I don’t think I’d ever seen a Bruce Lee film all the way through, so it was time to rectify that. Bruce Lee bounced between USA and Hong Kong in the 60s in pursuit of an acting career, but it wasn’t until his first leading role in 1971’s The Big Boss that he started to take off. He plays a Chinese man who has moved to Thailand for work, moving in with family to work at an ice factory. Unfortunately the head of the factory has a shady business: hiding heroine in the ice. When a few workers find out, they are killed and their bodies hidden. Lee’s character is promoted to foreman in an attempt to keep him off the pursuit of his missing friends, but he doggedly keeps asking questions, and when the factory owner sends thugs to silence him, Lee answers with his supreme martial arts skills. The movie gets repetitive after awhile with the constant “where are my friends” and the reply “oh I’ve got the police looking into it” that goes on for way too long, but the fight scenes are good, as you’d expect. Nothing too remarkable as a whole, but it is a start, and at the time the movie was very successful (over 1/4th of the entire population of Hong Kong went and saw it). A star was born. ★★½
Lee cemented his reputation the next year in Fist of Fury. He plays Chen Zhen, a martial arts student in Shanghai. His teacher, master Huo Yuanjia, has suddenly died. Huo preached peace, never to pursue combat, and to only use martial arts as a form of exercise and mental relaxation, but those tenets in his school are put to the test when a rival Japanese martial arts school starts flexing in the area. Chen is not about to let his beloved master be belittled and goes over to the Japanese school to rough up their students. It gets worse when Chen learns that Huo was killed by those rivals, by poison. It all leads to a big epic fight, with Chen taking on the entire opposing school, and an big battle against its master in the end. The action is constant and quick, with only minor breaks here and there for the story, and Bruce Lee dominates the screen. Much better overall film, that is exhilarating from beginning to end. It was a huge hit, made on a budget of $100k and making $100 million. A young Jackie Chan can be spotted as an extra in Huo’s school, and apparently was a stunt double for the rival school’s headmaster during his big fight against Chen in the final confrontation. ★★★½
The Way of the Dragon goes in a different direction than the above movies, unfortunately to worsening results (until the end, more on that later). You can tell from the opening scenes that this one is going for more of a comedic angle; in fact, it takes nearly 30 minutes until we really know the plot. Tang Lung (Lee) arrives in Rome and spends awhile getting into high jinks, like accidentally ordering 5 bowls of soup in a restaurant and ending up in a hotel room with a prostitute, all because he doesn’t speak the language (which is, apparently even in Italy, English). Finally he ends up in a restaurant owned by his uncle, who called home to Hong Kong asking for help. Tang is there to act as protection against some thugs who have been scaring off customers to the restaurant, trying to force the owner to sell to a wealthy developer. Tang is there to act as muscle and fight the thugs off, eventually working his way to the head honcho to keep the baddies away for good. Pretty tame movie until, all of a sudden, the bag guy makes a phone call for America’s best fighter to take on Tang. Showing up: Chuck Norris, in his very first film role. Suddenly this movie got good. I’d give it 1 1/2 stars until the final fight, but who doesn’t love Lee vs Norris, and in the Colosseum no less?! ★★★
Here’s the big one, 1973’s Enter the Dragon, a movie both famous for being hailed as one of the best martial arts films of all time, and infamous for being Lee’s last fully filmed movie before his untimely death at age 32 (it was released one month after his death). The first of these films in English, Lee plays a martial arts instructor in Hong Kong recruited by the British intelligence to infiltrate a martial arts tournament on a remote private island. The tournament is held every 3 years by a shady character named Han, who the British believe is involved in human trafficking and drugs, but they need proof, thus Lee’s involvement. They entice him with the news that Han’s bodyguard, O’Hara, was responsible for Lee’s sister’s death. Lee signs up, and enroute meets others going to the island for fame or fortune: Roper, a former soldier with a gambling problem, and Williams, an American Vietnam vet. On the island, Lee gets to work sleuthing around (I definitely got James Bond spy vibes) while kicking ass in the games. This movie has it all: outstanding nearly non-stop action, conflicted characters, and a devilish bad guy complete with a prosthetic hand where he can attach vicious tools of torture. I think even if the mystique of Lee’s death hadn’t surrounded the release, it still would be considered one of the best (it nabbed $400 million at the box office, an eye-popping number today, much less in 1973). Since it is irrevocably entwined with Lee’s sudden death, the legend has grown even more. ★★★★★
Lee had started filming Game of Death before the offer for Enter the Dragon. Upon his death, changes to the plot were made and it was later finished with doubles and stand-ins, and released in 1978 (actually, very little of the original footage was used, after the changes to the movie). Lee (and, mostly, his stand-ins) plays a version of himself, an actor and martial artist named Billy Lo, who has recently hit it big in Hollywood. He is being coerced to join a big crime syndicate, but with his fame and fortune, he doesn’t see the upside and continually declines. As payback, a thug shoots Lo in the face during filming one day, and everyone thinks Lo is dead (in a tasteless scene, they show Bruce Lee’s actual funeral and body/coffin as Lo’s cover). Instead, Lo did survive, and he plans his revenge. Lo makes the trip to the enemy’s encampment and works his way up to the boss. Literally up, as the finale has Lo climbing floors with a video-game like boss at each floor before he can move on to the next one. Honestly the movie is really rough. The scenes where Bruce Lee is inserted are so obviously fake and the re-used footage from his past movies stands out like a sore thumb. His stand-ins are always hidden in shadow or wearing thick sunglasses (even in a dark restaurant!) to try to keep up the illusion. The ending is really the only good part, and those are the scenes that Lee filmed before his death. His climb up the tower, battling villains on every level, including a towering Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, are as thrilling as any fight in Lee’s oeuvre. But, at the same time, those scenes only give a glimpse of what may have been. ★★
Should have stopped going to the well before Game of Death II. Another film culled from stock footage, it isn’t even a sequel to the above film, sharing only the name of the main character. This Billy Lo isn’t a movie star, but is a well respected martial artist. Honestly I was a bit lost in this film. It was something about a friend of Billy’s dying, and then he chasing down the friend’s daughter. It’s hard to follow because they tried to fit in as many old scenes of Bruce Lee as they could, and tried to get dialogue to match his lips, so most of it doesn’t make any sense. About 35 minutes in, Billy Lo dies (queue more scenes of Bruce Lee’s funeral) and his younger brother Bobby Lo goes on the hunt for Billy’s killers. I thought, maybe the film will get better now, when not trying to pigeonhole stock footage of Bruce into every scene. But no, without him, there’s really no reason to watch. The dialogue, if anything, gets worse, and I only lasted 20 more minutes before quitting. ½
- TV series recently watched: Curb Your Enthusiasm (season 12), True Detective (season 4)
- Book currently reading: Starlight Enclave by RA Salvatore
Jons Movie Takes 