Enter the Dragon (1973)

 

Lee, a highly proficient martial artist and instructor from Hong Kong, is approached by British Intelligence.  They want him to attend a high-profile martial arts tournament on a private island owned by a businessman - and suspected crime lord - named Han.

Shortly before his departure, Lee learns that the man responsible for his sister's death, O'Hara, is Han's bodyguard on the island.  The mission now has a personal element.

Fighters from all over the world are attending the tournament, most notably an indebted American gambler named Roper and his old friend Williams, who is a Vietnam veteran.

It turns out that Han runs the tournament as a way to find dangerous men of a flexible moral nature - men exactly like Roper, for instance.  He's also smart enough to quickly sense an enemy hidden among the crowd of fighters he has assembled.  Things are about to get even more dangerous for the men enrolled in the tournament.

Enter the Dragon is the film that made Bruce Lee a bankable star in the west, but was unfortunately made only shortly before his untimely death.  By the time it was actually in cinemas, he had already passed.  

In watching the film, it is easy to see why Lee made such an impact with audiences.  He's not technically a great actor, but he has tremendous presence on the screen, and incredible physical intensity.  Hong Kong audiences were already well aware of this, of course, but this was the first time the English-speaking world had been given a real chance to experience it.

Now, the film isn't likely to win awards for its storyline, which is pretty uncomplicated martial arts hokum.  It's also not going to win many points for his gender awareness: apart from Lee's sister, who exists purely to die, the female characters exist largely to remove their tops.

That said, however, the film does what it does very effectively.  Footage of Hong Kong is well-used in setting the scene and providing ambience, and the fight scenes - choreographed by Lee - are well-constructed and staged.  They're nowhere near as extravagant as modern action day films like those the Marvel films, but they're also done without large amounts of CGI and an immense crew with high tech gear.  They also make good use of varied environment and structure, with the climactic battle in a room full of mirrors being particularly memorable.

One interesting thing about the film's script is that the ending has a slightly downbeat tone.  While the good guys do win (surely it's not a spoiler that Bruce Lee is ultimately triumphant?), the aftermath of the final conflict does not have the triumphant air you might expect.  It puts more emphasis on the cost of the victory, physical and otherwise.  That's - at least for English-language films - an unusual choice, and one that I think works quite well to give the film some extra gravity.

Deservedly considered a classic of the martial arts scene, and a film that aficionados of the punchy-kicky should certainly seek out.