Released: August 1973
Director: Robert Clouse
Rated R
Run Time: 102 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Genre: Action
Cast:
Bruce Lee: Lee
John Saxon: Roper
Jim Kelly: Williams
Ahna Capri: Tania
Kien Shih: Han
Bob Wall: Oharra
Bolo Yeung: Bolo(as Yang Sze)
When you think of iconic movies, what comes to mind? Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Lawrence of Arabia? You wouldn’t be wrong on any of those. Those are incredibly iconic films that have earned their place in film history. Many of them have found their way into the Library of Congress. That’s how important some of these films have become. Sometimes, films can be iconic for specific reasons. Darth Vader’s reveal at the end of Empire Strikes Back is one of the most iconic reveals in movie history. It took the world by surprise. In other genres you have The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, The Unforgiven, Indiana Jones, Rocky, and The Terminator, just to name a few. In the martial arts genre, you have outstanding films like Police Story, Bloodsport, and Ip Man. But none are as iconic as Enter The Dragon. Released in 1973, Enter The Dragon is considered by many, myself included, to be one of the best martial arts movies ever made, and I’m reviewing that film today.
The story of Enter The Dragon is pretty simple, but it works. A shaolin monk, Lee, is recruited by a government agency to infiltrate a martial arts tournament to investigate Han, a former shaolin monk who used his knowledge to further his criminal empire which includes drug and human trafficking. As I said, it’s pretty simple. At the time, people didn’t go to movies like Enter The Dragon for the story. Over the next few decades, more martial arts movies have been doing better in terms of incorporating stronger story-telling into their movies. That said, there is a charming simplicity to the plots in the old kung-fu movies. It allows the film to move from one action set-piece to another. Ultimately, the overall story in Dragon is simple, the stories for the individual characters are actually fairly interesting. While Lee is convinced to go to the tournament, he visits his father who tells him the truth about his sister’s death at the hands of Han’s bodyguard, Oharra. Williams is out for glory essentially while dealing with racism at home, and Roper is on the run from the mob. Williams and Roper clearly have history as they served in Vietnam together and are close friends. These three characters are at the fore-front of the film and they work pretty well together.
The acting in Enter The Dragon is pretty solid across the board. Jim Kelly plays Williams and was one of the first black martial artists to have a starring role in a major movie. His performance is electric. He’s so much fun to watch, even when he’s fighting with some of those goofy sounds that he makes. Some people may not realize this, but John Saxon, who would star in movies like Nightmare on Elm Street was a martial artist himself. He held a black belt in karate, and you can definitely tell that he knew what he was doing in his fight scenes. He was pretty convincing. For fans of martial arts movies, you might recognize Bolo Yeung here. He took the name of Bolo from the character he played in Enter The Dragon. His real name is Yang Sze, but most people know him as Bolo Yeung. He would go on to star in movies like Bloodsport and Double Impact playing villains, and he’s really good at it. The real star of the show, however, is Bruce Lee. After showing up in The Green Hornet as Kato, Bruce became a star almost overnight. While his martial arts talents were what really put him over, he had an outstanding screen presence, and his speed was unrivaled. His role as Lee in Enter The Dragon is perhaps his most iconic. Unfortunately, Bruce would ended up passing away before the film was released, so he never got to see how audiences responded to his film. Sadly, we would end up losing a large number of people involved with Enter The Dragon over the past few decades. Jim Kelly passed away back in 2013, and John Saxon left us last year. The actress that played Saxon’s love interest, Ahna Capri died in a car accident back in 2010. The film’s director, Robert Clouse, passed away in 1997. There are a handful of people from this film that are still with us including Bolo Yeung, Sammo Hung(he fights Bruce Lee at the beginning of the film), and Jackie Chan in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo as a guard. Enter The Dragon launched the careers of a lot of people, who would become famous in their own right.
For a movie that’s approaching 50 years old, the action here holds up incredibly well. The fight sequences were staged by Bruce Lee himself and aided by Pat E. Johnson, who would become a pretty good choreographer in his own right. Bruce Lee was incredibly fast. He was so fast that he had to slow down his movements so that the cameras could capture them. The opening fight in this movie between Bruce Lee and Sammo Hung is a hell of a way to start a movie. It kind of sets the tone and style that you would see throughout the film. While Bruce Lee had studied Wing Chun primarily, he studied other styles and incorporated them into his fighting style, and it really shows here. My favorite fight scene happens to be between Bruce Lee and Bob Wall’s Oharra. Even though Bruce slowed himself down so that the cameras could pick up his movements, the first moments of the fight are incredibly fast when he punches Oharra. It’s an emotionally powerful fight, because Oharra was responsible for Lee’s sister’s death. Watching Oharra get frustrated throughout the fight only to be beaten is incredibly satisfying. The fight with the guards in the island’s interior leads up to one of the most iconic and replicated moments in martial arts movies: Bruce Lee using nun-chucks. Each fight scene amps up in intensity and leads to one of the best on-screen brawls between the “students” and Bruce and John. The cinematography during all of these fight scenes is phenomenal. The fight sequences in Enter The Dragon would be the gold standard for on-screen fighting until Jackie Chan’s Police Story a decade later.
Enter The Dragon is one of the most influential martial arts movies of all time. It’s considered by many to be the best movie of its kind. Myself, I’ve seen this movie countless times since I was seven. I’ve been a huge fan of Bruce Lee my entire life, and he inspired me to take up martial arts myself. Obviously, he’s inspired thousands, if not millions of people world-wide. In fact, Bruce Lee is the reason that kung fu showed up in the west. He felt that Chinese kung fu should not be limited to China itself and that the rest of the world has the right to experience what makes Chinese culture so unique and interesting. While fight choreography has improved greatly since Enter The Dragon, the film itself is still the gold standard by which most martial arts films are measured. The movie has influenced everything from Bruce Lee knock-offs to video games and comic books. There have even been movies made about Bruce’s life. Although Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story isn’t the most accurate, it is the most watchable. While some Wing-Chun masters don’t particularly care for Bruce Lee, mine didn’t, they can’t really deny that Bruce Lee was important in making kung fu popular. Even to this day, Bruce is still influencing people around the world. Very few people have accomplished as much as Bruce did in his short time on this planet. His son, Brandon, would follow in his footsteps, in more ways than one, unfortunately. Brandon passed away when he was 28. Bruce’s daughter, Shannon is carrying on his legacy by keeping his stories and memories alive.
Enter The Dragon and Bruce Lee have left a lasting legacy that will continue long after I’m dust. It’s not always about the film itself, it’s about what the film represents. Enter The Dragon was the first co-production between Hollywood and a Hong Kong film studio, and because of that it reached a larger audience. In the end, Enter The Dragon is a legitimate classic film in so many ways. It’s inspired so many people around the world and has shaped an industry for the better. I just double-checked and Enter The Dragon did find its way into the Library of Congress. That means the film is going to be preserved for as long as the Library exists if all other copies vanish. That’s a HUGE deal. So…do I recommend Enter The Dragon? Uh…hell, yeah, I do! I grew up with this movie, as did a lot of people, and it’s one of the greatest movies of its kind. In fact, this movie is a cinematic legend, and that’s where I’m going to putting it.
My Final Recommendation: Don’t think. FEEL. I’m not going to give this film a score, because it doesn’t need one. In my opinion, Enter The Dragon is above reproach. It’s just awesome.