Enter the Dragon is a 1973 Hong Kong-American martial arts action film, directed by Robert Clouse, and starring Bruce Lee, John Saxon, and Jim Kelly. This was the last appearance of Bruce Lee's film before his death on July 20, 1973 at the age of 32. The film was first released in Hong Kong on July 26, 1973, six days after Lee's death.
Often regarded as one of the greatest martial arts films of all time, in 2004 the film was selected for conservation at the United States National Register of Files by the Library of Congress as "significant cultural, historical, or aesthetic". Among the first films to combine martial arts action with the emerging Blaxploitation genre, his success resulted in a series of similar productions combining the two genres. The film themes have also produced a scientific debate about how they reflect the changes that took place in post-colonial Asian society after the end of World War II.
Video Enter the Dragon
Plot
Lee, a highly skilled Shaolin martial artist from Hong Kong, was approached by Braithwaite, a British intelligence officer who investigated suspected Han crime rulers. Lee was persuaded to attend a high-level martial arts competition on Han's private island to gather evidence that would prove Han's involvement in drug trafficking and prostitution. Shortly before his departure, Lee also learned that his sister's murderer, O'Hara, worked as Han's bodyguard on the island. The fight in this competition is a tireless gambling addict, Roper, and fellow Vietnam war veteran, Williams.
At the end of the first day, Han gave strict orders to the competitors not to leave their rooms. Lee made contact with Mei Ling's secret surgery and slipped into the Han complex, looking for evidence. He was found by several guards, but managed to escape. The next morning, Han has a guard who was openly killed by Bolo's guard chief for having made it fail. After the execution, Lee faces O'Hara in the competition, and, after an emotional fight, he eventually kills him. With the passing of the competition that day, Han faces Williams, who also left his room the night before to exercise, initially mistaking him as an intruder, and beating him to death when he refused to cooperate. Han then reveals the scale of his drug operation to Roper in the hope that he will join his organization. He also implicitly threatens to imprison Roper, along with all other martial artists who competed in the Han tournaments in the past, if Roper ever refused. Although initially interested, Roper refused after knowing the fate of Williams.
Lee slipped out again that night and managed to send a message to Braithwaite, but was finally arrested after a protracted battle with the guards. The next morning, Han arranges for Roper to fight Lee, but Roper refuses. As a punishment, Roper must fight Bolo instead, which he managed to master and kill after a very tiring meeting. Angry with unexpected victory, Han orders the remaining people to kill Lee and Roper. Facing an insurmountable obstacle, they were immediately assisted by the island's prisoners, who had been released by Mei Ling. Han escaped, pursued by Lee, who finally cornered her in a hidden mirror room. The mirror gave Han an advantage, but Lee ruined all the room mirrors to reveal Han's location, and eventually killed him. Lee returns to the main battle, which is now over. A bloodied and wounded Roper was winning while the military finally arrived to take control of the island.
Maps Enter the Dragon
Cast
Production
Due to success with previous films, Warner Bros. began helping Bruce Lee with the film in 1972. They were the producers of Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller.
Write
The title of the scenario was originally called Blood and Steel . The story features the heroic heroic protagonists of Asia, White and Black because the producers want a film that will attract the widest possible international audience. The scene in which Lee stated that his style is "Fighting Without Fighting" is based on a famous anecdote involving the 16th century samurai Tsukahara Bokuden.
Casting
John Saxon is a black belt in Judo and Shotokan Karate, who studied under the guidance of grandmaster Hidetaka Nishiyama for three years. In negotiations, his agent told the film producers if they wanted to, they had to change the story, Williams's character would be killed instead of Roper. They agree and the script changes.
Rockne Tarkington initially served as Williams. However, he suddenly broke up the day before production began in Hong Kong. Producer Fred Weintraub knows that karate world champion Jim Kelly has a training dojo in Crenshaw, Los Angeles so he rushes to arrange a meeting. Weintraub was immediately impressed with Kelly and he was instrumental in this film. The success of Kelly's performance launched her career as a star: after Enter the Dragon , she signed a three-film contract with Warner Bros. and went on to make some martial arts blaxploitation films in the 1970s.
Jackie Chan appears as a guard during the underground nestling combat scene and his neck is taken by Lee. He also performed some action for the film, including a scene where Lee's character quickly climbed onto the roof at night. However, Yuen Wah is the main actor for Lee for the film.
Sammo Hung appeared in a short combat scene against Lee at the beginning of the film.
The urban legend surrounding the making of Enter The Dragon claims that the actor Bob Wall does not like Bruce Lee and that their battle scenes are not choreographed. However, Wall has denied this statement that he and Lee are actually good friends.
Filming
The film was taken at a location in Hong Kong. All scenes are filmed silently: dialogs and sound effects are added or dubbed during postproduction. Bruce Lee, after he was beaten or challenged, fought several real fights with additional films and several infiltrators set during filming. The Han Island scene was filmed in a residence known as the Palm Villa near the coastal city of Stanley.
Soundtrack
Argentineian musician Lalo Schifrin composed a musical score of the film. While Schifrin is widely known at the time for jazz scores, he also incorporates funk and elements of traditional film scores into the movie soundtrack. He composed a score with sound sampling from China, Korea, and Japan. This soundtrack has sold over 500,000 copies, resulting in a gold record.
Release
box office
Enter the Dragon is highly advertised in the United States before it's released. Budget for ads over $ 1,000,000. It's not like a promotional campaign you've seen before, and it's very comprehensive. To advertise movies, studios offer free Karate classes, generating thousands of illustrated flip books, comic books, posters, photos, and organizing dozens of news releases, interviews, and public appearances for the stars. Esquire , The Wall Street Journal , Left , and Newsweek all write stories in movies.
The film earned about $ 21,483,063 in North America when it was released in 1973, with a tight budget of $ 850,000. It was one of the most successful films of 1973.
In Hong Kong, the film earned HK $ 3,307,536 - big business for the time, but substantially less than Lee's Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon . In India, the movie opened for a full house.
Worldwide, the film grossed $ 90 million, including $ 65 million outside the United States.
Critical reception
The film was well received by critics and considered by many to be one of the best films of 1973. Critics call Enter the Dragon as "the cheap James Bond movie", "remake of Dr. No No "with Fu Manchu element. JC MaÃÆ'§ek III of PopMatters writes, "Of course the actual showcase here is a clear star here, Bruce Lee, whose actor and fighters appearance is most enhanced by the perfect voice and video transfer, while Kelly is famous martial artist and actor and Saxon is a renowned actor and a very good martial artist, Lee proved to be a master in both fields. "
Many other famous newspapers and magazines are reviewing the film as well. Variety praised some aspects of the film, claiming that the film as a whole is "rich in the atmosphere", music scores are a "strong asset" and interesting photography. In addition, The New York Times gave this movie good reviews. The review states, "The image is expertly and well-integrated, it moves like lightning and color, it is also the deadliest and deadly hand killer (not the gun in it) you've seen anywhere."
The film currently holds a 95% approval rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, with 43 reviews calculated and an average rating of 7.8/10. In 2004, the film was considered "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation at the National Film Registry.
The film also ranked No. 474 on the list of Empire 2008 magazine 500 Largest Movies of All Time .
Sensor
After a worldwide release in 1973, full-cut films were not available in the United Kingdom because all scenes showing martial arts such as chainsticks or throwing stars were cut by the British Film Classification Council over their concerns promoting violence. Although some pieces were restored in 1988, when the first film was made available in VHS, scenes involving chains remained banned. It was not until 2001, when the film was reclassified for video, that all previous pieces were completely restored.
Legacy
The film has been parodied and referenced in places such as the 1976 film The Pink Panther Strikes Again, satire publication The Onion, Japanese game-show Takeshi Castle. , and comedy anthology 1977 John Landis Kentucky Fried Movie (in the order of length "A Fistful of Yen", basically a comedy, note for a remake of Dragon ) and also in the film Balls of Fury. It was also parodied on television at the 70's Show during the episode "Jackie Moves On" with the usual Fez character taking on the role of Bruce Lee. Some clips from a funny movie are used during the theater scene at The Last Dragon .
In August 2007, the now-defunct Warner Independent Pictures announced that television producer Kurt Sutter would renew the film as a thriller noir titled Awaken the Dragon with singer-actor Korean Rain starring. It was announced in September 2014 that Spike Lee will be working on this remake. In March 2015, Brett Ratner revealed that he wanted to make a remake.
The little-known Nintendo 1985 arcade game Arm Wrestling contains the rest of the sounds from the movie, as well as their original companions.
The popular video game Mortal Kombat borrowed some plot elements from Enter The Dragon .
The popular 1980's martial arts video game <<> Double Dragon features two enemies named Roper and Williams, a reference to two Roper and Williams characters from Enter The Dragon .
Home media
DVD
Universe (Hong Kong)
- Aspect ratio : Widescreen (2: 35: 1) is assigned a letter
- Sound : Cantonese (Dolby Digital 5.1), Chinese (Dolby Digital 5.1)
- Subtitle : Traditional, Simplified Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese
- Supplements : Trailers for Dragon Road , Big Boss , Death Game , Legacy Rage , the star file
- All regions, NTSC
Fortune Star - Ultimate Bruce Lee (Hong Kong) DVD Collection
Zoke Culture (China)
- Aspect ratio : Widescreen (2: 40: 1) anamorphic
- Voice : English (DTS 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Cantonese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), Chinese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
- Subtitles : Traditional, Simplified Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, French
- Supplements : Audio commentary by producer Paul M. Heller and screenwriter Michael Allin, "Blood and Steel: Making of Enter the Dragon ", "Bruce Lee: In His Own Words ", interview gallery Linda Lee Cadwell," original "1973 featurette making," Backyard Workout with Bruce Lee "
- All regions, NTSC
Warner - 30th Anniversary (America) Special Edition
Warner - 25th Anniversary Special Edition (America)
- Aspect ratio : Widescreen (2: 35: 1) anamorphic
- Voice : English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
- Subtitle : English, Spanish, French
- Supplements : Audio commentary by producer Paul M. Heller and screenwriter Michael Allin, Isolated music score, introduction and new interview with Linda Lee Cadwell, "Location: Hong Kong with Enter the Dragon "original documentary 1973," Backyard Workout with Bruce "," Bruce Lee In His Own Words ", theater trailers, TV venues, cast and crew biography," Significance Belt in Martial Arts " Heir to the Throne "- Jackie Chan noted, retrospect Hong Kong martial arts film records and stills, behind-the-scenes notes, roll recommendations - 16 films
- Region 1, NTSC
Warner - Limited Edition (United Kingdom)
Blu-ray
Thurs & amp; Ronson (Hong Kong)
Warner (North and South America)
- Aspect ratio : Widescreen (2: 40: 1)
- Sound : English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono), Portuguese (Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono)
- Subtitle : English, Spanish, French, Portuguese
- Supplements : Audio commentary by producer Paul M. Heller and screenwriter Michael Allin, "Blood and Steel: Making of Enter the Dragon ", "Bruce Lee: In His Own Words ", interview gallery Linda Lee Cadwell," Location: Hong Kong with Enter the Dragon "original documentary 1973," Backyard Workout with Bruce Lee "," Curse of the Dragon " in length, "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey" long-term documentary, theater trailer, TV venues
- All regions
Warner (40th Reminder - Remastered)
References
External links
- Enter dragon in IMDb
- Go to Dragon in Hong Kong Movie DataBase
- Enter a Dragon in AllMovie
- Enter the Dragon in Mojo Box Office
- Dragons at Rotten Tomatoes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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