This is a box set of the most famous Bruce Lee films – the action star had actually been in a ton of films already before he became “Bruce Lee, martial arts superstar.” All of the films are in 4K except for, annoyingly, the best and most famous one: Enter the Dragon, Warner Bros. has their own 4K set for that out next month.
These are the 1970s films that people remember from Lee’s career. It would have been nice to maybe try to get the theatrical Green Hornet movie in there as well, but that was a different company of course (and that one was a “Brucesploitation” movie released after the star’s death). The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon and the two more famous “Brucesploitation” films featuring footage of Lee Game of Death and Game of Death II are all included, the movies that Lee made after becoming somewhat famous in the US in his role as Kato in The Green Hornet on TV.
It’s said that Lee tried to pitch a show called Ah Sahm that was very similar to the later show Kung Fu, and alleged that Warner Bros. stole his idea and gave him no credit. So he was then advised by a producer friend to go back to Hong Kong, where he could make a feature film that would showcase his obvious talents. He ended up in a bidding war between the well-established studio Shaw Brothers and upstart competitor Golden Harvest. Golden Harvest was Lee’s choice, and his films made the company—Golden Harvest also later launched the career of Jackie Chan (who can be seen in a couple of these films as an extra). Very recently, a new show called Warrior has come out using Lee’s original Ah Sahm concept, and has been well-received and currently put out by Warners!
The films are all wrapped around Lee’s action scenes—the plots are not very good, I have to say. Despite that, you see his progression as an actor, and by Enter the Dragon (undeniably his best film) they are getting better in both story and action. He directed his own action scenes, but was a quasi-director beyond that on all of these, credited or not. For Way of the Dragon, he did finally get full credit as the film’s director.
Game of Death, from what remains of the film, would probably have topped Enter the Dragon—but then Lee died under very mysterious circumstances. The Frankenfilm compiled from Lee’s original Game of Death footage and a bunch of other crap by director of Enter the Dragon launched a raft of Brucesploitation imitators. The version included here comes with a nearly four-hour video essay from James Flower that uses all the rushes from Lee’s original shoot, showing you what he intended and the way he wanted to tell the story on a grand scale through a series of set-piece fight scenes. The video essay also explains Lee’s personal mixed martial arts form and philosophy of Jeet Kune Do.
One of the fun things about the last few Lee films, especially Enter the Dragon and Way of the Dragon, you get to see a very young Chuck Norris going toe-to-toe with Bruce Lee! Game of Death also features a great fight with basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (who trained with Lee), whereas Enter the Dragon enters honorary Blaxploitation-film territory with its battle between Lee and tennis pro and martial artist Jim Kelly.
The disc from Arrow is packed with commentaries, featurettes, feature-length documentaries, video essays, interviews with scholars of Asian cinema and Bruce Lee, and so much more. If you’re a Bruce Lee fan—it’s an absolute must. If you’re on the fence, pick up Enter the Dragon on DVD and try streaming a few of the set’s films on Arrow Player, the company’s streaming service. If you haven’t checked that out before, there is a free trial available. If you find out that you really like them, invest in the set—it’s a chunk of change, but also very comprehensive.
★★★★
Ian Schultz
psychotroniccinema.com 