“You have offended my family…and you have offended the Shaolin Temple.”
Just because, here’s the first in a series of looks at some personal highlights of mine from a genre known across the world—martial arts. Why has it attained such a universal appeal? The answer is probably simple—observe virtually every human culture to exist, and what are the two constants we always find? Art, and violence—so when you combine the two, of course it strikes at the essential duality within man. Is it coincidence that we have seen codified ways of tempering and disciplining innate human aggression across the world, be it say chivalry in Europe or bushido in Japan? Why would the ways of Shaolin not strike the same chord?
Or, to make a long story short—it’s really friggin’ cool!
Anyway, to start with comes the classic that arguably kickstarted it all in the west, now almost fifty years old. It’s from the legend himself, the finest scion of the Ip Man, a man to helped bridge hemispheres—Bruce Lee. Before this one, Lee had already made a name for himself starring in shows like Green Hornet and films like Fist of Fury, and for training people from Chuck Norris to Sharon Tate, though here was were he struck globally. There has been some debate over Lee through the years, over whether he was a culture-defining icon or a violent-tempered braggart—and, complicated as real people tend to be, one could say he was everything and more. Either way, half a century on, one thing’s undeniable—he left one hell of a legacy, but let’s see how well this part of it holds up.
And for the most part? It does. How so? Right from the beginning, we see the crucial ingredient—beyond just a means to see Lee beat people up, it’s one infused with his own personal philosophy, one that gives real definition and weight to the combat we’re soon to see. Just as the martial arts were meant to give focus and discipline to their practitioner, so we see exactly how so from the get-go—and it’s that meaning, that sincerity, which rose Enter the Dragon above lesser Hong Kong exploitation flicks.
The story itself is simple, but imitated countless times—Lee plays a martial arts instructor recruited to infiltrate a fighting tournament thrown by a crime lord, who also happens to be a wayward student of his temple. There’s also personal stake for him, with the murderer of his sister also being there. Alongside him come allies Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Black Belt Jones himself, Jim Kelly), all aligned against mastermind Han (Shih Keen). Bob Wall also shows up to play a main henchmen, and yes, we have an appearance from Bolo Yeung also, who co-stars alongside his massive pecs. Very few, like Adam Driver, have come close to matching that particular cinematic pairing.
With this sort of cast, Enter the Dragon was able to hit that worldwide appeal—beyond just Asian culture, we also saw the changing times in how African-Americans were portrayed. There’s the memorable scene where Kelly takes on a pair of racist cops—a scene that’d be largely unthinkable to show in cinemas even a decade before. It goes to show how, in many respects, the times really were a-changing, with the likes of Lee and George Takei also changing Asian portrayals beyond just the stereotypes.
But above all, there’s the all-important authenticity behind it all—when we see that famous scene of Lee going all-out and shirtless, there’s no camera trickery behind that display of nunchucks, nor everything else that follows. There’s no faking physical apexes, especially not back then, and that’s what separates it from later films where you can have computers and cuts cover for it all. And when Lee confronts Han in a hall of mirrors, when the truth of his philosophy shatters the illusions his foe hides behind—that’s a catharsis on multiple levels, corporeal and metaphysical.
So yeah, Enter the Dragon indeed remains one of the coolest movies ever made. But, at his peak, things would take a tragic turn for Lee—in midst of production for Game of Death, he suffered an edema that left him dead at the young age of only 32. I guess it speaks to the impact he had already made that he’s still remembered and discussed decades later. This was unfortunately not the end of misfortune for his family, with his son Brandon dying even younger while filming The Crow, in 1992.
With that, we move on—next on the list comes someone who indeed shows up in this film too in a bit part, but would make his own legacy just as far-reaching…
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