ENTER THE DRAGON (1973) Four stars
There’s a line in BLADE RUNNER that makes me think about Bruce Lee (1940-73), “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly.”

Lee made his screen debut as an infant in GOLDEN GATE GIRL, a.k.a. TEARS IN SAN FRANCISCO.

He appeared in several films throughout the ’50s and ’60s, and played the role of Kato on “The Green Hornet” during that show’s 1966-67 run.

Lee made his legend, though, on five martial arts films that were filmed over a period of two years in the early ’70s, where his light burned twice as bright half as long: THE BIG BOSS, FIST OF FURY, THE WAY OF THE DRAGON, ENTER THE DRAGON, and THE GAME OF DEATH (a new, different plot filmed after his death around Lee’s completed fight scenes; Lee postponed finishing THE GAME OF DEATH to make ETD).

ENTER THE DRAGON was the groundbreaker, known as the first martial arts film produced by a major American studio and for a whopping $850,000. The film made $21,483,063 in North America and coupled with the success of the English dub of FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH earlier in 1973, martial arts exploded. (Lee’s earlier films FIST OF FURY and THE WAY OF THE DRAGON fared much better financially in Hong Kong.)

Unfortunately, Lee died of a cerebral edema on July 20, 1973, just six days before ENTER THE DRAGON premiered in Hong Kong. One month later, it premiered in the United States at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

It’s been said that Lee was very nervous before making ENTER THE DRAGON. Lee’s wife, Linda Lee Cadwell, countered that in the Q&A session for the film’s 40th anniversary Blu-ray.

“I think it’s been portrayed that (Bruce) was very nervous before filming began,” she said. “I think it’s been misrepresented to the point that some people say he was having a nervous breakdown he was so paralyzed by fear. That is false. He was a professional actor. He’d been acting his whole life. And he was a professional martial artist as well. So he had no butterflies about that kind of thing. But what he wanted was to make this film very special. And he had ideas he would like to see added to the script. He was very adamant about it.

“He really put a lot of work into studying how to improve this film. To make it the best product that it could be because this was an important film for Bruce. It was going to be his first introduction to the American market. There was some reticence on the side of the people making the film. They wanted Bruce to get on the set and get going but he didn’t want to show up and get going on the film until the things he wanted — namely all the philosophy ­— in the film were done.”

ENTER THE DRAGON has been described as James Bond meets Fu Manchu, a fact some reviewers have lamented.

For example this one from Time Out, “A sorry mixture of James Bond and Fu Manchu, it tacks together the exploits of a multi-national crew of martial artists converging on Hong Kong for a tournament, infiltrated by Lee — fresh from his Shaolin temple — on an assignment to bust an opium racket. Worth seeing for Lee, but still unforgivably wasteful of his talents.”

Paul Bramhall wrote “Enter the Dragon: The Most Overrated Kung Fu Movie Ever?” in July 2018 and here’s his take on the Bond element: “The influence of Bond drifts in and out of ENTER THE DRAGON like spliced footage in a Godfrey Ho movie, making it come across as shoehorned in rather than a natural part of the narrative. … Released the same year as Roger Moore’s debut as Ian Fleming’s most famous creation, the secret agent styled shenanigans on display in ENTER THE DRAGON were dated even before it hit cinema screens. Casting Geoffrey Weeks a poor man’s M, and a head scratching plot of a rogue Shaolin student using a martial arts tournament as a front to his opium smuggling operation, (director) Robert Clouse and co. should have taken a page out of the ‘less is more’ manual of filmmaking.”

Nigel Tufnel had the answer for all that, “That’s just nitpicking, isn’t it?”

ENTER THE DRAGON downplays the sex angle, the double entendres, and the gadgets, and this low-budget “Bond movie” can stand head-to-head with any of the best Bond films like FROM RUSSIA WHITH LOVE, GOLDFINGER, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, and SKYFALL, for example.

Like how those early Bond films gather a lot of their appeal from the star power of Sean Connery, ENTER THE DRAGON draws heavily on Lee.

He’s a movie star, yes, tried and true with charisma and electricity that can transcend a low budget, a dodgy or dopey plot, awkward and awful voice dubbing, and other production lapses.

Lee ranks with Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, et cetera, all the great stars of the screen.

Not only that, watching Lee in action is like watching great athletes Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice, Michael Jordan, and Mike Tyson, for example.

You know you’re watching the very best, a grand master at his or her craft and somebody in the greatest physical (and mental) shape.

George C. Scott said that he looked for a “joy of performing” quality in judging actors, that the great ones separated themselves from the good with their joy. Scott named James Cagney.

You can say all these actors and athletes named in the last few paragraphs all have this “joy of performing.”

Lee definitely had that joy, and it’s apparent throughout even his worst movies.

Unlike the other Lee martial arts movies released in America, though, we hear Lee’s actual speaking voice in ENTER THE DRAGON.

He’s very, very quotable and my friends and I loved to do our best Lee impression with lines such as “Don’t think. FEEEEEEEEL! It’s like a finger pointing away to the moon. Do not concentrate on the finger or you miss all of the heavenly glory,” “You can call it the art of fighting without fighting,” and “Why doesn’t somebody pull out a .45 and, bang, settle it?”

In addition to Lee at the center, we have John Saxon and Jim Kelly as Roper and Williams, respectively, who also end up on Han’s Island (not to be confused with the small, uninhabited island that Canada and Denmark are in dispute over) because they were designed to give the film a wider appeal to maximize profits. Unlike Lee, who transcends fads and fashions, Saxon and Kelly and their characters are a bit more prisoner of the times. Fortunately, the two Americans both have enough personality and martial arts skill to justify their presences, and they’re fun.

Then we have the arch villain Han, just like a Bond picture, but please try and picture Gert Frobe or Telly Savalas do martial arts battle with Lee and the other protagonists and their fists and feet of fury.

Shin Kein (his speaking voice dubbed by Keye Luke, since he did not speak English) received acting credits in 272 films from 1940-95 and he’s most identified with Han. Like the best of the Bond films, Han contributes to the success of ENTER THE DRAGON with his villainy, a great foil to the good guys.

I love this blurb from his profile on the Villains Wiki, “Han is a heroin drug lord who runs his heroin cooking business from a secluded island. He also lost a hand, though how he lost it is never explained. He keeps the bones of the severed hand on display in a museum of torture and weapons. In place of the missing hand he has a variety of weapon hands to use like a iron hand, claw hand and a bladed hand. He is also an expert in martial arts.”

ENTER THE DRAGON ends in slambang fashion with the final fight between Lee and Han — a scene that could be played right alongside THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI and DUCK SOUP, three of the best usages of mirrors in motion picture history.

I would love to have seen ENTER THE DRAGON at its American premiere, just for the response to Lee alone.

NOTE: Raymond Chow, the producer behind Lee and Jackie Chan, died Friday, November 2, 2018 at the age of 91.