Robert Clouse – ‘Enter the Dragon’
Martial arts have been found in most action films since the start of the 1980s. There’s nothing quite like seeing two or more combatants go at it hand to hand until one emerges victorious with the other lying strewn and defeated on the floor. But that action movie fighting spirit undoubtedly comes from the great martial arts films of the preceding decade, particularly those of the true cinema icon Bruce Lee.
1972’s Fist of Fury and The Way of the Dragon laid the foundation for Lee’s success in the Western world, but it was 1973’s Enter the Dragon – Lee’s final completed movie appearance – that really showed that the Hong-Kong American fighter was a true legend of the game. Robert Clouse’s film premiered in Los Angeles in August 1973, just one month after the actor had passed away at the age of 32.
The brilliance of Enter the Dragon comes in the way it fuses several genres that had emerged in popularity at the beginning of the 1970s, such as the spy film and the blaxploitation genre. Narratively, we find Lee (played by Bruce), a Hong Kong martial arts instructor, being asked to investigate a crime lord called Han by a British intelligence agent.
But, of course, this spy narrative really plays second fiddle to the martial arts action. This is a Bruce Lee film, after all. Lee is to take part in a fighting tournament on Han’s private island whilst simultaneously gathering evidence of his criminal dealings, and we find John Saxon’s Roper and Jim Kelly’s Williams, two Vietnam War veterans, also taking part in the competition.
So there are two narratives occurring simultaneously in Enter the Dragon, with Lee sneaking around Han’s island estate to gather intelligence, only for him then to lay down his own law in hand-to-hand combat. This latter part of the story is where Lee really shines, of course, and is arguably the central reason we come to watch Enter the Dragon over the likes of the James Bond films of the 1970s.
There’s certainly an undoubted mirroring of 007 through the spy moments of the film, although they can sometimes feel merely like cheap imitations. On the other hand, Lee’s physicality and skill as a fighter are unrivalled and in his early 30s, he was at his absolute peak, batting down his opponents as though they were mere children in a playground.
However, it must be said that Lee doesn’t feel out of place when he is actually acting rather than just fighting and Enter the Dragon proves that he ought to have been considered a fine performer in both fields. Aside from what’s going on with Lee and his fellow stars, Clouse’s film features an excellent score that is equally tense, suspenseful and enlivening.
So, too, is Gilbert Hubb’s cinematography bright, well-considered, and ultimately captivating. However, aside from the impressive spy motifs, beautifully captured and delivered, Enter the Dragon is really all about the fighting, and it doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. Lee’s combative efforts are just about as mesmerising as any he delivered throughout his career.
The fact that a gun isn’t fired throughout the film is a testament to Enter the Dragon’s excellence, and it’s easy to see why the film went down as one of the greatest and most influential martial arts films ever made. Lee’s swansong is arguably his best, and without it, it’s unlikely that we’d have seen the ferocious fighting in the action movies of the proceeding decades.
