If you are not a fan of martial-arts films but feel you need one example of the genre in your film library, Enter the Dragon is probably your best choice.
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Before there were "Crouching Tigers" and Jet Li's, there was "Enter the Dragon" and Bruce Lee. I'm not sure if the movie was originally meant to be as tongue-in-cheek as it comes off today, but it's certainly as much fun as ever.
"Enter the Dragon" is notable for several reasons. For starters, this 1973 release was martial-artist superstar Bruce Lee's last completed film before his untimely death. Second, it was Lee's most financially successful film. Third, it is the movie most often credited with popularizing the kung-fu cinema craze; that is to say, without Lee we might not have had Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Yun-Fat Chow, Jet Li, and the rest. But most important, it's a darned good action yarn.
In other words, "Enter the Dragon" is not just a historical curiosity but a highly watchable and enjoyable commodity. It may not have the glamorous special effects of today's "Crouching Tiger" or "Kill Bill" epics, but Lee and his co-stars, John Saxon and Jim Kelly, more than make up for it in personal charisma (lots of it) and action sequences of balletic, if undeniably turbulent, grace.
Warner Bros. have issued "Enter the Dragon" at least four times now on DVD, first in a regular edition, then in a single-disc Twenty-fifth Anniversary Special Edition, then in a Twenty-fifth Anniversary Commemorative Edition, and now in this Two-Disc Special Edition. Each time, things get better, but the buyer must have to wonder where it will all end. This latest edition offers improved picture and sound and a slew of new bonus features. If that seems intriguing and you're a serious Bruce Lee fan, the set is worthwhile. If you've never bought the film on DVD before, I can't imagine it getting much better than this before high-definition arrives.
The plot is pretty flimsy, but the movie is not about plot. Lee, whose name in the film really is Lee, is asked to infiltrate a martial-arts tournament on the island fortress of an evildoer named Han (Shih Kien), a fellow at the head of a drug and slavery empire. Han is a renegade Shaolin monk who has disgraced his and Lee's temple with his heinous behaviour and whose men forced the suicide of Lee's sister, so Lee has a double motive for revenge. With the help of fellow tournament competitors Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly, the 1971 international middleweight karate champion, looking like he stepped straight out of TV's "Mod Squad"), Lee beats up an army of bad guys and defeats the evil Han.
The acting is rather stiff, but there isn't a lot of need for acting when the action is so spectacular. I am not a big fan of kung-fu movies in general, but the fight sequences in this one are as compelling to watch as modern dance. The clothing and hairstyles date the picture, but that's of little concern; like the James Bond series, it's the riveting action and the beautiful settings (most of them shot on location in Hong Kong) that matter. More reflections of the Bond series, by the way, can be heard in the music of Lalo Schifrin and seen in the villain's artificial, Dr. No-like hand and his Blofeld white cat, while literal reflections of Orson Welles's "The Lady from Shanghai" can be seen in the climactic mirror scene.
Additionally, among the cast are Bob Wall as Han's dastardly bodyguard, O'Harra; Yang Sze as the monster martial artist, Bolo; Ahna Capri as Han's chief mistress, Tania; and Betty Chung as the beautiful secret agent, Mei Ling. Look, too, for brief, uncredited appearances by Keye Luke (of the old Charlie Chan series), Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, and Jackie Chan.
"Enter the Dragon" was also billed as "Long zheng hu dou," "The Deadly Three," and "Operation Dragon," take your pick. The movie received an R rating at the time of its release for some brief nudity and a good deal of punching and kicking. Today, I doubt it would rate more than a PG-13.
Bruce Lee stood 5' 7 1/2" and weighed 135 pounds. Yet, over three decades later he remains filmdom's premier martial artist. Makes all of us little guys proud.
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