Monday, January 21, 2013

Enter the Dragon (1973)

Director: Robert Clouse                                  Writer: Michael Allin
Film Score: Lalo Schifrin                                Cinematography: Gil Hubbs
Starring: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly and Ahna Capri

Tragedies abound in filmmaking, and Bruce Lee is no exception. After numerous minor roles in Chinese martial arts films he had finally achieved star status, control over some aspects of the content of his films, coordinated all of the battles, and even began to insert his own personal philosophy into his films. But just as he had completed his break-out film, Enter the Dragon in 1973, he tragically died. Lee is often credited for making martial arts a mainstream genre and opening those films to western audiences, and in another case of Hollywood what-might-have-been we’ll never know what kind of impact he would have had on the film industry, though one presumes it would have been significant.

The film is based on a script hastily thrown together to capitalize on his recent Hong Kong films, and Lee was teamed with B movie star and TV everyman John Saxon at the request of the studio. Lee plays an agent who is infiltrating the island stronghold of a crime boss for a secret British intelligence agency. But at the same time he has also been given the task of taking down the boss, who was once a member of Lee’s martial arts temple, for breaking the code of the temple and using his knowledge for evil. Add in the fact that he is also there to avenge his sister’s death at the hand of the boss’s henchmen, and it's a potent brew in which to demonstrate Lee’s considerable skills.

As for the film itself . . . ? The obvious budget restraints make themselves evident early on, as the entire soundtrack was dubbed in later in the studio. The score by Lalo Schifrin, though, is classic 70s soul cinema with the occasional Chinese inflections, well worth a listen on its own. As for the fighting, Saxon is obviously not a great martial artist as the camera moves in close on him when he’s fighting so that you can’t really see his hands or feet. Jim Kelly is good in the time he’s allotted, but his character doesn’t last long. Lee, on the other hand, is simply magnificent. The slow motion shots alone are worth the price of admission. The climactic scene in the hall of mirrors is a great way to cap off the film that really launched the genre.

In his A List review of the film, former New Yorker critic Michael Sragow says “Lee’s triumph is one of personality and vision, not just physical performance,” and that is so true. In his films it is Lee himself we come to watch, not just the fighting. At the end of his review he says that no one since has been able to bring to the martial arts film what Lee did, and I would concur. There’s a temptation, from our distance of forty years out, to see Enter the Dragon as just another kung-fu movie. But it was the first and, in many ways, still the best, and that is really due to Bruce Lee himself, a talent whose time ended much too soon.

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