So I thought I would do another post tonight as I watched a film I haven't seen in quite a while on Netflix, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, which is semi-biographical story on the life of martial artist and film star Bruce Lee. And with that let's give the film a look.....
So the film begins in Hong Kong, where Bruce Lee's father, Lee Hoi-Chen (Ric Young) has a nightmare about his son being killed by a phantom in black samurai armour that haunts Bruce Lee as a child. The film in its opening sequence shows Bruce being taught martial arts as a child and follows his progression into being a teenager. Years later as a young man, Bruce (played Jason Scott Lee) get's involved in a fight during a ballroom dance with some British sailors, and as he faces serious trouble with the police (as one of the sailors he attacked in the son of a police officer high up in the Kowloon police force) Bruce's father insists he leave Hong Kong. Bruce's father also tells him that he had a brother who died in childbirth, and he fears for his son's life that he is being persued by a demon, that preys on inner fear and if Bruce doesn't conquer those fears he may one day die. Bruce's father then decides that he should go to America as his son was born in San Francisco and as he has a US birth certificate he should be accepted as a citizen, and he asks that Bruce make name for himself over there.
As Bruce arrives in America, he get's a job as a dishwasher at a local Chinese restaurant where he get's involved in a fight with some of the staff (as he slept with one of waitresses who was one of the staff's girlfriends). As a result of the fight, the owner (Nancy Kwan) fires Bruce and gives him severance pay and some extra money as an all purpose loan, and she suggests that he invest in an education rather than throw it away. At a university he encounters some racism from the students there and get's involved in a fight, but some of the onlooking students are impressed by Bruce's skill and ask if he will teach them, which he does. As Bruce starts giving classes on campus he meets Linda Emery (Lauren Holly) and they begin dating, and they soon marry, despite Linda's disapproving mother's racist opinion of Bruce. Bruce decides to open a kung fu school, open to everyone and not just Chinese students, which causes annoyance among the other Chinese martial art schools, who insist that Bruce stop teaching to non-Chinese students as they see it as forbidden. As Bruce refuses to do so they insist he must settle this dispute in combat, where Bruce has to fight Johnny Sun (John Cheung) who Bruce manages to defeat, but San attacks Bruce from behind by kicking him in the back, which leaves Bruce seriously injured and immobolised.
In hospital while Bruce is immobilised and placed in traction, he angrily tells Linda to go away and leave him alone, but she insists that he fight back with his mind and use his recovery time to think how to fix the weaknesses of his combat technique. During this time Linda takes notes from Bruce which is later compiled into his book, based on his philosophy called Jeet Kune Do. As Bruce recovers, Linda has their first baby, Brandon, and she soon reconciles her differences with her mother when she meets them again as sees their baby. Burce some time later after his recovery makes an impressive demonstration of his Jeet Kune Do at a martial arts tournament, as he defeats Johnny Sun once again. After the match Bruce meets American producer, Bill Krieger (Robert Vaughan) who hires him to appear in the American TV show, The Green Hornet. However the TV series is soon cancelled and while Bruce and Bill come up with the idea for a show named Kung Fu, Bruce is ultimately passed over in the role and David Carradine is cast instead.
After Bruce's father dies and he attends the funeral on his way home from Hong Kong he is approached by a film producer Philip Tan (Kay Tong Lim) who tells that The Green Hornet has a following in China and that it is known as the Kato show. Tan then offers Bruce the lead part in a film, which soon turns out to be The Big Boss, although during filming, Bruce is confronted by the brother of Johnny Sun, who wants revenge and the two engage in an intense with Bruce finally winning it. On its permiere night, The Big Boss turns out to be a big success in China and Bruce soon makes more films where he works as an actor, director and writer. However this causes tensions between Bruce and Linda as she wants to return home to America, where Bruce feels angry at how he was treated in America and doesn't want to go back to that. Soon after Bruce is approached by Bill Krieger again who tells him that he has another project for him called Enter the Dragon, which would be set to make him a big star, which Bruce agrees to do. However as filming progresses Bruce soon has to face his inner demons, which could cost him dearly in the future if he doesn't confront them.
As a biopic film, Dragon is undoubtedly very entertaining and somewhat cheesy as well it has to be said, but overall it does a fine job in telling the life story of one of China's most iconic figures. And while the film is of course guilty of take cinematic licence with the real life facts of Lee's life, it balances out the events of his life pretty well and you get the gist of what he had to encounter in his time in the US, such as the racism and disapproval of his teaching methods to non-chinese students. It also shows Bruce's determination in trying to make a name for himself in the US as well as gaining the respect of the Chinese back in his home soil, as well as the struggles in his family life. And early on in production the star role was initially offered to Brandon Lee, who turned it down, and he himself sadly later was killed during the filming of The Crow, as he was fataly wounded in an accidental shooting, and the film is dedicated to his memory.
Getting onto the performances paragraph, Jason Scott Lee does an excellent job as Bruce Lee, and he plays the part with alot of warmth, charisma, compassion as well as some indignant anger at how he was treated in the US. Lee himself trained under the tuition of a former student of Bruce Lee's, Jerry Poteet, who studied Lee's Jeet Kune Do method and he does incredibly well in the physically demanding and impressively staged fight scenes. Admittedly there are moments in Lee's performance where he is a bit cheesy and he almost goes from being like an over enthusiastic puppy dog to a spoilt brat, but by large Lee does a fine job with his character role. Lee's best scenes generally come in the fight scenes, particularly in the back alley of the restaurant where he fights with the staff, as well his fight Johnny Sun and later Sun's brother, both which are really well choreographed. Lee also has a nice onscreen chemistry with Lauren Holly and they make their relationship endearing to audiences and you get that they do justice (well enough) to Bruce and Linda's real life relationship. Lee also get's some good lines, especially in the scene where he confronts some university students at the gym, as he fights one of them, and before he does he says to one of them "Don't touch me or I'll touch you back!". And when they fight and he outmanoevers the student who get's angry and says "I'll kill you, you bastard!" Lee replies "I'm no bastard, I'm Bruce Lee!".
Which brings me onto Lauren Holly who delivers a fine performance as Linda, and Bruce's partner in crime, as she plays the all American girl, who falls in love with Lee, and defies the racism around them as well as her mother's own disapproval to marry him and have a family. Holly's best scenes naturally come in her moments with Bruce where they row, particularly when Lee is in hospital recovering from his back injury, and she says to him "You are always telling me about the beauties of your culture, well let me tell you about the beauties of our culture! We love big trouble!!!". And her best scene is the next one where after they argue and she runs out the hospital distraught, she later comes back in and tells Lee to fight back and fix what is wrong with his combat technique by saying "You know everything that needs to be fixed, so fix it. Stop whining and start fighting back, fight back with your mind". Although Holly is guilty of delivering the film's worst line by far when she changes in the back seat of her friend's car to go on her first date with Bruce and she says "Well pass me the bongos, daddy'o!" in sarcastic reponse to her friend's objection to dating Lee. God.
Robert Wagner is also pretty good in his relatively brief role as Bill Krieger, who Bruce works with on The Green Hornet and later on with Enter the Dragon. Wagner has a good line where he walks in on Bruce who is doing some weird training with a typewriter with electrodes attached to his chest, and Bruce says to Bill "Its like doing 200 push ups. Do you wan't to try?" and Bill says "Nah you would just turn it up and try to electrocute me!". Nancy Kwan also does really well with her role as the restaurant owner who temporarily hires Bruce. And she shares a good scene with Lee when she pays off Bruce and gives him money for a loan and offers him two options to spend it all on the waitress he slept with named April or on an education, "Personally I hope you go with April, as I could always use a good dishwasher!".
Rob Cohen (who directed The Fast and the Furious) does a fine job here and he directs and stages the film's fight sequences really well and he also manages to keep the story and the relationship of Bruce and Linda believable and charming for an audience. The film's score is also worthy of note as it was composed by Randy Edelman and it features some pleasant and dramatic tracks, although it does sound a bit dated to its period of the early 90s, but its love theme for Bruce and Linda is regularly used in film trailers to this day so in that regard it is somewhat memorable.
Getting onto the film's flaws??? Yep there are few here, for starters the film is undeniably quite corny in places, and while it is very entertaining, some scenes do make you cringe a bit. An example is where Bruce fights the sailors and he does an amazing somersault and lands on a table full of food, and he picks up a bit of cheese cake and nibbles on it! Also during the fight scenes there is heavy use of ridiculously exaggerated sound effects, such as when Bruce prepares for his fight with Johnny Sun, he cracks his knuckles and cricks his neck, and also does push ups. Also as I mentioned it takes cinematic licence with the facts of Lee's life as an example Lee did fight for his right to teach kung fu to non chinese students in reality, although Sun was a fictional character (Lee fought martial artist Wong Jack Man in real life) but Jack did not kick Lee in the back, and Lee actually injured his back while lifting weights, so obviously the following scenes with Sun fighting Lee again and his brother seeking revenge were fictional. Another big difference is Bruce Lee's book "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" was not published until after his death, but it is depicted in the film as being published shortly after Bruce has been released from hospital. And in reality Bruce took his first American student in 1959 (named Jesse Glover) before he had even met Linda, as depicted in the film he meets Jerome Sprout (played in the film by Sterling Macer Jr, and a fictional composite character) after he and Linda have become a couple and opened their first school together.
The whole concept of Bruce's inner demons is also a bit melodramatic in the film and it seems pretty daft that Bruce's death was the result of his failure to conquer his own spiritual demons. The film at the end with Linda's narration says that "Bruce fell into a mysterious coma and died" suggesting the cause of his death was unknown. However it was well documentated that Bruce was diagnosed with cerebral edema (which is the excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain) two months before his death, which later occurred on the day of his death. So again the film strays from the facts of Bruce's death just for the sake of the whole inner demon concept, which obviously the writers went with for dramatic effect. And in reality Bruce never took up kung fu to ward off inner demons, he took up kung fu for self defence after losing a fight to bullies. (thanks to Wikipedia for all this background info!).
Anyway despite all that Dragon The Bruce Lee Story is a still a very enjoyable biopic film, and while it isn't perfect and takes certain liberties with Bruce Lee's real life story, its still worth checking out.
So with that I shall lie you there....waahhhhhhh!!
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