The film that broke the Martial Arts genre into the mainstream, Enter the Dragon remains a benchmark for all subsequent physical action films, whether they be from America, Hong Kong or wherever. However, it�s legacy is primarily one of it�s first impact and the importance it holds as a US-financed, Bruce Lee starrer, rather than it�s quality of acting or even of the fight scenes. Lee of course is magical and his movement and ability are, and probably always will be, second to none. He seems almost fluid as he fights, his only link to the true physicality of actions being the primal animal noises he emanates as he dispatches wave after wave of pitiful enemies. If ever there was a man who totally embodies one style of movie it is Lee, and it remains an immense shame that he was unable to continue making movies and to achieve the level of stardom some of his later contemporaries have.
Enter the Dragon is a simple enough film, and surely served as the bedrock for Paul Anderson�s surprisingly good Mortal Kombat adaptation. Lee plays a martial arts teacher who is approached by the government to go and fight in a tournament held on a secluded island and ruled over by a man whose criminality is beyond doubt. As the island is heavily defended by a legion of troops and any fight in would be a bloody one, it is hoped that this opportunity will allow Lee to sneak into the bowels of the island and uncover exactly what it is that is happening there. On the way to the island he meets up with some other hopeful fighters, John Saxon�s Roper, and Jim Kelly�s Williams, cocky Americans who intend to use the tournament as a way of extracting as much money as possible from the betting fraternity on the island.
The plot is thin, the acting quite weak, but who ever cared about that when they watched a chop-socky movie? In all fairness it moves along better and with more reason than most Hong Kong flicks that followed, even if they later perfected the fight scenes used here. For a film lauded for it�s action content and realism, the co-ordination of the fighters is quite poor. Lee seems to know what he�s doing, but the hundreds of hapless stunt men he annihilates do everything in their power to crumple as far away from his as possible. While the later Chan, Hung and Li movies literally broke the backs of their stuntpeople in the name of realism, this is quite poorly co-ordinated and the rigorous standards that you would ordinarily expect are simply not in evidence. Kelly can fight, and does so, but Saxon is a bit wobbly at times, and his lack of true skill is more than evident at times. All credit to Robert Clouse�s direction then that he manages to fool the audience into forgetting about these problems by cracking the film along at a good pace and including as many fight scenes as possible.
At the end of the day it was always going to be the case that Enter the Dragon would be topped as it was a forerunner, a break-out film, and not the epitome of the Martial Arts genre. To me Lee�s best film, and one of my personal favourites that has better stood the test of time, is his Fury of the Dragon, released a year earlier and starring Chuck Norris as Lee�s deadly opponent Colt. |
