The Way Of Lee

 

 (imdb)

THE WAY OF THE DRAGON-1972-In Rome, Tang Lung (Bruce Lee) meets Chen Ching Hua (Nora Miao; also in FIST OF FURY). She's having trouble with her restaurant business. The boss and his thugs want the land and threaten potential customers. He also meets Ah Quen (Ti Chen) and Uncle Wang (Wang Chung Hsin). Lung helps defend his friends against the bad guys and when he proves too much the boss' toady Ho (Wei Ping-ao) sends for Colt (Chuck Norris), a US martial artist. Their intense battle in the finale is great! 

Also known as RETURN OF THE DRAGON, it was written and directed by Lee (in his directing debut) who co-produced with Raymond Chow.

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The Chinese Connection

 

(themoviedb.org)

FIST OF FURY-1972-Chen Zhen (Bruce Lee) seeks revenge for the death of his teacher. Within the first 20 minutes he beats a whole Japanese Bushido school. Unfortunately, the Japanese ransack Chen's school and beat everyone up. Chen is asked to leave Shanghai but instead becomes an elusive avenger, picking off the men responsible for his teacher's death. Suzuki (Riki Hashimoto), the evil Japanese master, wants Chen stopped. He hires a Russian strongman (Robert Baker; Lee's student and friend) but that doesn't work. Chen kills them all but not before most of his school is wiped out. 

Also with Lee's two THE BIG BOSS co-stars Maria Yi and James Tien and Nora Miao. In the US it was known as THE CHINESE CONNECTION and was once again written and directed by Lo Wei (who also appears as a police man). He and Lee didn't see eye to eye on everything and argued constantly. According to Jackie Chan who did some stunts for the film, he saw Lee and Wei nearly come to blows till Wei backed down. Raymond Chow again was the producer. 

FIST OF FURY was the highest grossing Hong Kong film ever, until it was topped by Lee's next film, THE WAY OF THE DRAGON.

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Boss Lee

 

 (imdb)

THE BIG BOSS-1971-Cheng Chao-An (Bruce Lee) and his uncle (Chia Chen-Tu) visit his cousins in Thailand. He had promised his mother he wouldn't fight so he lets cousin Hsu (James Tien) do most of the fighting when they come across bullies and gangsters. They all work at an ice factory. When two cousins discover that the icehouse is really pushing dope, the manager has them killed and dismembered. When Hsu accuses the factory boss (Ying Chien Han) of killing his friends, he's killed by the boss' son (Tony Liu) in a bloody fight. After Cheng is made the foreman, Mei (Maria Yi) and his other cousins think he's sold out. Nearly everyone dies before Cheng and The Boss have their bloody showdown. 

This was Bruce Lee's first starring role and became one of the biggest hits in Hong Kong film history. Ironically, James Tien was originally cast in the Lee role but when the director left the project and writer Wei Lo became director, the actors' roles were reversed. In the US, it was confusingly called “Fists of Fury” (the title of Lee's next Hong Kong based movie). 

Lo went on to make many more movies including early Jackie Chan productions. A Golden Harvest release, Raymond Chow was the executive producer.

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Legend

 

 (themoviedb.org)

BRUCE LEE THE LEGEND-1984-This documentary has rare scenes of Lee as a child actor (some with his comedic actor dad), his now famous black & white interview, scenes of him as Kato and TV's "Longstreet". Raymond Chow, head of Golden Harvest, explains how Lee convinced him to make "THE BIG BOSS (FIST OF FURY in the US) and FISTS OF FURY (THE CHINESE CONNECTION in the US). Both were huge hits. Then writing, directing and starring in THE WAY OF THE DRAGON. Good behind the scenes footage from ENTER THE DRAGON and GAME OF DEATH. 

There's speculation on his death and interviews with Nora Miao (his WAY OF THE DRAGON co-star), Betty Ting Pei (long thought to be his mistress) and director Robert Clouse. This Golden Harvest tribute is good but hardly a definitive bio. Leonard Ho, normally a producer, directed.

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Lee's Game

GAME OF DEATH-1978-Every martial arts movie fans' favorite paste up job. The legendary Bruce Lee began this film as producer/writer/director in 1973.

While filming Lee got an offer from Warner Bros. to star in the most expensive budgeted martial arts at the time (ENTER THE DRAGON). He planned to resume shooting on GAME but died of a cerebral edema (some might disagreed with the cause of death) before DRAGON's release leaving behind about 100 minutes of footage. In 1978 DRAGON's director Robert Clouse was hired to make a movie out of the remaining footage.

The story concerns a martial arts film star Billy Lo (either Kim Tai-jung aka Tony Lung, or Yuen Biao doubling for Lee who appears briefly in close-ups and in scenes from WAY OF THE DRAGON (used as the film he's working on; Chuck Norris also appears). He's under pressure from a syndicate boss Dr. Land (Dean Jagger) and his smart ass henchman Steiner (Hugh O'Brian; still alive at the time of this writing). Billy refuses to buckle under the syndicate's grip so Land sends an assassin (Mel Novak) to kill the star. Billy is shot but not killed but with the help of his reporter/friend (Gig Young in his last role) fakes his death and has plastic surgery so he can get revenge on the gang. He wears various disguises (so he doesn't look like the real Lee) and beats up a corrupt American martial artist (real pro Karate fighter Robert Hall). Later, after his girlfriend (Coleen Camp) has been kidnapped,  in the film's most famous scenes, Billy (the real Lee) has to fight three guardians played by Don Insanto (his real life student), Korean Hapkido master Ji Han-jae and former pro basketball player Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Writer/director Robert Clouse does a good job of editing together scenes of the real and fake Lees but even still the movie doesn't ring true and the re-editing and Lee doubles ultimately do in the production.

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"Water Can Flow Or It Can Crash. Be Water, My Friend." - Bruce Lee

I AM BRUCE LEE-2011-This documentary produced by Spike TV is pretty good but would have been better without the likes of UFC president Dana White (UFC was airing on Spike at the time) who declares Lee created mixed martial arts and celebrities like Mickey Rourke (listed as actor/boxer) and Ed O'Neill (listed as actor/martial artist) telling us why Lee was so great.

 UFC fighter Stephan Bonnar tells how he kicked his brothers' asses and other fighters like Jon Jones and Chung Le pontificate too. Even former boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini (billed as World Boxing Champion) has his say. Kobe Bryant and some dancers reflect on Lee having been the Hong Kong Cha-Cha champion of 1957 and he's compared to Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X! Of course Dan Inosanto, Lee's widow Linda and his daughter Shannon help keep things on track with their insights into his life, his philosophy and the development of his own martial arts style Jeet Kune Do. His stint as Kato of course is talked about and it was nice to see actor/stuntman Judo Gene LeBell be interviewed. But why no interviews with other people who worked with him like Chuck Norris and John Saxon? 

This is biography features a lot of the very interesting black and white interview he did with in 1971 but there's too many celebrities talking trash and too much UFC promoting.

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Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

THE FURY OF THE DRAGON-1976-This is a theatrical version of the short lived 1966 TV show that debuted the same year as the more popular “Batman”. It was released 10 years after it’s lone TV season to cash in on Bruce Lee’s “last film” THE GAME OF DEATH. Though the new credits made it seem like a Bruce Lee feature it’s just 4 TV episodes strung together featuring Van Williams as the masked crime fighter that everyone thinks is a villain. His sidekick and chauffeur is the Kung-Fu kicking Kato who tries to spice up the mundane action. The Hornet's real identity is newspaper publisher Bret Reid whose sideline is known only to the DA (Walter Barry) and his secretary.

The excitement challenged storylines include a kidnapping/blackmail plot on a visiting diplomat, crooked cops and a death ray. It’s not the corny tongue in cheek “take off” Batman was (there was a crossover episode) and lacked the villainous guests stars, which may be the reason it wasn’t a hit. The version I saw had Chinese sub-titles and featured trailers for Lee’s other movies at the beginning and his black and white screen test at the end. Van Williams appeared in other TV shows but made very few movies.

However in the 1993 Bruce Lee biopic DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY he portrayed the TV director of THE GREEN HORNET.

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