Review: Enter the Dragon



Bruce Lee, a British Intelligence spy and Shaolin monk (!) infiltrates martial arts tournament on super-villain Han’s (Kien Shih) remote island. Han is supposedly into drugs and slavery, and Lee also learns that Han’s goons killed his sister a few years back. Joining Lee in the tournament are Americans John Saxon and Jim Kelly, who see fit to enjoy Han’s whores and hospitality, whilst Lee is sneaking around and scaling the walls outside.


Overrated, now outdated 1973 Robert Clouse (“Black Belt Jones”, a wildly entertaining Blaxploitation kung-fu flick with Kelly) film isn’t really a kung-fu picture, but an attempt to bring martial arts to the US by mixing it with a little faux-007 nonsense (featuring Kien Shah as a rip-off of “Dr. No”). It plays out in hokey, but sometimes exciting (and violent) fashion. Lee is miscast as a super-spy, but is undeniably impressive in the martial arts scenes (particularly the finale) and an imposing presence, and there’s a good small role for a young-looking Bolo Yeung (who actually repeated some of the film’s dialogue in his memorable performance as the badass villain in “Bloodsport”).


A truly goofy John Saxon, who apparently became quite the martial arts student, doesn’t look at all convincing here in a role that screams for a James Coburn (who indeed was a student of Lee’s), and poor Jim Kelly (a real-life martial arts champ) never really was an actor, something perfectly evident here.


The film works in the martial arts action department, and as the film that brought Lee to international stardom, but real martial arts fans know this film is at the end of the day, a poseur (from the screenwriter of “Flash Gordon”, no less). Worth a look, but only for Lee.


Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more