As this ranking of his 24 films demonstrates, Lee appeared in a far wider variety of films than his legend gives him credit for, from comedies to melodramas. To commemorate the 45th anniversary of Lee’s passing and Enter the Dragon’s release, Simon & Schuster has published Bruce Lee: A Life, the first comprehensive biography of the icon’s life and work. It set him on a path to become the world’s first martial-arts megastar - a dream that came to fruition, bittersweetly, with the 1973 release of Enter the Dragon, one month after his death at the age of 32.
It wasn’t until a karate tournament in 1964 when he was discovered by a producer who cast him as sidekick Kato in The Green Hornet TV series. I said ‘To hell with it.’” Instead he decided to become the Ray Kroc of kung fu, franchising dojos along the West Coast. “And when it is required, it is always the typical houseboy or pigtailed coolie stuff. “How many times in a film is a Chinese required?” Lee later explained to Esquire. for college, Lee took a look at the type of roles Asians were offered and abandoned any acting aspirations. By the time he was 18, he had made nearly 20 Cantonese films - none of which were kung fu flicks. His acting career began in earnest at the age of 6 after his family returned to their native Hong Kong. His father, a famous Cantonese opera singer, and his mother, a seamstress and wardrobe woman, were touring America when Bruce was born in 1940 he faced his first movie camera before he was old enough to crawl. Clouse even steals, and quite deftly, from the mirror funhouse scene in Orson Welles’ Lady From Shanghai.This story originally ran in 2018 and has been republished to coincide with Mike Moh’s portayal of Bruce Lee in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.īruce Lee came from an entertainment family. His work is an excellent example of a genre director proving his ready for more ambitious material. Robert Clouse’s fluid direction brings this three-ring circus to action climax, so to speak, after action climax, wringing full potential out of the production. Lee staged the fight sequences himself, and they lift the movie the way Astaire and Rogers used to when they danced in movies of a different fantasy genre. He’s a strange, otherworldly presence, a man of wisdom who excels at action, who speaks of the emotional content of the fight scorning the notion of anger. this is a classic by any yardstick and a must for every collection. Enter the Dragon, which was released shortly after Lees death, was the actors only Hollywood martial arts production.Unlike his past movies, Enter the Dragon centers on three protagonists: Lee (Bruce Lee), Roper (John Saxon), and Williams (Jim Kelly), all complete with their own individual backstories. every young man in he ghetto had a bruce lee hair style and nanchakus were cool.
in those days there was no home entertainment and this movie ran house full non stop for five years.
Betty Chung is a secret agent inside the fortress.Īhna Capri floats through the movie the way Myrna Loy used to in the early Oriental period of her career, dispensing pretty women to the tired contestants like sleeping pills.īut it’s Bruce Lee’s movie. bruce lee - enter the dragon (region free + fully packaged import) bruce lee. Geoffrey Weeks is Lee’s English Interpol contact. Yang Sze is Shih’s muscle bound bodyguard. Peter Archer is an unpleasant New Zealander contestant.īob Wall is the big meanie who murdered Lee’s hapkido belt sister, played by Angela Mao Ying in one astonishing action sequence. Jim Kelly is equally fine as a black American trying to earn money for the movement. John Saxon is extremely good as a compulsive gambler who joins the contest to find his way out of a losing streak. Kien organizes a martial arts contest, which is actually a front to find salesmen to peddle his wares throughout the world. Michael Allin’s inventive screenplay brings Lee to the island fortress of master criminal Shih Kien to find evidence to convict him of white slavery and opium trade. The movie itself, produced by Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller in association with Raymond Chow of Hong Kong’s Concorde Productions, is a whoop-and-holler entertainment, which is to say that it’s a lavish, corny action movie, not boring for a second and as outrageously wry as it is visually appealing. His charismatic presence is remarkable in Enter the Dragon, and it’s a shame he didn’t have the chance to become the great, unique star he seemed destined to be. Bruce Lee Enter The Dragon Wall Art Home Decor - POSTER 24x36. Free shipping Free shipping Free shipping. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:īruce Lee’s last movie is the only one that gives him the star treatment he deserved. Enter The Dragon Bruce Lee Movie Poster Wall Painting Home Decor Gift Art Print. unveiled Enter the Dragon, the 98-minute, R-rated actioner starring Bruce Lee, in theaters.