Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Wuchak RELEASED IN 1993 and directed by Rob Cohen, " Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story" stars Jason Scott Lee as the martial arts superstar, tracing his early life in Hong Kong to his fresh start in the San Francisco area where he starts a martial arts school, meets his babe (Lauren Holly) and moves on to TV and Film. He must boldly face many enemies along the way, including his childhood demon. This is basically a rags-to-riches flick and ranks with my favorite films due to its excellent meshing of dynamism, fun and potent drama. I haven't seen too many martial arts flicks, but "Dragon" is easily the all-around best of those I've seen. It mixes real-life with Hollywood mythmaking, which is what many cinematic biographies do, e.g. "Buffalo Bill" (1944) and "Braveheart" (1995). In these types of movies the gist of the story is true, but it's mixed with numerous fictional or even fantastical elements to make the protagonist a larger-than-life hero, but also to entertain the audience because real-life is always more mundane and therefore dull. And movies are made primarily to make money through entertaining, not to relay the truth in exact detail. Right from the get-go the film telegraphs that it's a mythmaking account when Bruce takes on the arrogant British sailors at a dance. He throws one of them and the sailor topples 3-4 other men accompanied by the sound of a bowling ball striking pins (lol). While this particular episode never happened, occasions LIKE IT did, even if it was to someone other than Bruce. The same is true with other sequences, like the fight in the gym, which never happened. But, again, events LIKE IT have. The movie is really meant as a celebration of Bruce Lee, his phenomenal expertise in martial arts and the genre he made popular. If you're looking for an actual biography of his life check out the two biographies listed below (under "WRITERS"). Speaking of which, "Dragon" was partially based on the autobiography of Linda Lee Cadwell (Bruce's wife). Someone offered that she couldn't possibly have been happy with the film since so much of it is fiction (for instance, Bruce didn't injure his back as depicted, but via lifting weights). Actually, she was happy with the final picture. But why did she allow so many things to be embellished? Simple: Because the embellishing fed into the Bruce Lee legend from which she benefits.In any case, there are a lot of martial arts thrills mixed with the drama with an exciting action scene occurring roughly every ten minutes. The film gives the protagonist & a few others power over time and space. Of course, one cannot do in real life many of the things these characters perform due to the restrictions imposed by Newton's Laws but, hey, it's entertaining. This factor explains why "Dragon" has been criticized for springing from one thing to the next too quickly, never pausing long enough for any strong emotion to resonate or for us to feel we really know the man beyond his proverbs. I disagree; I sensed strong emotion on several occasions, like when Bruce exclaims to Linda: "You make be believe I can do anything" or when he wildly screams at her to leave his hospital room, not to mention his outstanding meltdown later in Hong Kong (I've had a few of those in my life, so I know).Speaking of Linda, Lauren Holly is just mind-blowing in her physical prime.THE MOVIE RUNS 2 hours and was shot in California (San Francisco, Los Angeles & Valencia), China (Macau) and Hong Kong. WRITERS: Three screenwriters wrote the script based on the biographies by Linda Lee Cadwell (Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew) and Robert Clouse (Bruce Lee: The Biography).GRADE: A-

Leofwine_draca A film which successfully manages to tell the life story of superstar Bruce Lee in an interesting, exciting way; not a bad effort considering the dozens of low-budget similarities which followed in the '70s after the death of the Chinese legend. DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY differs somewhat by including a number of purely fictional moments but these also make the story a bit more surprising to established fans of the actor who already know his life story anyway. In the end, the film admirably works as both a biopic and an action-thriller, which is no mean feat at all. The action scenes (of which there are plenty, martial arts fans will be pleased to hear) are invariably well-shot and offer maximum hard-hitting violence and cool choreography, with every punch in devastating detail and every kick captured in loving slow motion.Jason Scott Lee), who plays Bruce, may well offer the most noticeable performance in his career; as the kung fu legend he succeeds admirably. The difference from other Bruce Lee impersonators like Bruce Li and Bruce Le is that Jason Scott Lee displays a keen understanding of the factors that made up the man and puts them to use in his performance here, and at times the realism is uncanny. Lauren Holly is also more than adequate as Linda, Bruce's wife, and although a lot of screen time is spent on the pair's developing relationship it never becomes boring. It's also nice to see a substantial and memorable role for Sven-Ole Thorsen as nightmare creature The Demon, after years of playing only supporting roles.The overall effort of the film is to convey the good qualities of Bruce, from his physical prowess to his strong personality and his characteristics of bravery and inner strength. The negative aspects - including his dodgy death - are skipped over, but really this is no great loss. Scenes in which Lee combats racism are excellently done, and the combination of film clips, interspersed with Jason Scott Lee playing Bruce Lee in the process of making his movies, comes off well. Not the best martial arts flick out there, but definitely a commendable and enjoyable one, and perhaps definitive when it comes to Bruce.

david-sarkies Generally I do not like biographical movies, and I wondered what could be so exciting about Bruce Lee's life. I would probably be lynched by saying that, but I am one that does say things that offend people: such as Jesus being the only way to heaven. As far as I knew Bruce Lee was simply a Hong Kong actor, but after watching this movie I realised how wrong I was.The opening scene has Bruce Lee enter into dance hall when some Asians are being picked on by some sailors (with Australian accents) and he beats them up. This scene runs very much like a Hong Kong fight scene without the finese. It is trying to hard to be like a Hong Kong movie here. Even with this shortcoming, the film doesn't unfold like this. Now I cannot say how much I know about Lee's life, but after watching this film, I know a bit more.There are three themes in Dragon. The one that I see the most is Lee's struggle with white man. This ties in with another theme and that is facing one's fear. Fear in this movie manifests itself as a powerful Oriental Knight that is almost unbeatable, and even though I don't know that much about Oriental Mysticism, I feel that these demon scenes are over glorified. As you watch the movie, one begins to see how much Lee struggled trying to be accepted by white people. He goes to America with dreams in his eyes, and leaves disillusioned, after being denied by his own people to teach them their arts, and by being betrayed by other people, such as Hollywood, who took his Kungfu idea and gave it to another man. He also learnt what discrimination was, hatred simply because you were slightly different. Yet he did find comfort in a woman, an Anglo woman, who loved him for who is was, and this movie is actually told through her mouth, as it was based on her biography.I don't think Lee had that much of a hard life. He rubbed a few people up the wrong way, but he took chances and managed to pull himself through. He listened to his wife and opened up a Dojo to teach his forms of martial arts, and he defied his people by teaching it to the white and black man. It is interesting how he bonds with the Negro who first walked into his Dojo, and we see this bonding especially before he goes to fight the Asian, for it seems that the Negro has made Lee one of his own.The other theme was Bruce's desire to please his father. His father sent him away from Hong Kong because of a curse, and the weight always on his mind was that he had to let his father know that he had succeeded. When his father had died he had only made a dent, but it was that one trip back to Hong Kong that made him a filmstar. Yet his father said that Hong Kong would kill him, and even though he defeated his demon, the movie claims that he died after falling into an unknown coma. There are a lot of rumours around about how Lee died, but I am not willing to commit to one, and neither was the movie. As the narrator says at the end, they don't think about how he died, but rather how he lived. All I can say is that is important because decisions made in life can effect you when you are dead.

freemantle_uk Dragon is a semi-fictionalized bio-pic of Bruce Lee, the most famous martial artist and one of the most famous film stars of all time. It tells the story of Lee's youth in Hong Kong, before going to America where he is a dishwisher, goes to university, meets his wife Linda, sets up a successful school, writes his book on the philosophy of material arts and becomes a successful actor in Hong Kong before dying at the age of 32.This film is based on Linda Lee's book and she was involved with the production, but this film does have a artistic license with the events of Lee's life, especially of the inner demons he has to fight and some of the fight that Lee fought.This is the only Hollywood film that I am aware of that looks at the life of Bruce Lee. As well as the fight scene which were done with relish, the film goes deeper then that. There is the obviously love story between Bruce and Linda, there is the philosophy of Bruce Lee and his style of material arts which he developed and there is the fact that Bruce Lee had to battle against racism in America and the politics of the film industry. There were moments of comedy as well, which were decent for a small laugh.Jason Scott Lee (no relation) and Lauren Holly both offer good performances in this film, but I think Rob Cohen, the director of later hits the Fast and Furious, xXx (terrible film) and the Mummy: Curse of the Dragon Emperor, did his best work with this film. He shows that he could easily direct fight scenes and able that he could balance it out with personal drama.If you are interested in Bruce Lee or material arts this film is worth a look.