Enter the Dragon (1973)

This classic Bruce Lee kung fu movie does not disappoint. Starring Bruce, Black Belt Jones, Sek Kin, and Bolo, how could it not be fun? It helps when watching this movie to remember that it was a joint Hong Kong/USA production and in many ways the cast was an international ensemble.

The story is a thin borrowing of Dr. No, complete with a villain having a metal hand who carries around a white cat. Bruce works with the Hong Kong police to bring down this evil drug lord who had a hand in the death of his sister. The bad guy’s lair is on an island of course, with traps and lots of minions. Bruce is headed there to join the tournament where the Big Bad looks for new recruits and new victims.

John Saxon plays an American guy in deep debt looking for a score at the tournament. Jim Kelly’s character is there because he likes to fight and win. Sadly, John Saxon has most of the dialogue and while he is engaging enough, his fighting skills are sorely lacking. I would have preferred more dialogue from Bruce Lee and the charismatic Jim Kelly (who was a real karate champion).

Sek Kin, who was around 70 years old when the film opened seemed to take great delight in his villainous role and fought with vigor. Bolo Yeung picked up his stage name from this film. He often played the bad guy the hero fights to show his ability but I always find him interesting to watch. Sammo Hung had a brief scene at the beginning sparring with Bruce.

Bruce Lee is incredibly fast and usually slows his moves down for the camera, but in one scene he goes at full speed and it looked like one move, but if you slow it down you can see it’s several. And of course, Enter the Dragon has THE iconic kung fu fight scene where Bruce Lee and the Big Bad fight in the mirrored room.

What I liked most about the fights is instead of landing several hundred blows that the opponent shakes off, this time the fighting was quick, brutal, and often deadly.

The production values were higher than the standard kung fu movie. The music was much better than most kung fu movies and the sets were nice if a little heavy on the red lacquer and dragon imagery. The language was dated and women are mostly there for the men’s pleasure. There are also scenes with racism in them. It’s not a perfect film.

What it did well was raise the bar for kung fu movies in how they were shot and how fight scenes were choreographed. Bruce Lee’s moves are legendary for a reason and as an actor he is compelling to watch. The movie earned $350,000,000 world-wide against a budget of $850,000 proving that Western audiences were open to what he was offering.

This was Bruce Lee’s last movie, not counting the ones that were spliced together with old footage and look-a-likes, and it makes you wonder what more he could have accomplished. He worked to be a bridge between East and West and this movie took a small first step in doing that.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of Enter the Dragon, arguably the most well known of the Bruce Lee movies. Especially, for western audiences. I'll take Big Boss and Fist of Fury over this. I have seen this multiple times. We watched a lot of martial art movies when I was a kid and Bruce Lee was always everyone's favorite.

I just watched tonight on the big screen. It was my first time seeing on the big screen. It's the standard revenge story with a little espionage thrown in for good measure. It was the 70's afterall. It's definitely, a dated movie but It's still was enjoyable. Young me really like the movie. Old me thinks it's just ok; but Bruce Lee is a legend for a reason. His charisma and martial arts are top notch. He was also the fight choreographer on this film. The cast if pretty good and a young Angela Mao has a small role as Bruce Lee's sister.

8/16/23

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