A tongue-in-cheek martial-arts classic

ENTER THE DRAGON (1973)

An appreciation by Jerry Saravia

It is strange to think that the late Bruce Lee just hit his international Hollywood mark with "Enter the Dragon" and never lived to see his legacy. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the tender age of 32 back in 1973. He was gone way too soon yet none of that diminishes the impact of one of the finest martial-arts flicks of all time, the one and only "Enter the Dragon." It is a comic-book movie, a sort of Chinese James Bond but with none of the gadget gimmicks. In this case, Bruce Lee plays Lee, a Shaolin Temple fighter who enters an epic martial-arts tournament by a most evil yet charming Mr. Han (Shih Kien).

Lee is not the only fighter entering the competition in some remote island where guns are not allowed. John Saxon is Roper, a gambler and con-man who is pretty good with his fists even when evading some mob muscle while playing golf. The late Jim Kelly is Williams, the one with the huge afro who admonishes Han for acting like a villain from a comic-book. Roper and Williams are old friends who want to party and get the girls. Lee merely has a mission unbeknownst to anyone - to find evidence of women OD'ing and left to die off the shores of Han's island. Naturally, Lee also has a vendetta against one of Han's prized fighters, O'Harra with a nasty facial scar (Bob Wall), though I will not reveal what that vendetta is.

"Enter the Dragon" has many classic sequences that are pretty much iconic in the action-adventure realm as well. Bruce Lee's fight sequences are legendary, especially fighting with nunchakus, flip-kicking or delivering flying kicks in slow-motion (the flip kick is not actually performed by Lee but by his double, though Lee had planned to incorporate gymnastics into his Jeet Kune Do style). He steals the show from everyone (though as former film critic Danny Peary once said, you kinda wish Lee had shared at least one moment with Williams).  Still even a scene-stealer like Lee can't take away from the charms of John Saxon or Jim Kelly. Saxon has many crowd-pleasing moments (and he has great chemistry with the wonderful Ahna Capri as Han's assistant) but it is Jim Kelly and his sarcastic asides to Han that elevate the tension of a most unwelcome island where guards are killed if they do not protect the island's deep dark secrets. Kelly's Williams also has a funny flashback to some racist cops who can't allow a black man to travel to Hawaii - it has a racial charge and its denouement had audiences cheering back when I saw the film in theaters in 1978. And when Saxon's Roper fights the rough and vicious Bolo (Bolo Yeung), it is electrically charged escapism, particularly the segue to hundreds of minions fighting our heroes in what must have been hellish staging by director Robert Clouse and Bruce Lee, who choreographed all the fights.

Also noteworthy is the Hall of Mirrors climax, nicely echoing a similarly startling moment from Orson Welles' "The Lady From Shanghai." It is thrilling and nail-biting entertainment with Han's claws dominating the sequence as he tries to tear apart Lee. Lee also has a slow-motion scream in close-up where he destroys one fighter during a tournament - it has to be seen to be believed and it is positively chilling.

A vastly entertaining martial-arts action picture, "Enter the Dragon" can infrequently get silly and a little unbelievable (watch Lee fly from the ground up to the top of a tree branch) but it is tongue-in-cheek without getting too goofy. At once humorous, graceful and full of some truly hypnotic fight sequences that seemingly last an eternity (Angela Mao as Lee's sister has a very intense fight sequence with dozens of fighters that lasts a good five minutes), this is the best of the ensemble martial-arts action pics, a precursor to Clouse's own "Force Five" and others of its ilk where the director hoped he would reignite that "Dragon" feel (Clouse never managed to make lightning strike twice). It is the catlike Bruce Lee, though, who shows what a charismatic fighter and electrifying screen presence he really was. We'll never know, after doing four action pics and the incomplete "Game of Death," where Bruce Lee's career would have taken him. "Enter the Dragon" is a great hint.