most people seem to think enter the dragon was the best bruce lee film ever. i don't reckon. see, although it was good, the boss at the end wasn't that good, and the mirror scene for me wasn't great as it slowed the fight up i think.
for me, the way of the dragon is the finest film bruce ever made. every fight in this film is cool, and of course, it has the infamous double nunchuk sequence (another reason it is better than enter ...) outside the restaraunt, in which bruce beats some thugs who aren't really cut out for this sort of thing, including a jim kelly wannabe (we even get lovely funk music when this cat starts to spar, but he gets taken out pretty quick) who failed because he wasn't too busy lookin' good. and his 'fro wasn't big enough.
but it also has the fight with chuck norris, the hairiest karate expert in the world, later to star in a small time tv show called harry and the hendersons. this is a pretty cool fight, and even though chuck doesn't look that good next to bruce, he was apparently the only person they could find to match bruce, and i guess you don't get to be multiple times world karate champion if you can't fight. this fight at times looks improvised, i'm not sure if it was or if it was just good choreography. bruce, afting getting knocked about a bit starts to bounce in the bruce stylee, and chuck has to abandon the tradiational karate rigid stance to keep up.
as bruce only did a few films, and they are all good, they are all worthy of mention. the big boss is maybe the weakest of the films, but as it was bruces' first major film, and led the way for the others, it needs to be appreciated. fist of fury is excellent, with bruce beating up a whole japanese school, (if possible get the uncut version, and see the nunchuk sequence in this fight), and in watching this film you can also see where e from the eels got his look, when bruce dresses as the telephone repair man. enter the dragon is a pretty good film, although han, the main baddie is a bit wet and has pretty poor style, and it has bolo as well, who is pretty cool. unfortunately it has john saxon. nuff said. game of death was also gonna be cool, but the poor editing with the stand-in actors made a bit of a crap film. the worst thing was using old bruce lee footage to paste into the story line, but then cutting out the proper footage of the big end fight sequence with danny inosanto using sticks and nunchuks. |
