
Its best sequences, and the only real reason for seeing it again, involve Lee's phenomenal physical and emotional presence. "Enter the Dragon" goes far beyond the philosophical, of course. And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit," he says, showing his fist, "it hits all by itself." "When the opponent expands," Lee says, "I contract, and when he contracts, I expand. It is the same as the lesson in the film. DVD of "Enter the Dragon," also just released in a 25th anniversary edition, contains an interview in which he briefly expresses his philosophy of combat. Now that's class.Before the opening credits, in a restored scene not included in earlier releases, Lee gives a lesson in martial arts to a novice, and the words are not the scriptwriter's. Then he covers his victim with his kung fu shirt, lays the guy's black belt over him, says a silent prayer and later visits his grave in the cemetery. But the guy keeps coming, and Lee (with great regret) has to kill him. He turns up looking like a cross between Steve Reeves and Chuck Connors, and the two opponents have their final fateful confrontation in, you guessed it, the Roman Colosseum.Īfter great difficulty and several hairy moments, Lee finally succeeds in stunning the other guy's right arm and left leg. At the movie's end, the gangsters in desperation send to America for the defending chop champion. Carter gallops for miles across the desert on this trusty Martian steed, pursued by the evil swordsmen of Tharn, and then sword-fights with them on the castle steps until (having lost an arm and a leg) he loses patience, pulls out his atomic ray gun and vaporizes them. If somebody just shot Bruce Lee, what fun would that be? Reminds me of Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot, a satire on one of those Edgar Rice Burroughs novels about John Carter of Mars. Sixteen goons come at him one at a time, allowing him to methodically stack them up in unconscious heaps while the reserves stand around waiting their turn.īut that is part of the chop-socky code. It goes without saying that Lee is invincible-although only if they play by his rules. At one point, Lee tells his translator, "Tell him if he comes around here again, he will be sorry." The translator turns to the Mafia chieftain: "He say, if you come around here again," etc.Ī lot of the action is for laughs, as when goons attempt to copy Lee and succeed only in knocking themselves out, or when Lee himself, momentarily stunned by an opponent, goes into the Muhammad Ali shuffle to confuse him.
BRUCE ENTER THE DRAGON FULL MOVIE MOVIE
It was a little hard to follow most of the dialogue anyway, which leads us to another curious point: Everyone in the movie speaks English all the time, and yet the pretense is maintained that Lee is speaking Chinese, the Mafia is speaking Italian, and the Americans are speaking English. Chinese karate, but I was unable to follow it because the audience was still cheering Lee's latest triumph. At one point there was a spirited discussion of the various merits of Japanese karate vs. Lee is apparently a master of all forms of martial arts (although they tend to look a lot alike). The rules of violent engagement are much the same as in 1940s Western serials. Lee comes on as a sort of Gene Autry type when a guy comes at him with a gun, he grabs the gun, throws it away and wades in with his fists. If a movie like this were directed seriously, it would be a disaster. This sort of stuff is magnificently silly, and Lee, to give him credit, never tried to rise above it. Lee's assignment, if he chose to take it: Protect the restaurant from the mob. Bruce Lee had been called in from Hong Kong by some Chinese friends who were trying to start a chop suey joint in Rome. It didn't take me long to figure out the plot. I wedged my way into the theater just in time for a mighty roar as Lee eliminated three bad guys with one sweep of his mighty fist, disarmed a Mafioso and sent him head over heels into a pile of packing crates, and zapped a couple more goons with his finger of vengeance. He died in July 1973, only 32 years old, after writing, directing and starring in "Return of the Dragon." He gave kung fu lessons around Hollywood and played a few bit parts here and there, and then he went to Hong Kong to appear in the first wave of the kung fu movies and found himself an international superstar.
BRUCE ENTER THE DRAGON FULL MOVIE TV
Lee used to play Cato, the Green Hornet's faithful companion, on the TV series.
