Enter the Dragon (1973) on Blu-ray November 1, 2008
Posted by Cal in : Action, 1970s films , trackbackDirector: Robert Clouse Main cast: Bruce Lee; John Saxon; Jim Kelly; Shih Kien; Ahna Capri; Angela Mao Territory: USA/Hong Kong
Renegade Shaolin monk Han (Shih Kien) has created a fortress on a remote island to produce drugs to sell to the world. Every three years, a martial arts tournament is held on the island to recruit new heavies for the organisation. Lee (Bruce Lee) is sent to bust the operation, and fellow martial artists Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly) join in.
There has probably been more written on Enter the Dragon in the west than on every other martial arts film combined. Yes, it’s overrated, silly and can often be an albatross around the neck of genre fans, but that doesn’t stop it still being immensely good fun and one of the most re-watchable films I’ve seen.
The plot is a thin reworking of Dr No, complete with digitally-disadvantaged villain, but with martial artists instead of James Bond. The premise works surprisingly well – so well, in fact, that the idea has been used ad nauseum with varying degrees of success (see Kill and Kill Again). You can almost smell the fear of the Warner Brothers executives at the thought of using an Asian star to carry the film, and so John Saxon is given co-lead credit and probably has as much screen time as Lee. The unknown Jim Kelly is, by comparison, a much safer bet in third lead.
What makes Enter the Dragon such fun, aside from its horribly dated dialogue, is the island fortress setting and the kind of male wish-fulfilment adventuring us men can’t help but love. We’d like to be as virile and cocky as Williams, as cool and suave as Roper and as deadly at arse-kicking as Lee. The script really goes to town to establish each character, from Roper’s hopeless gambling problem and the debts such a problem entails to Williams’ struggles with racism and his need for flight. Each main character is given a comprehensive and entertaining flashback while they head across the Hong Kong harbour to the vessel that will take them to Han’s Island.
Han himself is a great cinema villain for an unusual reason. Shih Kien didn’t speak a word of English and delivered his lines phonetically and stiltedly, later to be dubbed by an unknown actor. The result is remarkable – his fragmented delivery lends a gravity and menace not normally associated with such throwaway baddies. Remarkably, he was nearly 60 when Enter the Dragon was made and he’s still alive. Regulars to Hong Kong cinema and TV from past decades will of course know him well as an actor equally comfortable in martial arts dramas or screwball comedies.
With all of the characters in place (along with Ahna Capri as the leading lady and love interest of Saxon – interestingly, Lee doesn’t get a look in with any of the ladies in the film), the film focuses on the tournament and Lee’s extra curricular activities in uncovering Han’s operation. This is where Lee finally shines after playing second fiddle to Saxon somewhat during the first half of the film. Lee’s demolition of O’Hara (Bob Wall) is a great scene, and probably my favourite of the film. He expends little energy in finishing his opponent, and his moves are lightning quick. Of course, the real showcase for Lee is the fight in the underground cavern where he takes on so many henchmen it’s pretty much impossible to keep count. He first fights unarmed, then with a pole, two sticks and then with his signature weapon, the nunchaku. It’s probably this scene alone that sealed the film’s fate as a classic in the west, where this sort of thing hadn’t been seen on this scale and with this intensity before.
While the film has a lot to commend it – the score by Lalo Schifrin is simply one of the greatest music scores of the decade – there are things that let it down. The Williams character is killed off too early (I would have preferred it if he hadn’t been killed at all, to be honest) and the fact that Lee seems a little restricted than in his Hong Kong movies let the side down as far as I’m concerned.
It’s interesting that most of the western cast and crew didn’t do much of note after Enter the Dragon. Saxon became the kind of B-movie star admired by Tarantino, Ahna Capri went into TV work and Jim Kelly concentrated on his tennis career after making a series of increasingly bizarre action films. Behind the camera, scriptwriter Michael Allin seemed to virtually drop off the radar and director Clouse was destined to try to emulate the film’s success for the rest of his career. After producing the so-bad-it’s-great Bruceploitation movie Game of Death, he teamed up with another Hong Kong superstar – Jackie Chan – to bring us his first US movie. However, despite another memorable jazzy score from Schifrin, a hit on the scale of Enter the Dragon continued to elude him, and his output outside of these films could never be considered high in quality.
While I must strongly disagree with anyone who says this is the greatest martial arts film of all time (an accusation that is repeated in the press every single time this film is shown on TV here), there’s no doubt it had an impact, and that impact is still being felt today. It’s eminently quotable, silly, fun and entertaining. And now it’s never looked do good.
The Blu-Ray disc from Warner shows us the film in HD, and it looks pretty damn good most of the time. The film looks remarkably good for its age and certain sequences, such as the banquet scene, reveal a lot more detail than standard definition versions. Williams’ flashback scene appears blurred in places, but I’m assuming the fault lies in the source material. Although there is no specific mention of it on the box, the version presented here is the same as the “uncut special edition” that appeared on DVD some time ago. Which basically means the monk scene is included as well as his Obi-Wan-type voice-over near the end. The extras from that release are included as well as a couple more. The real gem is Blood and Steel: The Making of Enter the Dragon, which is fascinating and contains a lot of footage I’d never seen before. Anha Capri’s Super-8 footage is shown, which I’d heard about but never seen, and shows the cast larking about and Bruce warming up. The famous incident with the glass bottles involving Bob Wall and Lee is dismissed almost entirely as a trivial episode hardly worthy of comment, which is interesting seeing as how elsewhere on the disc, Linda Lee Cadwell goes to great lengths to detail the incident and coyly lay blame (“someone didn’t do what they were supposed to do”). It also shows a take of the first scene Lee shot (the scene in his room where the girls are brought in to him) and retells of his nervousness at appearing in the film. The Linda Lee Cadwell interview segments (which, infuriatingly, have to be selected separately and can’t simply be played in order) doesn’t reveal anything if you’ve read her book, but it’s nice to hear the snake story told again. The disc is rounded off with what looks like a promising feature-length documentary entitled The Curse of the Dragon. Narrated by George Takei (John Saxon must have been busy elsewhere), I got as far as the opening voice-over proclaiming: “Before Norris, before Van Damme, before Seagal, there was only one master…” before switching off in disbelief. Nevertheless, after so many releases, remasters and special editions, this is surely the definitive version of the film. At least until the next definitive version shows up…!
(Screenshots taken from standard definition source)
Comments»
I’ve never been happy with Enter The Dragon’s DVD releases. Just as many classic HK films get badly treated on DVD, it is oh so bloody typical that the normally first rate Warners should drop the ball here
The newly added Monk scene has Bruce Lee painfully dubbed over by ultra nerd John Little. This is in spite of the fact that a recording exists of Bruce reciting the dialogue, and was even adapted for a commerical album
Also, the music edits are that seen on the HK edit. The sequence where Han lays his cat on the guillotine, and the beginning of the final edification sequence have no music on the DVD’s English track. If you switch to French audio, you will hear music, which is how it was on the original US theatrical version.
That said, Williams’ flashback now has funky soul music mysteriously absent from the theatrical cut so its not all bad!
Come on Warner, do this film justice!
A great transfer and the masses of stuff that’s been included on this Blu-ray Disc and you say do the film justice? I guess there’s no pleasing some…
I was saying to Cal the other day funnily enough that film fans have never been so downright fussy (including myself on occasions though I’m attempting to maintain perspective), yet this is in spite of never having it so good as a film buyer either.
From what I’ve seen of this BD I’d be perfectly happy with it myself, though I’m not specifically a martial arts fan myself of course. Now, let’s get some of those Seagal classics on the hi-def shelves of HMV and show this Brucie who’s the king…
(I’m joking about the last bit)
It doesn’t take much to please me. Just do the film right, instead of messing around with the music score, and inserting a jarring deleted sequence which a) affects the pacing and b) is very out of place with the glarring new dub. There was enough room on the 2nd disc of the dvd to include the original theatrical version but instead they chose to include the Warrior’s Journey documentary, which had been on dvd for years. All the extras in the world mean nothing if the film has been screwed with
If dvd distributors, especially dvd distributors of HK films, didn’t keep messing with films, i wouldn’t be complaining.
I, for one, am glad the monk scene is included despite the atrocious dubbing. It gives a bit of background to Han and it gives Lee a reason for breaking the mirrors at the end.