"you have offended my family...

...and you have offended the Shaolin Temple." Famous words spoken by Bruce Lee to 'the bad guy', preceding an iconic and suspenseful fight to the death through mirror-filled rooms, in my all time favourite martial arts movie 'Enter The Dragon'. As a kid, being a bit of a tomboy, I chose karate over ballet when given the offer of an after-school sport and hence have watched my fair share of both good and bad films of this genre. This one is a good old classic. The poster in my room:

Theatrical release poster

'Enter The Dragon' was actually the first Chinese martial arts film to be produced by a major Hollywood studio, Warner Bros, and yet was also the last film in which Bruce Lee was to feature. He passed away on July 20, 1973 and the movie was released on the 26th in Hong Kong, where it was largely set. 

Without dragging in the plot, it is interesting that Lee had a major role in crafting the film and whilst making a darn good action flick he also had the focus of portraying the beauty of his Chinese culture. Aside from the morality of the storyline, I do think the sets, locations, props and costumes work well together to achieve that aim. There's a delicacy and regality to the background that contrasts well with the martial arts. Whilst many might call it clichéd and too retro I think it's ground-breaking for the era and pretty damn cool.

Two points of interest:

1. During one of the matches Lee delivers a running thrust kick to O'Hara, the opponent actor, which had been prearranged between the two for realism, resulting in O'Hara's sternum being broken and two extras in the crowd behind him breaking arms whilst trying to contain him. The video below shows the fight, fast-forward to 2:30min for the exact sequence.



2. Jackie Chan makes an appearance in the movie, very early on in his film career, and possibly one of the launchpads to his fame.