“Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” Theatrical Poster
Director: Rob Cohen
Cast: Jason Scott Lee, Lauren Holly, Nancy Kwan, Michael Learned, Lim Kay-tong, Ric Young, Luoyong Wang, John Cheung, Van Williams, Shannon Lee
Running Time: 120 min.
By Ian Whittle
This is a film I enjoy a lot more unreservedly now than I did as a teen. Back then, I knew all the ins and outs of Bruce’s life (or at least, I thought I did, Matthew Polly’s recent biography certainly tears up a few myths!) and this just seemed like fancy Hollywood Babyloney.
Now, having seen that two of my favourite “true story” films, The Elephant Man and Ed Wood, were just as fictitious as this, and having laughed through several Hong Kong/Taiwanese Bruce bios, I can now appreciate it for its merits. Which are considerable.
Jason Scott Lee is superb. A three-dimensional portrayal that captures the essence of Bruce without restoring to clichés like thumb-nosing. Although the fights rely a tad too much on flipping out of trouble, they have energy and drama in them – and boy, John Cheung is really terrifying as Bruce’s back-breaking nemesis! Hard to believe he was goofing off in Eagle’s Killer once upon a time…And although she looks nothing like her real life counterpart, Lauren Holly is a lovely Linda (who doubtless enjoyed seeing herself on screen as a leggy cheerleader blonde with 20/20 vision).
Where the film does fall down is with The Demon (Sven Ole-Thorsen, the Swedish giant Grace Jones dated after she threw out Dolph Lundgren, essentially a video game character (speaking of which, anyone remember the video game of this?) resembling Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Everytime it appears, it makes you long for the dignity (relatively speaking!) of Ernest “Curt” Curtis from The Dragon Lives. To make matters worse, the sadly ironic ending where Bruce “saves” Brandon from the Demon does leave a bad taste in the mouth, but to be fair they weren’t to know his fate when they made this.
One thing that hasn’t changed in my view is the sublime Randy Edleman score, which is lovely.
Still, they could at least have mentioned Betty Ting Pei. She did the same for Linda in Bruce Lee & I…
By Ian Whittle: 7/10
