The Way of the Dragon

1972 "The Colosseum . . the battleground of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris."
7.2| 1h40m| R| en
Details

Tang Lung arrives in Rome to help his cousins in the restaurant business. They are being pressured to sell their property to the syndicate, who will stop at nothing to get what they want. When Tang arrives he poses a new threat to the syndicate, and they are unable to defeat him. The syndicate boss hires the best Japanese and European martial artists to fight Tang, but he easily finishes them off.

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Orange Sky Golden Harvest

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Reviews

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated
JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
InjunNose After the dark solemnity of the two films he'd made under the direction of Lo Wei ("The Big Boss" and "Fist of Fury"), Bruce Lee clearly wanted to steer his creative ship toward sunnier climes. "The Way of the Dragon", which turned out to be the only movie he ever directed, is far too inconsistent to qualify as a classic--but it has flashes of brilliance while demonstrating that Lee's strengths lay, after all, in intense melodrama rather than in action comedy. The alley nunchaku scene roughly midway through is fantastic, but it's the only successful blend of action and humor in the entire film; the rest of the comedy bits fall flat. Not until the mob boss calls in the three karate pros (Chuck Norris, Robert Wall and durable Hong Kong screen villain Whang Ing-Sik) to dispatch Lee's character Tang Lung does "The Way of the Dragon" really gather any momentum, and by then the movie's nearly over. But it's here that the tone of the film subtly changes (aided by composer Joseph Koo's moody and occasionally even disturbing dramatic cues), which attests to Lee's talent as a filmmaker. Had he lived longer, he would have sharpened his directorial skills. The fights are almost flawlessly choreographed, of course, and just as exciting to watch for the twentieth time as for the first. Six and a half stars.
Maziun At it's heart "The way of dragon" is pretty much a B-class movie. The low budget is quite obvious in few places and the story is very thin. The plot is pretty much an excuse for the nonstop action. The characters are one dimensional .The acting isn't anything special ."The way of dragon" promises action and that's the main (if not only) reason to watch this movie. Bruce Lee is responsible for writing and directing this movie. The movie has a very nice flow and well directed action scenes. There is plenty of fights here and they are all well choreographed . The final showdown at the Colloseum is very exciting and memorable. Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris have a great fight which shows how well skilled they both are.The story has a sense of humor which is sometimes subtly shown in the movie (notice the cat watching Lee and Norris fight). It never takes itself too seriously and the lighthearted approach makes you forgive the otherwise thin storyline. There is even one good twist at the end of movie .The music is nice. The characters are black and white , good guys are likable (if not forgettable ) and the bad guys are fun like cartoon villains. Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris give the best performances in this movie. It's no Oscar worthy acting , but a very adequate performances. Norris probably gives the performance of his live here and his last scene here made me care for him and left me sad. That tells you something.After "Enter the dragon" this is probably Lee's best and well known movie. I give it 8/10.
Comeuppance Reviews Tang Lung (Bruce) is a Chinese native and something of a wide-eyed innocent when he comes to the big European city of Rome to help his relatives, who run a restaurant in the Eternal City. But a big problem arises when gangsters declare that they want the restaurant and the property it's on for themselves. Initially Lung's family are helpless and confused about what to do next, then they find out that Lung is a Kung Fu master. Lung staves off the gangsters by fighting wave after wave of thugs and baddies sent by the higher-ups in the nefarious syndicate. For a while, the restaurant seems secure. But then the bad guys bring out the big guns by calling in Colt (Chuck), an American Martial Arts master who flies to Rome with the sole reason of defeating Lung in a fight. The climax of the movie sees the two titans have it out in the legendary Colosseum. Who will emerge victorious? The Way of the Dragon (or Return of the Dragon, as it was marketed after the success of Enter the Dragon), was a Golden Harvest production written and directed by Bruce Lee, and he also co-produced, starred in, and of course was credited as Action Director and Martial Arts Instructor on the film. Bruce's talent was immense and seemed to be growing at this point in his career; unfortunately for the world, he passed away the next year after the release of this film. Of course, this led to many producers trying to fill the void left by the legend and his huge popularity, leading to such names as Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, and our personal favorite, Bruce Rhee. Just to name a few. But for our purposes here at Comeuppance, it was nice to actually see a BRUCE LEE film, as opposed to some of the movies that appeared in his wake. It puts things into perspective when you can go back and see the originator, instead of one of the imitators.Don't get us wrong, many of the movies featuring the "imitators" are fun in their own right and certainly have their charms, but there's nothing like an actual Bruce Lee film, and, sadly, there aren't that many of them to choose from. Here, though, starting from the cool, Spaghetti Western-style animated opening titles sequence, we go into a very 70's world: big cars, big collars, pea soup-colored home decor, and of course Bruce Lee was still alive. Maybe someday we'll be able to go back to the 70's. Of course, it was also a time when a young Chuck Norris, sans facial hair (but with plenty of hair everywhere else, as Bruce humorously points out during their fight scene), was just coming on the movie scene. Chuck doesn't appear until about an hour into the movie, as he's the baddies' "secret weapon" brought in to bring Bruce down, but, like Slaughter in San Francisco (1974), Chuck plays a villain with limited screen time. He had yet to establish himself as a hero, and of course when he comes up against Bruce Lee, the fur's gonna fly! The movie does get off to something of a slow start, and the pacing is kind of odd, especially by today's standards, but really there's no shortage of Bruce action. It was a time when terms like "Kung Fu" and "Nunchucks" were brand new in the American (and the non-Asian world's?) lexicon, so that was interesting to see. The dubbing is...unfortunate, but typical for productions of this time and place. That's how it is on the Inter-Vid VHS, and it's unlikely to be any better on many of this movie's other releases. A widescreen, subtitled, remastered DVD would be awesome, but it's probably an impossibility, because of the way the movie was shot. The only other real complaint we have is that it's kind of repetitive, plot-wise, but that's a minor quibble, we're just grateful this film exists in the first place. It would be fascinating to think what Bruce would be doing if he was around today.There's a really good chance he'd be making DTV movies with the action stars of our day like Scott Adkins and Gary Daniels, among others. Or perhaps he'd be making movies in Hong Kong with Jet Li and Donnie Yen. Or maybe both, there's no way of knowing. But Return of the Dragon remains an important part of the Bruce legacy.
gavin6942 A man (Bruce Lee) visits his relatives at their restaurant in Italy and has to help them defend against brutal gangsters harassing them.I am by no means an expert on martial arts films or on Bruce Lee. I happen to enjoy the films of Donnie Yen, who I presume was heavily influenced by Lee (because, after all, everyone was influenced by Lee).This film has the distinction of including multiple jokes about Bruce needing the bathroom far more frequently than the average human being. More interestingly, it also features Chuck Norris as the villain Colt. Younger people today (2013) may barely recognize Norris, as he has no beard here and has some strange 1970s clothes.