WAY OF THE DRAGON

Hong Kong, 1972, 100 minutes, Colour.
Bruce Lee, Norah Miao, Chuck Norris.
Directed by Bruce Lee.

This is the Bruce Lee film. It was released only six or seven months before his untimely death. He wrote, starred and directed. It was not his last film, Enter the Dragon, the much more polished and well-crafted American martial arts film was the final film.

The film is exotic in its setting – not unusual for Lee who had appeared in American television series with some success. He had also had a successful career in his own Hong Kong. However, this film has an international flavour especially with its Italian settings. When Bruce Lee’s character goes to Rome to help his cousins who own restaurants, he finds that they are up against gang syndicates. He fights them – and the Japanese and European martial artists (including Chuck Norris in an early film).

The build-up is to a showdown in the Colosseum – spectacular martial arts in a location of ancient martial arts.

This is the film for homage to Bruce Lee.

1. Why did Kung Fu films have such popularity in the mid-seventies? What did audiences expect from these films? As regards plot, characters, dialogue, demonstration of martial arts? How well were expectations fulfilled in this film?

2. How impressive is Bruce Lee? As writer and director of this film? As the hero? As a tribute to Bruce Lee's talent?

3. How well did the film use Panavision, colour, locations, especially Rome? Comment on its filming techniques and especially its editing, especially as regards the fights? Did the dubbing detract from the film? How?

4. Why are martial arts films entertaining for many audiences? Do they appeal to ‘Saturday matinee’ expectations? Do they offer something more?

5. What do such films presuppose as regards audience values? Attitudes towards good and evil? Towards heroes and villains? Towards what is truly human? Towards the defence and protection of the weak and victimized? In triumphing in good over evil etc.?

6. How strong was the plot in this film? Was it a cliche plot? Was it a conventional plot? Did it use the conventions of victims, villains, protectors in martial arts films? Was it meant to be real? Was it satisfactory using Rome as a location? Would an authentic Chinese background have been better? The use of scenic values of Rome? Using the Colosseum for the climax? The importance of the sole hero for the plot of this kind of film?

7. How well did Bruce Lee present himself as hero? As comic and naive? As narcissistic? His achievement? His relationships with the victimized, the heroine? His relationships with the villains? Bruce Lee as hero? What constituted his heroism? Why?

8. How important for the tone of the film was Lee's comic touch? His arrival in Rome, his lack of language, the ordering of the soups, jokes about toilets, his relationship and friendliness, the visit to the prostitute? His relationship to the Chinese n the restaurant? His confrontations of the villains? and the comic aspects of this?

9. How well did the Chinese story fit into the Roman background? Did this make it more accessible to western audiences? The normal gangster plot, which is easily comprehensible?

10. The importance of the training sequences? The belief of the Chinese in martial arts? The waiters at work? Lee's impressive training of the waiters? His single-handed demonstrations against the villains? Lee's own training and the way that these were filmed?

11. How convincing were the villains? An international band of crooks? The chief? The Chinese traitor? The Chinese homosexual? Were they convincing villains, or merely there to be demolished?

12. Comment in detail on the techniques for editing a martial arts fight - in the restaurant, outside it, the Colosseum. What is necessary for audience impact and for the success of these martial films? How impressive was the detail? Was it too violent? Or was the violence geared to the plot?

13. The importance and symbolism of the final Colosseum fight? The photogenic background? The long-distance approach, then close-up? The details of the fight itself? Lee's ultimate victory and his treatment of the vanquished?

14. How well did the funeral end the film? The dramatics with the revelation of the traitor?

15. What human values do these films stand for? Even in crude form? How entertainingly were these values upheld?