Enter the Dragon

Bruce Lee’s last movie is the only one that gives him the highlight actor he earned. His fascinating appearance is awesome in “Enter the Dragon,” released in 1973, and it’s sad he didn’t have the chance to become the greatest martial arts actor he looked to become.

Alan R. Howard said in his review, “The movie itself, produced by Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller in association with Raymond Chow of Hong Kong's Concorde Productions, is a whoop-and-holler entertainment, which is to say that it's a lavish, corny action movie, not boring for a second and as outrageously wry as it is visually appealing.”

Michael Allin’s creative screenplay brings Lee to the island fortress of gang leader Shih Kien to find evidence to make him guilty of white slavery and opium trade. Kien puts together a martial arts contest, which is really a way to find salesman to market his goods all over the globe.

John Saxon is really good as an uncontrollable gambler who joins the contest to find some way to end a losing streak. Jim Kelly is equally great as a black American trying to earn money for the movement. Peter Archer is an evil New Zealander contestant.

Bob Wall is a huge villain who murdered Lee’s hapkido belt sister, played by Angela Mao Ying in one great action scene. Yan Sze is Shih’s muscle bound bodyguard. Geoffrey Weeks is Lee’s English Interpol contact. Betty Chung is a secret agent inside the fortress.

Howard noted, “Ahna Capri floats through the movie the way Myrna Loy used to in the early Oriental period of her career, dispensing pretty women to the tired contestants like sleeping pills.”

However, this is Bruce Lee’s movie. Howard said, “He's a strange, otherworldly presence, a man of wisdom who excels at action, who speaks of the emotional content of the fight scorning the notion of anger. Lee staged the fight sequences himself, and they lift the movie the way Astaire and Rogers used to when they danced in movies of a different fantasy genre.”

Howard continued, “Robert Clouse's fluid direction brings this three-ring circus to action climax, so to speak, after action climax, wringing full potential out of the production. His work is an excellent example of a genre director proving his ready for more ambitious material. Clouse even steals, and quite deftly, from the mirror funhouse scene in Orson Welles' Lady From Shanghai.”

Howard noted, “Lalo Schifrin's gigantic orchestral score inflates the movie with an appealing epic feeling that sometimes falls out of its story. Gilbert Hubbs' garish photography is entirely appropriate to the Fu Manchu-like decor of James Wong Sun and costumes of Louis Sheng.” Even though the movie feels just a little too long, film editors Kurt Hirschler and George Watters keep the movie going at a great pace.

This is hands down, the best Bruce Lee ever. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, stop reading this review and go watch the movie. You have to see it to know the sheer magnificence of this film and how great it is. This is my all time favorite Bruce Lee movie and another one of my favorite movies of all time. I give this a high recommendation.

Next week, we’ll end “Bruce Lee Month” with a movie that Bruce Lee was supposed to make, but died before he even had the chance to finish the movie.