larger eye socket.
However, of all BL, the one with the worst implemention of this system is the WOTD BL. He got huge anime eyes and we nicknamed him Doraemon around here. The BL with the best implementation of this is the ETD BL. It looks the most natural and not as wide eye as the rest. FOF BL is right in between. Not as huge as WOTD BL but not as natural as ETD BL.
Next on the list is the clothing. This is where Enterbay got everyone beat. The tailoring for both costume is top notch. Really thin scale accurate high auality material and it fits BL body like a glove. The attention to detail is amazing. The buttons on the blue costume actually works and it's amazing how they manage to replicate that on this scale.
The shoes are those type that fit into the feet instead of a peg like HT. I prefer this kind because you also have the choice of barefeet look which is something HT cannot do with most of their figure cause the shoes attached straight into the leg ball joint.
Accessories wise, we get quite bit, first you have a poster folded inside the box, then you have the huge and heavy diorama, his signature nunchaku, and the wooden board.
The diorama is a background from the Japanese dojo in the movie. It's made from really high quality wood, finished with the high end wood shine to it. I The word means 'martial' if I remember correctly. There is also four lotus logo and 3 out of 10 FOF BL came with at least one lotus logo broken (split into pieces in fact).
This is just plain bad QC on Enterbay side. I know it isn't crushed because the diorama faces downwards on the packaging and was placed side to side in the shipping carton. The culprit will be more likely that the lotus was made from really fragile material and any slight pressure will split it into pieces.
To Enterbay's credit, they do send out replacement but you got to glue it back yourself and due to the pattern of the lotus (hollow in the middle) it's a bit of a delicate job or you will have residue glue overspill all over the expensive wood.
A really cool accessory is the sign board which translate into 'Sick man/weaklings of the East (which is Ironic cause Japanese are East too). It's also made from wood. My only complaint is that the words are too centered and should be spread more evenly across the board.
The nunchaku is nicely scaled and a signature weapon of BL. Lots of fun posing option with it.
Overall, if you are a BL fan, this is a must have. After all there isn't any other company out there making Bruce Lee 12 inch figure and you only really have one option.
If you can only have one BL this is the one to get because this is the only one that you can still buy at retail. If you want the ultimate Bruce Lee and willing to pay any price. I recommend ETD Bruce Lee. That's their best effort.
Value wise, this is hardly the best deals out there. Enterbay is the only one with the Bruce Lee license and they know how to milk it. Don't let the edition size of 5000 fool you.
In the world of 12 inch. 5000 is a freaking huge edition size. Even high demand 12 inch the likes of HT have about 5000 give or take. Medicom have even less with most of their domestic characters having an edition size of 1000 only.
HT throws in two headsculpt with most of their release these day at no extra costs. Enterbay has no qualms charging you extra for even an extra hairpiece.
Pricing wise, it will do Enterbay a lot of good to be more competitive. HT basically offers more at a lower price and it will only be a matter of time before HT overtakes them in tailoring and quality of material.
With Enterbay also making a Don Vito Corleone, it will be interesting to see these two competing head to head though HT will probably have an edge in bang for buck because I can already imagine how much Enterbay will be charging for the extra chair.
Now I hope The Big Boss Bruce Lee fares better.
Just checked it all out fast and it looks awesome and i got the signature edition #234 i think it said 
Odd thing though, i ordered a BL-3 body but the gave me a BL-2.5. Can i use it and what's the difference?
