Streaming Sleepers: Bloody Knuckles Lace The Growing Pains Of Yoo Ha’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN HIGH SCHOOL: THE SPIRIT OF JEET KUNE DO
Indeed one of Korean cinema’s best contributions to coming-of-age dramas has to be writer and director Yu Ha’s third feature directorial outing, Once Upon A Time In High School: The Spirit Of Jeet Kune Do starring Kwon Sang-woo who made his debut opposite Jang Hyuk in Volcano High (2001). The movie is a story of boyhood, bloody knuckles and Bruce Lee worship set in the 70s and I first learned about this film back many years ago when I was a HKFlix customer.
In recent years I was able to check out on streaming via free ad-support platform Tubi, which tends to circulate its titles for a limited time, so these titles rather annoyingly tend to come and go. I wrote my analysis back in 2019 to celebrate the release of another action film on Netflix in a group piece. Alas, with Kwon set for a sequel stint this year in the upcoming Hit Man 2 from director Choi Won-sub, and just as I’ve discovered Ha’s 2004 movie now available once more in Tubi’s library, I felt compelled at the moment to make this film relevant again.
Our own Mike Garcia weighed in on the film as well which you can dive into here. Otherwise, a streaming watch of Once Upon A Time In High School: The Spirit Of Jeet Kune Do is up for grabs once again. With any luck though, we’ll soon see a stateside re-issue of this film on Blu-Ray with some amazing features to boot.
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!