Return of the Dragon
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Movie Reviews of Return of the Dragon
Movie Review: The Most exciting movie by Bruce Lee after "Enter the Dragon
Summary: 5 Stars
I rate this movie five stars it has some great fighting scenes and anyone who likes Bruce Lee will surely enjoy it.Movie Review: Nice Collectible
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is good to have if you are a Bruce Lee fan. I consider it a nice collectible.
Movie Review: Here's the info on which DVD version to buy of this film !
Summary: 4 Stars
After the phenomenal success of Bruce Lee's first two martial arts films ( "The Big Boss" & "Fist Of Fury" ), Bruce broke free of the past fiery relationship with director Lo Wei, and formed Concord Productions to handle the next step in his skyrocketing film career. The influx of funds from the success of Bruce Lee's two preceding movies, allowed Bruce to budget for more exotic locations (Rome, Italy), more accomplished oppenents ( hapkido expert Ing-Sik Whang, karate champion Bob Wall, and seven times US karate champion Chuck Norris) and an overall better production quality.
Bruce Lee wrote, directed and starred in "Way Of The Dragon", and the plot line does not drift too far away from his first success ("The Big Boss"), as Lee once again plays a seemingly, simply country boy (Tang Lung) who travels to Rome, Italy to work in a relatives restaurant. Upon arrival, his cousins all assume Tang Lung to be a rather meek & naive character, until gangsters visit the restaurant to try to extort money from the Chinese owners. All parties head out into the back alley, and after a couple of his relatives are floored, Bruce hands out a punishing demonstration in chinese kung fu ( "...dragon whips his tail..." ) and throttles several of his bigger Anglo opponents much to the amazed delight of Nora Miao. The demoralised gangsters limp back to their boss, detailing about their shock loss, and the stakes are raised higher as the criminals try to take Bruce out of the picture using guns and hitmen. Their repeated attempts fail, and the thugs are forced to recruit three outsiders, all lethal fighters ( Ing-Sik Whang, Bob Wall & Chuck Norris ) to kill the unstoppable Tang Lung (Lee). The film, is of course famous for the incredible showdown between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris at the Colisseum in Rome, as the two modern "gladiators" fight to the death in a well choregraphed fight sequence....with a small kitten the only witness to the action.
"Return Of The Dragon" aka "Way of The Dragon" was another solid box office success for Bruce Lee in Asia, and further cemented his position as the number one actor in Hong Kong. Regrettably, only a year later, Lee would be dead and the world shocked by the premature death of such a rising star. Now concerning the DVD versions of this film, several people have commented on this site about the DVD version available on Amazon.com (Region 1 release by CBS/FOX with red tinted cover) detailing how it is missing various footage, only in Dolby 2.0 mono and other issues.
However all is not lost, so log onto the Amazon site in the UK, you will find the Hong Kong Legends Special Collectors Edition of "Way Of The Dragon", that (in my opinion) is the best presentation of this movie available on DVD to date. Hold your breath....here's all the great stuff included : a digitally remastered 2:35.1 Anamorphic widescreen UNCUT presentation (superb picture), plus Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio for both the dubbed English soundtrack and the original Cantonese soundtrack. ( Just wait till you hear the kicks and punches in the Colisseum fight recreated in Dolby 5.1 !!! ). In addition, there is an insightful feature length audio commentary by martial arts fanatic Bey Logan & actor Jon Benn, plus several excellent photo galleries, plus original HK & UK theatrical trailers, plus interviews with Andre Morgan, Anders Nielsen & Jon Benn ! The DVD is Region 2, so you will need a multi-zone DVD player ( You do have one don't you ? ). Furthermore, there is another Region 2 twin disc Hong Kong Legends Platinum Edition of "Way Of The Dragon" (same high quality image and audio) plus, with interviews with Bob Wall, Ing-Sik Whang, Robert Lee and Pat Johnson. The 2nd disc is split into four menu areas : Interview Gallery, Promotional Archive, Information Archive and the Hong Kong Collection....each area is loaded with sensational interviews and biographical material that is both rare and of great interest to Bruce Lee fans. If you are a fan, then both these offerings are well worth having !
Movie Review: Bruce's movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Bruce lee did it all for this movie. He may have even done the music but pry wouldn't hold himself to it. Now of course the only reason people talk about this movie is because of the chuck bruce fight. That had to be one of the top 2 or 3 fight scnenes ever when it came out. I mean it blew everything away including the chinese connection.
Storywise it really could have been a whole lot better. The movie starts with some good comedic elements. It is really sad sometimes to think about what would have been if he was alive and working in movies today. It was amazing to see bruce's charm and fighting skills blended together to make an altogether likeable guy and somebody who anyone would laugh at. Like when he beats the crap out of everybody, steals there guns and all, customers are coming in they are all laughing and passing around a gun trying to hide it real quick so nobody sees it. Bruce certainly had his own style and was unmatched in martial arts acting ability. And it certainly helps when you are one of the most respected martial artists in the world. He would have easily been up ther with jet li.
Now like I said, the story could have been a lot better, but it is decent for a while. Then we get like the stereotypical gangster looking type people (blacks and italians sadly) who want to close down the resaurant that bruce has just come to help out. So add in some boring scenes with nora miao(chinese connection) showing bruce around the city and some hit man who fails miserablely at killing him, and the story just drags along. But all the comedy keeps you some what into it,and all the workers in the kitchen who just happen to practice all day when not in the restaurant, they are just great. I mean they are so freaking stupid, you just know they would all be dead trying to defy the gangstas without ol brucey.
Now the fights aren't exactly plentiful, but he he did step it up from his first 2 movies. Beating up all the thugs(non martial artist's) gets a bit tiring, except of course when bruce scares the s*** out of this white guy by kicking the light bulb out of the ceiling right in front of him. So then bob wahl shows up and proves to be a good guy for bruce to beat down. So another fighter shows up and this fight kind of sucked. Whang in-sik has had MANY better performances than this and it is a shame that bruce couldn't show this real life GRANDMASTER off a bit more like Jackie Chan did in young master. SO now bruce finally meets up with chuck and while this fight was It didn't have enough substance to be one of the best screen fights ever. I mean bruce obviously is being challenged and is going to take care of what he came to town for but chuck just kind of shows up to beat people down. So I could have used at least a set up, but still a spectacular fight. Raymond Chow somehow got the rights to film this in the roman coliseum and we get a little of bruce looking around, seeing scpoping the place out a bit before fighting. And he can't find him so Chuck juts waits around for bruce to come where he wants to fight him. They go at it an a pretty open area with only a cat to observe. When that cat creeches, blood will fly!!!!!!!
The dvd is acceptable in picture and soundif you are a collector like me and have hundreds of these and just like to have the movie . But if this is like your favorite movie, get an all region dvd player and indulge with the 2 disc and you then can get the special editions of "fist of fury" and "the chinese connection". I have the fox box collection with those 3, game of death and a documentary and it cost me less than the $14 amaon has for this movie alone. So look around and trust me, if you love kung fu, these movies are by far better picture and sound than most of videoasia's or say groundzero"s releases. Good, cheap fun.
Movie Review: The best of the 3 Hong Kong pictures........
Summary: 4 Stars
Return Of The Dragon is best known for it's climatic fight scene at the end of the movie. However, what gets lossed is the excellent battle between Bruce and the various thugs in the flick. Like his previous two films, this has bad acting, bad writing, laughable voice dubbing, etc. It is watchable because of one reason: Bruce Lee.Once again Bruce comes to a foreign land to help family. In Rome, some of his cousins are running a chinese resteraunt. They are being bullied into selling the land to a local crime syndicate. Bruce shows up to help them with their problem. I will give you one guess on how he deal with said problem. He kicks everyone's ass.
I will say the acting and dialogue here is way better than his first two films. You can tell the budget was raised for this one. But even if you hate this movie, you must see it for the end battle between Bruce and Chuck Norris. At the time, Norris wasn't in movies. He was an american karate champion. He does give Bruce his best challenge in any movie I have seen him in. Their fighting styles are quite different and it's cool to see these two marial arts icons on screen fighting each other. To my knowledge, this is the only 'bad-guy' role Norris has done. He does it well.
And setting the fight in the Roman Colosiums was a nice touch. You will notice, though that most of the fight is actually filmed in a cheap studio set made to look like the colosiums. It's a great fight and any martial arts fan owes it to themselves to see this battle. Just try not to get grossed out by how hairy Norris is.
The rest of the film has some very good fights. There are 3 big ones, where Bruce takes on like 10 guys by himself. They are quite impressive. I think this is the best of the first three films he made. It's the most well rounded, best acted, and has one of the best fight scenes in movie history in it.
Like the other movies in this boxed set, the DVD comes bare-bones. If you get the boxed set, though, it comes with a movie-style documentary, so it makes up for the fact that the flicks have no special features.