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I like martial arts movies. I can live with the silly stories and just watch to see amazing athletes at work. This movie is generally regarded as one of the classics in the genre, so when it was aired by Veronica last night I decided to see what Bruce Lee had in store.
“Enter the Dragon” tells the story of Lee (no first name given, played by Bruce Lee). He is sent to mysterious island by the English secret service to spy on a man named Han. Han runs a martial arts school on the island, but is suspected of running a criminal organisation as well. The only way to get Lee on the island is for him to participate in a martial arts tournament held by Han.
The first thing that struck me is that the studio probably didn’t want to bother the public with the differences between Karate (Japanese) and Kung Fu (Chinese). Most of the fighting is American style Karate, a very crude form of the ancient art that was very popular in the seventies. Lee plays a Shaolin monk, so he practices Kung Fu. There are two American competitors in the tournament, played by John Saxon and Jim Kelly. Only Kelly has a martial arts background, but even his moves look awfully clumsy compared to Lee’s.
It seemed to me the only real threats Lee has on the island were Han, a Shaolin monk gone renegade, and his enormous ‘bodyguard’ Bolo. Most of the fighting scenes were filmed in close-up, which makes the action hard to follow at times. The horrible pan & scan copy shown by Veronica made this worse. It was probably done to mask the fact the Saxon isn’t really a skilled martial artist. But then neither was Keanu Reeves when he shot The Matrix, and those scenes looked great. I missed the way directors nowadays use lots of slow motion shots to show all the action in detail. The average Jet Li movie has so much more enjoyable action sequences in it because of that…
As you can tell by now I wasn’t really impressed. Lee probably is the best Kung Fu actor there ever was, but director Robert Clouse just isn’t John Woo. I must say though that the mirrors bit towards the end looked great. And since the action didn’t really win me over, I found myself left with a poorly acted, campy movie from the year I was born. Which was actually OK. The stories seem to have gone downhill from here.
Rated *** (out of 5), But I recommend seeing true Hong Kong movies like “Fist of Legend” (actually a remake of an older Lee movie) over this if you’re into fast Kung Fu action.
Roy (114 posts)Web designer and programmer, movie fanatic and devoted dad from Huizen, The Netherlands.
10 Comments
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You should also check the fantastically hilarious spoof they made in Kentucky Fried Movie.
This is a classic, but time hasn’t been gentle to it. It secured the breakthrough for Lee in the States though.
Bolo Yeung is really cool; you rarely see such a big Chinese.
Comment by paco — Sun December 14, 2003 @ 16:27Bolo’s cool indeed, but I couldn’t help and wonder whether having that much muscles actually helps when doing Karate…
Comment by weefselkweekje — Sun December 14, 2003 @ 16:31And what is the year of your birth Weefsel?
Comment by suzero — Sun December 14, 2003 @ 18:04From my personal martial arts experience: body-builders that get into karate (or other martial arts) tend to be sluggish. Martial artists that start creating muscles usually become more dangerous. You’d possibly hand in some speed but compensate that with power. Compare it with the muscles of gymnasts and sprinters; you can hardly call them slow or bulky-moving.
Comment by paco — Mon December 15, 2003 @ 1:03@suzero: I was born in 1973 (see review title) ?
@paco: Lee himself looks so incredibly fit in this movie. It’s like his sixpack has a sixpack
He’s so fast the camera actually misses most of his moves altogether 
I did a little Aikido a while back, but there the point is to be fluent rather than fast.
Comment by weefselkweekje — Mon December 15, 2003 @ 8:20There’s a very interesting documentary on Lee’s life. I forgot the name. It’s interesting to see the downside of Lee’s journey to fame.
Comment by reisneus — Mon December 15, 2003 @ 12:32Do you mean “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story”? I saw that a while back and it’s indeed interesting…
Comment by weefselkweekje — Mon December 15, 2003 @ 13:04Do yourself a favour Weefselkweekje,
Go out and hire the uncut widescreen vwersion of this film on DVD. Enter the Dragon is a fantastic film and the cinematography improves no end in widescreen.
I can’t understand how you prefer the slow mo stuff of the recent stuff to the fast pacedfrentic style of the older stuff. I mean, Jet Li’s work in Kiss of the Dragon is far more entertainign than stuff like The One – simply because it’s done at full pace.
To be honest – I thought most of the fighting in the Matrix, while visually cool – gave the impression that the actors were going “1 – 2, low low, high, block, block, high low low, jump kick”. I found the martial arts to be quite average, without all the fancy camera work.
Compare the fighting in The One and the Matrix with Enter the Dragon, Game fo Death and Fists of Fury and I’m sorry, but Bruce Lee would win every time.
Even better, look at the carreer of Jackie Chan – his early work (In particular, Police Story Two, My Lucky Stars, Armour of God, Project A) kicks seven tons of shite out of his later American work (Rush Hour 1 + 2, Shanhai Noon etc etc). Ok Jackie’s getting old now, but the stunts and the energy just aren’;t on the same level. And for sheer fighting work and choreography, check out his REALLY early work, on Legend of Drunken master and things like that – you’ll swear they sped the film up.
Comment by damian — Tue December 16, 2003 @ 11:11@damian: You’re kinda making my point. Imagine what it would be like if Bruce Lee would have been in The Matrix (Jet Li was actually asked to be in Reloaded I think). This movie has the martial arts, but not the cinematography, while movies like the Matrix have the cinematography. I liked The One, as I could follow what Li was doing
I might be a slow watcher…
Also, in Fist of Fury BL showed a lot more fancy fighting than in this movie. I can’t figure out why this one became such a classic, since FoF also has a far more interesting story…
Comment by weefselkweekje — Tue December 16, 2003 @ 13:13@ reisneus, I think you mean ‘Curse of the Dragon’, I don’t know if it’s included in the Bruce Lee DVD box that’s out now, but if it isn’t, it should have been.
BTW. Jackie Chan was a stuntman in Enter the Dragon, he gets hit in the face really really hard with a long stick in the underground battle with the guards.
Comment by Sjimmie — Tue December 16, 2003 @ 16:59