There are few people on this board who are bigger admirers of Bruce Lee than I, but most of his movies were simply awful.
As I watch Fists of Fury (1971), Chinese Connection (1972), Return of the Dragon (1972), and Game of Death (1978), I get a few goose bumps, but mainly get this overwhelming sense of loss–loss that such an insanely gifted man was squandered by so many hack Chinese directors, cliqued plots, low budgets, and wildly amateurish chop-socky cinematography. Born 25 years too early, Bruce Lee was forced into a short life of cinematic slumming. The people he worked with weren’t worthy of his martial arts genius and today we can only wonder: what if?
There’s no doubt that Enter the Dragon is a timeless, iconic classic that has few, if any, equals today. Yes, Return of the Dragon has that chilling fight scene between Lee and (non-contact) world champ Chuck Norris. But aside from a few other scenes–such as Bruce flexing his traps–the movie redefines cheesy.
Game of Death is a huge disappointment. Lee died just when shooting really got going, but himself greatly detracted by constantly injecting cheesy Zen aphorisms at all the wrong places. When you go to a martial arts flick, you want fighting, not Zen 101 from Professor Lee. As for Chinese Connection and Fists of Fury, they are Chinese moviemaking near their worst. Again, unworthy of Lee’s exceptional gifts.
In a matter of years, Bruce Lee managed to popularize an entire genre. But looking at his filmography and reviewing his big-screen body of work, I can’t help feel he could have done so much more today, even in his short lifespan.
Haven’t seen any of them in about 20 years I gotta admit, but man I thought they were fantastic at the time. I still remember after each all the kids outside the theaters trying to kick each other.
Huh. Just saw a documentary on Lee and his martial philosophy the other night. Game of Death, as awful as it was, was significant for another reason. It was Lee’s most explicit on-screen interpretation of his philosophy of martial arts: have no style, no form, and no limitation. Never get trapped by a style of martial arts, but always adapt.
'Least, that’s how the documentary interpreted it.
I always thought it was, “Be like water, my friend.”
GoD was a mess, but that wasn’t Bruce’s fault. There’s a certain campiness and heavy moralism in the early Bruce Lee movies (and bad dub jobs). There are some awesome parts in those flicks though:
[ul]
[li]Bruce kicking ass in the ice factory (FoF)[/li][li]Bruce beating an Alsatian’s ass (FoF as well, I think)[/li][li]Bruce proclaiming “I’m from the country!” in Return of the Dragon, I think[/li][li]Spotting the young Jackie Chan in EtD - he’s one of the thugs that tries to assault Bruce’s sister. She kicks him in the nads and you see a close-up of his grimacing face. Unfortunately, of course, she kills herself when she is trapped by O’Hara…[/li][/ul]
GoD wasn’t all bad. It gave the inspiration for this arcade game.
His movies totally suck, as do most martial arts movies. Here’s the thing. You may be an expert in martial arts, and you may have a unique philosophy and all, but that don’t make you an actor. Make a documentary or something.
If we cared about acting, we wouldn’t watch so many American films featuring explosions and hackeneyed plot devices, or performers with cults attracted to their looks and personalities. (Yeah, I’m looking at you, Jessica Simpson. You too, Paris Hilton. You too, Matthew McConaughey.)
That’s an interesting way to look at Bruce Lee films: scripted neo-documentaries regarding a philosophy towards martial arts with cinematically appealing martial arts performances. A sort of ballet with dialogue. A particularly violent capoeria attempting nuance and a storyline. Street fighting with scripts and plots.
Lee may not have been a great actor, but he was definitely a star: he was charismatic and good-looking, and most of the time you don’t want to take your eyes off him. The guy didn’t break box office records for nothing.
Movies in this genre are almost always like this. I finally caught up with Ong-bak a few nights ago, and basically it’s a truly great terrible movie. Martial-arts action porn isn’t concerned with acting, or dialogue, or deep characterization; it’s about delivering the slam-bang goods. A movie like Ong-bak succeeds the same way Enter the Dragon does: it gives the target audience exactly what it wants in a professional and creatively original manner. I enjoyed Ong-bak a lot, but I recognize it for what it is. I’d never recommend it to somebody without first carefully discussing their likes and dislikes. Same with Bruce Lee, or Sammo Hung, or any similar filmmaker or performer.
Some movies in this field are somewhat more ambitious, and elevate themselves by more careful attention to plot and/or character, or by injecting more thoughtful material into the story or the world. Game of Death is an interesting if flawed example; I’d include Once Upon a Time in China and Drunken Master 2 as well.
By the way, I use the term “martial-arts action porn” deliberately. Movies in specialized sub-genres exist to deliver specific content in exactly the same way pornography does. One offers explosions, or wire-fu; the other offers a cumshot; and all other considerations are secondary. As long as the primary objective is fulfilled, it doesn’t really matter if the other elements are disregarded. A movie like 36th Chamber of Shaolin is a classic not because of its photography, dialogue, or acting; it’s a classic because it delivers the martial-arts goods on a much higher level than its artistic kin.
I don’t know. They did a pretty good job of rather precisely marrying his philosophy to the theme of the movie…not that they really had to. His climbing up the five level pagoda fighting martial arts masters of different styles until he got to the last (Kareem Abdul Jabbar, whose style was nearly as adaptive and style-less as Lee’s own) was an obvious statement on Lee’s martial philosophy.
Now, the movie was bad. Really bad. The dialogue was amateurish, stiff, and predictable. However, there’s no reason it had to be bad. The structured plot could have had a very mythical feel to it, but they cheese-ified it.
There’s nothing nuanced or well-scripted about his films, however. While Lee was a genuine Baryshnikov, he was surrounded by far too many chops-socky hacks. With the sole exception of Enter the Dragon, the dubbing was awful, the mod-squad lingo worthy of 1,000 rolling eyes, and the–brace yourself–speeding up of fight scenes unnecessary.
Bruce Lee was a bona fide genius. It’s tragic that the directors were so talentless and essentially squandered his talent. I don’t buy the “that’s the way all martial arts films are” argument. Lee’s virtuosity shifted the entire MA paradigm. Too bad he didn’t connect with equally brilliant directors and producers.
Well, they had to finish the movie based on what few scraps they had to work with following Lee’s death, with stand-ins and unfinished fight footage.
Cervaise has a point labelling martials arts porn. Like sexual porn, the action on-screen has less to do with quality acting performances as with the raw power of watching a physical performance. Based on that standard, I’d put martial arts, pornography, sports footage and concert movies all in the same league. They can make great movies on their own terms, but its a bit unfair to judge them by the same standards as acting driven narratives.
I disagree, citing two main things: the nuances of the physical action sequences and how well scripted (or well-choreographed, if you prefer) the fight scenes were.
Yes, but Abdul Jabber was merely a visual spectacle, a sideshow freak, whose MA skills were rudimentary. Yes, he studied under Lee in real life, but take away his towering height and what you have, skills wise, is your garden-variety dojo rat.
here is the Bruce Lee Flash mix generator!