The Warrior Within (1976)

          Released three years after the death of Bruce Lee, whose exciting films and charismatic TV appearances helped popularize Asian martial arts worldwide, this solid documentary articulates philosophical concepts of mind-body balance while also showcasing several ’70s martial-arts masters, including Lee’s friend and American counterpart Chuck Norris. Presented with a fair measure of elegance and style by director Burt Rashby and writer Karen Lase Golightly, the film mixes archival footage, clips from competitions, interviews, and stylized visual effects such as slow motion and solarization, all to the purpose of demonstrating that karate, kung fu, tai chi and other disciplines are more than combat techniques. Speaker after speaker explains that hardening the body and sharpening the reflexes is a means of improving the mind and spirit, even though the narration track and the bulk of the film’s final section accentuate the utility of martial arts for self-defense.

          As for that final section, it’s probably the weakest part of the picture even though it reflects the anxious era during which this doc was made. Watching the climactic scenes of The Warrior Within, one might take the impression that every resident of an American city in the mid-’70s was doomed to experience violent crime. From this same fearful well sprang a zillion vigilante movies.

          In any event, the picture begins by discussing Lee, then moves into explorations of various systems and weapons from countries throughout Asia. Dubious but impressive facts, such as the idea that a nunchaku strike carries 1,600 pounds of pressure, adorn compelling shots of masters demonstrating the use of sais, spears, swords, and, of course, bare hands and feet to deliver deadly blows. After establishing the toughness of the martial arts, the filmmakers shift into a discussion of belief systems, talking about the inner forces from which martial artists draw their strength, while also noting historical ironies. Regarding the four animal-inspired styles of kung fu, the narrator says, “They all began in the Shaolin Temple of China—the deadly product of pacifists.” Whereas many speakers swear allegiance to strict modalities, Norris shares his idea, extrapolated from Bruce Lee’s philosophy, of building a personal system with a little bit of everything, rules be damned.

          Some of the most impressive people in The Warrior Within are likely unfamiliar to laypersons, such as Moses Powell, a huge man so in control of his tai chi technique that he deflects attackers with deceptively simple rolling movements and, in one scene, balances his entire frame on his index finger. The picture’s argument for using martial arts to realize physical potential is persuasive, so if the filmmakers get carried away periodically—as with scenes portraying America’s cities as war zones—those excesses can be attributed to the enthusiasm of people with a message they’re burning to convey. Seen critically, The Warrior Within is an ad encouraging every viewer to visit a local dojo. Seem generously, it’s a slick and worthwhile exploration of a subject that captured the public imagination in the ’70s.

The Warrior Within: GROOVY

The Big Boss (1971) & Fist of Fury (1972) & The Way of the Dragon (1972)

          Like James Dean, martial artist Bruce Lee casts a long shadow over popular culture despite making precious few films before his death at a young age. Much of his legend stems from Lee's only completed Hollywood movie, Enter the Dragon (1973), which casts the actor as a kung-fu secret agent. The picture hit theaters shortly after Lee died, creating a mythological quality that still endures. Yet Lee, who first gained notice among American audiences by playing a sidekick on the short-lived U.S. superhero show The Green Hornet (1966-1967), actually notched three starring roles in Hong Kong before making Enter the Dragon. Released many times under many titles, these pictures often blend into the overall flow of Lee's filmography, which is further muddied by posthumous releases of partially completed projects as well as various films starring imitators, such as the infamous Bruce Li. While many pictures billed as Bruce Lee movies should be ignored, these three represent the early stages of what should have been a long and glorious screen career.

          The Big Boss, sometimes distributed as Fists of Fury, is generic to the point of tedium until it gains momentum about halfway through. Set in a quasi-rural section of Hong Kong, the picture concerns workers at an ice factory who rebel against their oppressive employers, eventually uncovering a scheme to smuggle heroin out of the factory in ice blocks. Lee plays Cheng, a martial-arts master who has promised never to fight again. Staying with relatives who work in the factory, Cheng watches problems mount without taking action. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, seeing as how two of Cheng's friends disappear, and seeing as how it's plain that the factory's owner (Ying-Chieh Han) is a vile monster. Once Lee cuts loose, things get fun—he busts out his nunchucks, mows down opponents with his signature cocksure intensity, and, at one point, whomps a villain so hard the man's body propels through a wall, leaving a man-shaped hole in his wake. The Big Boss also benefits from a slick widescreen look, though the inevitable bad dubbing of the film's American-release version makes every character sound as chipper as resident of Mayberry.

          Fist of Fury—also known as The Chinese Connection and not to be confused with The Big Boss' alternate title, Fists of Fury—improves on its predecessor by getting to the ass-kicking stuff faster, though character scenes remain a weakness. Lee plays Chen, former student of a revered teacher at a Hong Kong martial-arts school. Upon returning home for the teacher's funeral, Lee discovers that the teacher was likely murdered by conspirators associated with a competing school. The proprietors of the other school are Japanese, so national prejudice is a major element of the plot. Throughout Fist of Fury, Lee slips more and more comfortably into his ideal persona as a larger-than-life badass, righting wrongs and smiting the intolerant. In one scene, he high-kicks a sign reading "No Dogs or Chinese Allowed" into a zillion pieces, and in another scene, he fights his way through an entire school's worth of enemy fighters without suffering an injury. The iconic moment from Fist of Fury is a gorgeous shot in which Lee stands stock still except for his hands, which the camera tracks in slow motion so his hands leave ghost images behind.

          Excepting the aborted Game of Death, which wasn't completed until after Lee died, the actor’s final film prior to Enter the Dragon was The Way of the Dragon, which was re-released, after Lee's blockbuster, with the new title Return of the Dragon. By any name, The Way of the Dragon is mediocre at best. Nonetheless, it's noteworthy as the only movie that Lee wrote and directed, and it contains perhaps the single best fight scene in all of Lee's filmography—an epic smackdown with American martial artist Chuck Norris, set inside the Roman Colosseum. Watching these two titans with very different styles is mesmerizing, because Lee is as fast and graceful as Norris is relentless and thunderous. Getting to that climactic scene requires trudging through lots of nonsense. Lee plays Tang, a Hong Kong martial artist sent to Rome in order to help the lovely Chen (Nora Miao), who owns a Chinese restaurant in the Italian city. Mobsters want to put the restaurant out of business, so Tang trains the wait staff to fight while also battling many adversaries on his own. Early scenes are bogged down in idiotic slapstick, such as a running gag about Tang's overactive excretory functions, and the acting by supporting players is wretched. Nonetheless, the Lee-Norris fight has plenty of wow factor.

          The takeaway from all three pictures is that Lee was ready for bigger things. Invariably, he's the best element of each movie, not just because of his remarkable athleticism but also because of his innate star power. None of his Hong Kong movies is a classic, but Lee himself was.

The Big Boss: FUNKY

Fist of Fury: FUNKY

The Way of the Dragon: FUNKY

Game of Death (1978)

          As is true for James Dean, the legend of martial-arts superstar Bruce Lee revolves around a surprisingly small body of work. In fact, Lee starred in only one English-language feature, Enter the Dragon (1973), the release of which he did not live to see. Left unfinished in the wake of Lee’s death were various projects including Game of Death, an allegorical action film whose production was suspended when Lee got the chance to make Enter the Dragon. Several years after Lee’s death, however, Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse was hired to build a film around the extant Game of Death footage. Game of Death is as exploitive, ghoulish, and tacky as most attempts to collateralize the public’s affection for a dead actor—here’s looking at you, The Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)—but Game of Death still has significance for Lee fans. For a good 10 minutes during the climax, when the real Lee is visible kicking and punching his way through a trio of fight scenarios, Game of Death becomes a “lost” film rediscovered. Unfortunately, everything else about Game of Death is highly problematic.

          After sneakily opening the movie by repurposing a famous screen fight between Lee and Chuck Norris (from 1973’s Return of the Dragon), Clouse employs stand-ins, occasionally punctuated by shots of the real Lee from Enter the Dragon outtakes, to simulate the star’s appearance. This technique doesn’t work, especially when chintzy optical effects are utilized to, say, superimpose a towel around Lee’s shoulders. By the end of the movie, Clouse blatantly cuts back and forth between vintage Lee footage and new shots of stand-ins, with the stand-ins’ faces plainly visible. It’s all quite insulting and ridiculous—adjectives that could just as easily be applied to the plot, about a movie star (Lee) who fakes his death so he can seek revenge against a mobster. In extensive English-language scenes, indifferent American actors Dean Jagger, Hugh O’Brian, and Gig Young deliver boring exposition while earnest American starlet Colleen Camp tries to fabricate a relationship with a phantom costar. The middle of the movie, in which the Americans and the stand-ins carry the plot almost completely, is borderline interminable. On the plus side, the folks behind Game of Death spent lavishly on post-production, commissioning a 007-style opening-credits sequence and hiring top-shelf composer John Barry (deepening the 007 association) to give the picture a fuller musical voice than it actually deserves.

          The best material in Game of Death doesn’t arrive until the finale, when Lee slips on a yellow tracksuit (later referenced in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies) to square off against opponents including a giant temple guard played by basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabar. The sight of comparatively tiny Lee battling the towering Jabar is hard to shake, as is, of course, the sheer charisma and elegance that Lee exudes whenever he’s onscreen. Lee is so commanding, in fact, that one wishes his Hollywood swan song was more fitting than this hack job. The makers of Game of Death trample so clumsily over Lee’s dignity that they even include a shot of the real Lee’s corpse, which was displayed publicly during a wake in Hong Kong.

Game of Death: LAME

Enter the Dragon (1973)

          A pulpy blend of martial arts and James Bond-style intrigue, Enter the Dragon suffers from predictable plotting, cardboard characterizations, and action sequences that border on self-parody. Plus, the less said about the acting, the better. Nonetheless, Enter the Dragon is fascinating almost entirely because of its leading man, Bruce Lee. Like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, Lee became a pop-culture icon by dying young—he passed away at the age of 32 days before Enter the Dragon, his first English-language starring role, premiered. Like his fellow tragic legends, Lee justifies his enduring appeal with a peerless onscreen persona. During fight scenes, Lee makes things that shouldn’t even be possible look effortless through his unique combination of grace, power, and speed. Therefore, even though the movie’s combat is accompanied by the campy sound effects that dominated ’70s martial-arts pictures coming out of Asia, Lee emerges as a cinematic badass of the highest order.
          As for the picture itself, Enter the Dragon is pure escapist silliness. An international criminal named Han (Shih Ken) holds a martial-arts tournament on his private island. Government agents ask Lee’s character (who is also named Lee) to participate so he can sneak around the island and determine whether Han is up to something nefarious. Also invited to the tournament are Americans Roper (John Saxon), a white man in debt to the mob, and Williams (Jim Kelly), a black man running from charges of assaulting police officers. Lee, Roper, and Williams participate in the tournament by day and discover Han’s criminal activities by night, leading to a giant confrontation as good guys, accompanied by legions of freed prisoners, battle Han and his minions during an island-wide martial-arts showdown. The movie’s zippy climax involves a duel between Han and Lee in a hall of mirrors, with Han wearing a set of metal talons in place of his missing left hand. Ken, who starred in dozens of martial-arts movies before appearing Enter the Dragon, makes a formidable opponent for Lee.
          Although Enter the Dragon wasn’t the very martial-arts story to find success in America—TV series Kung Fu debuted in 1972, and the 1971 indie Billy Jack made a mint when it was re-released in 1973, just a few months before Enter the Dragon hit theaters—the fact that Enter the Dragon was a U.S./Hong Kong coproduction ensured the film was steeped in genre tropes most American audiences hadn’t seen before. Furthermore, director Robert Clouse shot Enter the Dragon’s fight scenes in such an enjoyably cartoonish manner that the picture became a major inspiration the ’70s kung fu craze. So, while it’s easy to identify the picture’s campy faults (many of which were mercilessly satirized in the 1977 comedy flick Kentucky Fried Movie), Enter the Dragon is unquestionably one of the defining movies of the ’70s.

Enter the Dragon: GROOVY

Circle of Iron (1978)

          A strange blend of martial arts and philosophy that can’t be discounted because of its craftsmanship and sincerity, and yet can’t be taken seriously because much of the picture is patently ridiculous, Circle of Iron has an interesting backstory. The legendary Bruce Lee conceived the movie in the late ’60s, and he originally intended to co-star in the flick with his friend James Coburn. When the project got mired in development, Lee and Coburn moved on to other movies, and then Lee died. David Carradine, who by that point was a martial-arts icon thanks to starring in the TV series Kung Fu (1972-1975), took over Lee’s role in the project. More specifically, he took over Lee’s roles (plural), since Lee was originally slated to play the four parts that Carradine performs in the final film. It would be pleasant to report that all of this fuss was worthwhile, and that Circle of Iron is a great movie full of deep thoughts, but the film is instead a mixed bag.

          On the most superficial level, it’s a very silly adventure story set in a fantasy world that exists outside of time. Cord (Jeff Cooper) is a martial artist who wants to fight his way to the temple of Zetan (Christopher Lee), a wizard who possesses something called “The Book of All Knowledge.” During his travels, Cord meets and learns life lessons from a string of eccentric characters, many played by Carradine. The dialogue is pretentious (lots of Zen-lite aphorisms), the fights are exciting-ish, and the production design is goofy, so, as an action picture, Circle of Iron is weak. As an exploration of Lee’s philosophical beliefs, however, it’s interesting, even though the final screenplay is probably quite different from what Lee envisioned. (Lee, Coburn, and Stirling Silliphant wrote the story, Silliphant wrote the original script, and Stanley Mann wrote the final draft.)

          Many scenes in the picture are fanciful and provocative, like the vignette of Cord meeting the “Man-in-Oil” (Eli Wallach), a sad creature who has spent ten years sitting in a vat of oil in order to dissolve the lower half of his body and free himself from animal urges. Carradine is effective in his largest role as “The Blind Man,” a flute-carrying enigma who roams the land helping lost souls who don’t even know they’re lost. Unfortunately, Cooper is a non-entity whose campy costume, robotic performance, and surfer-dude looks add a distractingly comical element to the picture. Oddly, the picture explains nearly all of its mysteries with explanatory monologues during the climax; some viewers will find this clarification helpful and others will find it patronizing.

          Handsomely photographed by Ronnie Taylor and imaginatively edited by Ernest Waller (presumably under the supervision of director Richard Moore), Circle of Iron is far too well-made to dismiss as a standard B-movie, but when the story gets mired in segments like the fight scene during which Carradine is dressed as “Monkeyman,” it’s hard to see beyond the absurd visuals.

Circle of Iron: FUNKY