Enter The Dragon

State of the (Martial) Art

The idea of selling a film based on the celebrity status of its lead actor is certainly nothing new, but it does sometimes lead to disappointment. Sometimes a good actor takes a bad role, hey it happens. No one can bat a perfect game. If they play for a long time, a misstep is inevitable. This might be why the career of one Lee Jun-Fan is so kindly regarded by so many cinephiles. He only managed 4 feature film roles and a few TV appearances before his untimely death. But many critics regard it with nothing but praise for his stunt work and comedic chops (no pun intended I swear). But he left the world with a new-found appreciation and understanding of Hong-Kong Martial Art cinema and stunt choreography and his stage name etched into history and a statue on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. So yeah, Bruce Lee is kinda important.

Enter the Dragon, directed by Robert Clouse, was not Bruce's first movie. Matter of fact, when it was released in 1973, he was a whole month dead. But it remains the movie he is perhaps best known for in the west, due in no small part to it being a Warner Bros-Concord co production, meaning it was given an actual full release in America. But it might also be due to the fact that Bruce absolutely kills it in every scene he's in, especially when he gets to show off his martial arts skills on his poor co-stars faces.

Bruce Lee stars as “Lee”, a martial artist from Hong Kong recruited by the stuffiest Englishman you've ever seen to investigate a martial arts tournament hosted by the mysterious Han on his private island, where he meets a cast of fighters from all over the world. And kicks them square in the face. It's a wonderfully simply plot that facilitates so much great action, without becoming too messy. It does sometimes lose its way a bit, but at the end of the day its there to provide context for the action. And the action is fantastic. At time funny, at others sharpened to razor sharp tension. The final fight between Lee and Han us absolutely incredible. Having a fight in a hall of mirrors were you don't even once see a camera is astounding for the 1970s. And it most certainly inspired that amazing mirror hall shoot out in John Wick 2.

Whilst plenty of fun to watch, it does lack the sort if impact you get from films like The 36^th Chamber of Shaolin, with its deeper plot and complicated relationship with Chinese history. But the thing is, Bruce Lee kicks people in the face really good, perhaps even better than Gordon Liu, and more of the characters stand out with their own names and backstories. And whilst it does have a couple of really stand-out qualities, Enter the Dragon is not perfect. But it is pretty damn close. And it is perhaps the best gateway into Hong Kong Martial Arts cinema for a Western audience, or at least into the full Bruce Lee filmography.