The Bruce Lee movie that changed Nicolas Cage’s life
The intensity that pours through each Nicolas Cage performance is nothing short of mesmerising, with each moment as an outpouring of visceral emotion. Cage’s depth and versatility as an actor have made him one of the most prominent icons in Hollywood, even though his complexity and nuance sometimes leave him in a somewhat underrated position.
But like any movie actor, Cage has his heroes, and they don’t come much more powerful or impressionable than Bruce Lee. Cage once went on record to admit his admiration for the Hong Kong-American martial artist actor, stating his favourite film in his catalogue and explaining how he stole a facial expression from his in the process.
During a feature with Rotten Tomatoes, Cage said of Lee’s 1973 classic movie, “Enter the Dragon was powerful to me because it was like watching a superhero come to life. I’d never seen anything like Bruce Lee, and that movie changed my life because it made me believe that a man can actually do these extraordinary things physically, and he was a great actor. “
Going on to explain how Lee influenced Cage in a significant way in his professional life, the actor added, “He had great facial expressions, and he’s also had a big impact in some of my choices as a film performer, certainly not in terms of my style of movement — nobody can move like him — but in some of the facial expressions.”
Enter the Dragon is, without a doubt, Lee’s best film. Directed by Robert Clouse, starring Lee, John Saxon and Jim Kelly with a story by Michael Allin, the film combines the motifs of the classic martial arts genre with a spy twist and is rightfully considered one of the greatest martial arts movies of all time.
Two moments from within Cage’s filmography have been crafted with a little help from Lee. The first came in John Woo’s 1997 science fiction action thriller Face/Off, with Cage noting, “When I shoot the Castor Troy character with the harpoon, my face goes through all these expressions. That was a direct steal from Bruce Lee when he jumped on a guy and killed him with his feet”.
Highlighting the other significant moment, the actor concluded, “In fact, I went through that slow-motion shot rather recently with Mandy. I stole from Bruce Lee’s facial expressions when he breaks the guy’s neck, and the camera goes right into his eyes and he’s got that very ferocious, wide-eyed look. He passed, and I put that in the picture.”
