The Way of the Dragon (1972)

Sadly Over-hyped

Great Film overall

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

for many viewers, a collection of memorable scenes. or maybe, the impressive confrontation between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. for the others, a splendid mix of comedy and action. and the art to transform an easy story in an admirable show. sure, the basic virtue is the ball of memories around it . not surprising . but, each new meeting with the scenes of this films becomes more than nice entertainment but source to a new perspective about a subtle and precise art of a great artist.

Bruce Lee's "The Way of the Dragon" is a good movie but at the same time it is an action movie with many major flaws, but let me be clear I'm not being generous to this movie at all. The movie was Lee's only film as a director, and he also wrote the screenplay for the movie all by himself, and he stars in it as well. The main character of the movie is about a Chinese man named Tang Lung (Bruce Lee) who comes to Italy from Hong Kong just to visit some of his relatives and there he has a girlfriend named Chen Ching Hua (Nora Miao) who works at a restaurant owned by "Uncle" Wang (Chung-Hsin Huang) who also has a lot of aspiring martial artists who work as chefs at his restaurant and their restaurant is been threatened by a local gang who wants to take ownership of the restaurant. For most of the movie I was pretty bored with the dialogue but it wasn't entirely Lee's fault because at the time he wasn't very experienced in the movie business, and this movie would happen to be one of his very first and very last movies after dying at the age of 32 on July 20, 1973. Anyway I say that in the normal scenes throughout most of the movie Lee treats this movie like a romantic type of movie so that we can get to know his character and the rest of the characters throughout the course of this movie but then again it would have been better if he had made the dialogue much more interesting instead of really boring. But now let's get back to the story. Then as the movie goes on Lee's character keeps removing the criminals from that restaurant and then the gang hires an American martial artist named Colt (Chuck Norris) in order to kill him which the only thing that I can tell you other than the two of them square off against each other is that their fight takes place in the Roman Colosseum. During the battle between the Lee and Norris characters we see a major plot twist involving his friends of which I will not reveal. The only area of this movie where this is entertaining is the scenes where the action sequences which are expertly choreographed by Bruce Lee. If Bruce Lee (who was the greatest martial artist of all time) had lived longer people highly believe that he would have become a very popular action star like Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger among many others. This movie could have been better but i'm still recommending it for those die hard Bruce Lee fans out there.

Upon the death of her father a young woman named "Chen Ching-Hua" (Nora Miao) inherits a Chinese restaurant in the heart of Rome. Unfortunately, a mobster decides that he wants possession of it and begins to pressure Ms. Chen in the hope that she will eventually sign it over to him. Not wanting to sell it she write to her uncle in Hong Kong who sends a young man named "Tang Lung" (Bruce Lee) to fix things. However, Ms. Chen is disappointed when he arrives because rather than being a lawyer or a savvy businessman Tang Lung has no discernible skills that will help at all. Anyway, rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this film is basically the extended version of "Return of the Dragon" with two particular scenes more fully covered. The first scene involves Tang Lung going into a restaurant in the airport at the beginning of the movie and the second gives more detail about his adventure with a prostitute. Both scenes are somewhat comical but neither really affect the overall storyline. In any case, this movie is clearly one of the better martial arts films ever made with Bruce Lee clearly being the main attraction but with both Nora Miao and Chuck Norris (as "Colt") providing excellent support. That said I would definitely recommend this movie for all fans of this genre and rate it as above average.

Tang Lung (Bruce) is a Chinese native and something of a wide-eyed innocent when he comes to the big European city of Rome to help his relatives, who run a restaurant in the Eternal City. But a big problem arises when gangsters declare that they want the restaurant and the property it's on for themselves. Initially Lung's family are helpless and confused about what to do next, then they find out that Lung is a Kung Fu master. Lung staves off the gangsters by fighting wave after wave of thugs and baddies sent by the higher-ups in the nefarious syndicate. For a while, the restaurant seems secure. But then the bad guys bring out the big guns by calling in Colt (Chuck), an American Martial Arts master who flies to Rome with the sole reason of defeating Lung in a fight. The climax of the movie sees the two titans have it out in the legendary Colosseum. Who will emerge victorious? The Way of the Dragon (or Return of the Dragon, as it was marketed after the success of Enter the Dragon), was a Golden Harvest production written and directed by Bruce Lee, and he also co-produced, starred in, and of course was credited as Action Director and Martial Arts Instructor on the film. Bruce's talent was immense and seemed to be growing at this point in his career; unfortunately for the world, he passed away the next year after the release of this film. Of course, this led to many producers trying to fill the void left by the legend and his huge popularity, leading to such names as Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, and our personal favorite, Bruce Rhee. Just to name a few. But for our purposes here at Comeuppance, it was nice to actually see a BRUCE LEE film, as opposed to some of the movies that appeared in his wake. It puts things into perspective when you can go back and see the originator, instead of one of the imitators.Don't get us wrong, many of the movies featuring the "imitators" are fun in their own right and certainly have their charms, but there's nothing like an actual Bruce Lee film, and, sadly, there aren't that many of them to choose from. Here, though, starting from the cool, Spaghetti Western-style animated opening titles sequence, we go into a very 70's world: big cars, big collars, pea soup-colored home decor, and of course Bruce Lee was still alive. Maybe someday we'll be able to go back to the 70's. Of course, it was also a time when a young Chuck Norris, sans facial hair (but with plenty of hair everywhere else, as Bruce humorously points out during their fight scene), was just coming on the movie scene. Chuck doesn't appear until about an hour into the movie, as he's the baddies' "secret weapon" brought in to bring Bruce down, but, like Slaughter in San Francisco (1974), Chuck plays a villain with limited screen time. He had yet to establish himself as a hero, and of course when he comes up against Bruce Lee, the fur's gonna fly! The movie does get off to something of a slow start, and the pacing is kind of odd, especially by today's standards, but really there's no shortage of Bruce action. It was a time when terms like "Kung Fu" and "Nunchucks" were brand new in the American (and the non-Asian world's?) lexicon, so that was interesting to see. The dubbing is...unfortunate, but typical for productions of this time and place. That's how it is on the Inter-Vid VHS, and it's unlikely to be any better on many of this movie's other releases. A widescreen, subtitled, remastered DVD would be awesome, but it's probably an impossibility, because of the way the movie was shot. The only other real complaint we have is that it's kind of repetitive, plot-wise, but that's a minor quibble, we're just grateful this film exists in the first place. It would be fascinating to think what Bruce would be doing if he was around today.There's a really good chance he'd be making DTV movies with the action stars of our day like Scott Adkins and Gary Daniels, among others. Or perhaps he'd be making movies in Hong Kong with Jet Li and Donnie Yen. Or maybe both, there's no way of knowing. But Return of the Dragon remains an important part of the Bruce legacy.