Dragon : L'Histoire de Bruce Lee

52. DRAGON: The Bruce Lee story (action, 1993) A re-telling of the life of legendary martial-arts star Bruce Lee (Jason Scott Lee). From his brief childhood days in Hong Kong, to his days as a dishwasher, martial-arts teacher and eventual cinema superstar in Hollywood.

Critique: The life and death of Bruce Lee has inspired many a film and documentaries since his death. Most of these accounts center around Lee's 'mysterious' death from a 'brain edema', never developing anything really new of interest, just speculations. Incredibly it took over 20 years for a film to finally put to rest the many theories and innuendo.

"Dragon" is by far the best of the legendary Lee story, not only for omitting the many death scenarios but also for giving us the closest account of the man. Apart from these welcome omissions, the film wouldn't have worked without Jason Scott Lee in the role. He gives a spirited, charismatic performance that captures the zest for life that Lee possessed. It's a long way from one of his first 'extra' roles as an Asian immigrant in the rather forgetful "Born in East L.A." (1988). Scott Lee is totally appealing here, taking on such a legendary figure and making us believe that Lee is truly up there once again on the screen.

The film's major theme of the "demon curse" Lee's family inherited, had a frighteningly real resonance when, after the movie premiered, Lee's eldest son Brandon (for whom the film is dedicated) was accidentally killed on the set of "The Crow". This would prove to be his breakout film, just the same way Lee's last film, "Enter the Dragon", made him a world wide superstar. This gives the film an added prophetic note that puts it in a category all its own.

Based on wife Linda Lee Cadwell's book, "Bruce Lee: the man only I knew", directed with skillful restraint by Rob Cohen (who also co-scripted). Randy Edelman created the unforgettable musical score (you'll be humming the tune long after you hear it).

QUOTES: Linda: "All these years later people still wonder about the way he died. I prefer to remember the way he lived."

Very Good But Horribly Inaccurate Account Of His Life

If you are watching this as someone who has no knowledge of Bruce Lee's life then this is a good fun action film but someone who knows the history and the story of his life may be dissapointed as this is not at all accurate. And knowing Bey Logan, he must cringe watching this. The film depicts Bruce's early childhood in Hong Kong, his teenage years in the US right way through to his eventual death in 1973. The element that I think drags this film down the most is the mythological side of it, if it had just been a realistic account of his life without the myths and demons, it would have faired much better. There are many innacurate scenes and occurences in this film which understandably makes the film more exciting for mainstream audiences but as a Bruce fan myself i wish they would have stuck to what actually happened. I wish there were more scenes where Bruce was on set of one of his films, like Way Of The Dragon or Fist Of Fury. There could have been more scenes with Bruce with Yip Man or Brandon. There could have been scenes of Bruce being challenged on the street in his infamous street fights, the episode of the green hornet they portrayed i don't think was an actual episode. And Bruce was not injured by the fighter at the martial arts challenge in Chinatown it was when he was weightlifting and pulled his back out. But the fight scenes are well choreographed.

Jason Scott Lee has got his portrayal of the man spot on, he brings the right amount emotion and power to the role, he's clearly done his research on Bruce's mannerism's and got himself in shape for the role as well as training for the fight scenes. Its hard to imagine anyone else who could have played the role, maybe Jet Li who at the time the film was made was 30 and roughly the right age to play Bruce, but Jet spoke very little English. Lauren Holly is equally as good in her role as Linda. The strong portrayals are in many ways successful because of the on set help of the real Linda and Shannon(who makes a cameo as a singer). The music is perhaps the film's strongest part, somehow the main score seems to catch the right emotion of Bruce's death and Brandon's death in 1993. I like the way the film captures the aura of Bruce Lee.

There will indeed never be another Bruce Lee. I find it fascinating to imagine what Bruce would have done if he had lived, the 80's and 90's would have been very different if Arnie, Stallone, Wiilis, Seagal and Van Damme had Bruce to compete with, Bruce is sometimes critcised for being a bad actor, but i disagree, if anyone has seen his episodes of `Longstreet' or `Marlowe' they will see that Bruce could convincingly carry a dramatic scene given the right script and no dubbing and he oozed charisma, and he showed glimpses of good acting in Enter The Dragon.

Being a Bruce fan i kind of wish that Jet Li would do the films that bruce did or was planning on doing, Jet's early work in Honk Kong like the Shaolin Temple or more recent stuff like Fist Of Legend(remake of Fist Of Fury) and Once Upon A Time In China was very promising and it seemed he was the successor to Bruce but instead now he's doing crap in Hollywood with DMX and Jason Statham. Strangely the mediocre Lethal Weapon 4 is Jet's best Hollywood film, Maybe Jet should do a project with John Woo, it would be interesting and they'd probably get the best out of each other.

Once you became a Bruce Lee addict and begin seeing and reading the numerous different biographies and biopics, you're going to realise that DRAGON has quite a bit of fiction in it - and in the bits you don't really expect it to. For example, Lee approached Raymond Chow's Golden Harvest production company to make a marital arts movie, not the other way round and Chow isn't even the guy! Also, due to Lee's 'mysterious' death, the film also doesn't really an idea of how its going to wrap it all up. Therefore, the film is the perfect example of the word 'vivid'.

However, what makes Dragon the fine film that it is is that it decides to look at the two lesser-known aspects which dominated Lee's life - his long, ongoing 'battles' with an inner-demon and of course the racism of sixties America. These are managed and brought to the screen extremely well although to be fair they aren't particularly well developed.

The highlights would have to be the performances of Jason Scott Lee as Bruce and Lauren Holly as his devoted wife, Linda. They share a remarkable chemistry together and are certainly a credit to their subjects. This review probably hasn't made Dragon sound like a very good movie. Well if that's the case, then please think the opposite.

What a sweet tribute to icon Bruce Lee. I saw the bonus beginning on the DVD version, in which Lee's widow narrates a little message about the movie, set against footage and photos of the real man. She correctly states that the biopic isn't just to celebrate the martial artist, the man, or the philosopher, but instead all of those attributes. I went into the movie not knowing anything about him, except that he died young and made Enter the Dragon, so I was enormously entertained and enlightened. If I'd already read some biographies or documentaries, I might have found it predictable, but every bit of information was new to me.

Jason Scott Lee (no relation) amazingly enough didn't have any martial arts training prior to the film. Instead, he was a dancer, and the studio felt his controlled movements and dedication to his body would make a great fit. After tons of training, he looked wonderful! With every step and turn of his head, you can tell he's completely aware of the muscles in his body. Lauren Holly plays his love interest, whom he meets while teaching a martial arts class at college. You'll also see Ric Young as his father, Robert Wagner as a television producer, Sterling Macer Jr. As one of his first students, Michael Learned as his standoffish mother-in-law, and Nancy Kwan as one of his first employers. Nancy worked with the real Bruce Lee in the late '60s, so her cameo is pretty cute.

With a tearjerker theme that has subsequently been used in numerous trailers, this tv biopic is undoubtedly sugarcoated. Nothing bad happens, but isn't that nice to see for a change? I really enjoyed it, and I also appreciated all the work that went into it.

The story told in the movie is really excellent and entertaining. However it feels more like a story based on the life of Bruce Lee rather then an actual biopic of his life.

Jason Scott Lee perfectly plays Kung Fu legend Bruce Lee. Not only the way he plays Lee is impressive but also his fighting skills.

The music by Randy Edelman was also surprising good.

There are way too many fictitious and untrue things added in the movie to be considered a fair biography. But does it really matter for the movie? It's like "Ed Wood" that was also filled with altered things and false truths but still it was a movie that told us the story of an unique character and what drove him. "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" isn't much different in that way. OK it's not completely fair to compare this movie to "Ed Wood" since that was a far superior movie to "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" (what a horrible title by the way).

The fight sequence are probably the best thing about the movie and they were highly entertaining, although very hard to believe that they actually really happened that way.

It's a good entertaining movie but if you want to get to know more about Bruce Lee this isn't the best material for you to start with.

7/10

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