Film Review: Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)

Most biopics made today are Oscar-grabbing non-commercial dramas dealing with people that struggled with afflictions. Biopics that make money at the box office, on the other hand, are those that provide at least some of the entertainment the person in question has provided in real life. One of the more spectacular example was given by Bruce Lee, legendary Chinese American film star who, despite his short life, did for martial arts what Elvis Presley had done for rock music. His life is depicted in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, 1993 film directed by Rob Cohen.

Film is based on the biographical book by Lee’s widow Linda Emmery Lee Caldwell (played by Lauren Holly). The plot begins in 1940s Hong Kong where young Bruce Lee grows in the home of his father, Chinese opera singer Lee Hoi-Chuen (played by Ric Young) and learns martial arts from the revered grandmaster Yip Man (played by Luoyong Wang). As a young man (played by Jason Scott Lee), he tends to get in trouble and father sends him to America where he would try to start new life. He works as a dishwasher in restaurant and later attends University of Washington. He finances his studies by offering martial arts classes to fellow students and one of them is Linda, whom he marries and starts family with. His martial arts school is very successful, despite other Chinese masters being against Chinee martial arts being taught to white students. Because of that Bruce Lee, influenced by his philosophy studies, develops his own fighting style known as Jeet Kune Do. He is also spotted by television producers who offers him role of Kato in popular series Green Hornet. When the series get cancelled, he realises that Hollywood won’t offer starring role to an Asisan actor. His native Hong Kong, where Kato became an icon, is different matter and producer Philip Tan (played by Kay Tong Lim) hires him for The Big Boss, film which becomes major international hit. After two more hits, that create martial arts craze in America, Hollywood finally recognise Lee’s star potential and he stars in Enter the Dragon, which would become his most successful but also the last film.

Script by Cohen, John Raffo and Edward Khmara takes somewhat unconventional approach in depicting Lee’s life. Knowing well that all the biographical details of larger-than-life figure like Lee wouldn’t fit into two hours of running time, its authors decided to omit many of them while changing others for dramatic purposes. Because of that Dragon is rather loosely based on Lee’s life. The details that brought most attention to Cohen are exactly those that brought Lee his fame – displays of martial arts skills. Cohen embellishes many details of his life and creates series of impressive fight scenes. Those scenes are likely to be appreciated by Lee’s fans, since Cohen clearly pays homage to the most memorable and iconic scenes in Lee’s films like The Big Boss or Enter the Dragon. Cohen also tried hard to capture the proper period detail. Film looks and sounds accurate, despite somewhat unusual, yet effective music score by Randy Edelman who would later become popular as background for many Hollywood trailers.

The most important decision for producers was casting of Lee. Hawaiian dancer and actor Jason Scott Lee (unrelated to the protagonist) was somewhat strange choice, because he had lacked any martial arts training and didn’t look much like Bruce Lee. But he did put a great effort in training and careful studying of Lee’s speech and mannerisms, resulting in very effective portrayal. His performance was very much helped by Lauren Holly; she is very convincing as protagonist’s wife and has great chemistry with Jason Scott Lee. Like so many early 1990s Hollywood films, Dragon is trying to be “politically correct” and one of the major themes in the film is racial prejudice Asians like Lee experienced in America; some critics claim that Dragon over-emphasised it, although the scene in which Bruce Lee confronts initial hostility by his future mother-in-law (played by Michael Learned) was actually based on fact. Not all creative choices were fortunate. Dragon ends rather abruptly, shortly before Lee’s mysterious death which is only briefly mentioned through Linda’s narration. Cohen, on the other hand, tried to add element of mysticism to the plot and did so by introducing character of masked demon (played by Sven-Ole Thorsen) tormenting Bruce Lee in his visions since childhood. This made Dragon look too “artsy” and too pretentious.

Dragon was well-received by critics, but, more importantly, had very good results at the box office. This was attributed to still large number of Lee’s original fans, but more so to the tragedy that coincided with the film’s premiere. Bruce Lee’s son Brandon, who was just about to start his own career as action star, has been accidentally killed at the set of The Crow. This brought additional publicity to the film, but also added poignancy to many scenes. Despite that event’s dark shadow, Dragon is still a well-made film that could be recommended even to those who aren’t fans of martial arts and their most legendary icon.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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