Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Robert Clouse
• Written by Michael Allin
• Starring
  • Bruce Lee
  • John Saxon
  • Jim Kelly
  • Ahna Capri
  • Kien Shih
• Produced by Fred Wintraub and Paul Heller

And we’re not just talking about the movie here. My copy is the 25th Anniversary Special Edition; before the movie, we’ve got the behind-the-scenes documentary made during filming; the original theatrical trailer; a documentary called Bruce Lee: In His Own Words containing bits of TV and radio appearances and other films; and a statement from his widow, Linda Lee Caldwell, affirming that this is the final version that Bruce saw and approved (in the scant months between his death and the movie’s release, the suits decided to cut about three minutes of footage). All these extras may be the norm for you DVD people, but for a little old VHS boy like myself, it was quite an unusual warm-up act.

So it’s only after something life forty-five minutes of warm-up that I actually got to the movie.

And how is it?

Well, it’s, you know, pretty good. I guess.

Now, before the hate mail starts weighing down my in-box, let me elaborate. Bruce Lee is great. He’s breathtaking. He looks very much like the most dangerous man ever to live. And I understand how influential a big-budget Hollywood kung-fu movie was; it was practically genre-creating, at least from a marketing standpoint. But the mark of a true classic is not only that it creates a genre, but that it becomes the standard in that genre, against which all new films are compared and found wanting. (Think of Night of the Living Dead, or Halloween — movies which widened, re-energized, or otherwise put a genre on the map, and have yet to be exceeded by their offspring.) But Enter the Dragon, as a movie — you know, as a story told in film — has some seriously laughable flaws. If not for the presence of Bruce Lee, there’s no way this would have become a classic; it was a star vehicle, not a star-maker.

We open at the Shaolin temple (or, at least, at a Shaolin temple — I’m not quite sure how the whole franchise works) Bruce Lee is giving a demonstration to the assembled monks, fighting another, rather flabby martial artist, made even flabbier by Lee’s incredible physical condition; I mean, with his street clothes on, he just looks like a slight man with a big head, but shirtless his muscles are so defined he looks like he’s got no skin. (The flabby martial artist, by the way, is none other than Sammo Hung, who later made the wise career decision to leave his shirt on.)

So, a few whipcrack punches and backflips later, the Master Teacher draws Lee aside. (By the way, he’s only directly addressed once, as “Mr. Lee” — I think we can safely assume that Bruce is playing himself.) What follows is three minutes of fortune-cookie wisdom, and the slight matchcut at the beginning of the sequence clued me in that this is at least part of the footage cut before release. I really can’t blame the producers; we’re introduced to “Zen and the Art of Kicking Ass” here, as the Teacher says such things as “I see your talents have gone beyond the mere physical level,” and Lee makes such announcements as “The word ‘I’ does not exist.” This whole scene suffers from the “Bite the Wax Tadpole” syndrome — the fact that some things, especially, ineffable spiritual expressions, just don’t translate well. (Imagine if someone in a movie said, “God is love,” and all the other characters nodded and considered it carefully.)

On a more concrete level, the Teacher informs Lee about a traitor to the code of the Shaolin, a rebel named Han. Lee has already received an invitation to Han’s martial arts tournament; the Teacher asks him to attend to restore the Shaolin’s lost honor. (Let’s keep a running tally here of motives for Lee to attend the tournament: #1, he’s been invited. #2, to restore the Shaolin’s honor.)

Lee then meets with a Mr. Braithwaite, a Brit in the government. (Gosh, it already seems so long ago that Hong Kong was run by a bunch of Limeys.) But in the middle of their conversation, Lee takes a break to give a mini-lesson to a young student. It’s “Bite the Wax Tadpole” time again, as intones such gems such as the need to have “emotional content” in martial arts, and “It’s like a finger, pointing the way to the moon.” The fact that Lee sounds like Elmer Fudd every time he opens his mouth doesn’t help things.

It’s finally time for the opening credits, under the the violin/wakka-wakka guitar theme music. We see the colorful city of Hong Kong, in which Williams (Jim Kelly and his ‘Fro of Power) and Roper (John Saxon) arrive and wander around, looking like the lost Americans they are.

In a private office, Braithwaite fills Lee in with more information on Han. Pertinent facts: He owns a private island with a martial arts training school; he’s suspected of slavery and drug-related offenses; he had a bad experience with a gun once, so he doesn’t allow them on his island; he runs this tournament every three years; and he has a henchman named O’Hara, with an ugly scar down his face; there’s a female operative, Mei Ling, already on the island. Braithwaite and the Brits know that Han’s a bad bad man, but they have no proof, so they want Lee to act as their agent while at the tournament. (#3, to gather law enforcement information.)

Now, this next sequence must have seemed good on paper, but it becomes a mess on screen. We see Lee being paddled across the bay in a small boat. The screen dissolves into a flashback, in which Lee is told by an Old Man (hey, that’s what he calls him, and that’s what he’s listed as in the credits) how his sister Su Lin died — and then we drop into another flashback! The Old Man and Su Lin were in the city three years ago when O’Hara and a bunch of Hans’ toughs came into town, and apparently they took a shine to Su Lin. While the Old Man holds them off (and gives O’Hara his scar), Su Lin runs, only to be pursued by about two dozen men through the narrow streets of old Hong Kong. After dishing out kicks and dope-slaps a-plenty, she finds herself cornered, and commits suicide with a big piece of glass rather than submit to O’Hara’s “attentions.” (Do you see anything wrong with this flashback? That’s right — the Old Man, who’s telling the story, wasn’t around for most of the action!)

So then we fade back out of that flashback as the Old Man finishes the story and instructs Lee to pay his respects to his mother and sister in Hong Kong. Cut then to Lee at the cemetery, apologizing to his mother that he’s about to go against everything she believed in. Huh? Isn’t he defending the honor of the temple, at his Teacher’s request?

And finally we fade back to Lee’s boat as it takes him to a larger boat. Multiple flashbacks within a flashback — never a good idea. And we just found out #4. (Gee, do you think he’s motivated yet?)

Next, we see Roper (remember, that’s John Saxon’s character) also being paddled. Into the flashback: While playing golf, Roper is confronted by two loan sharks because he owes $175,000. He knocks them over (proving to all viewers that, though he may be a good fighter, there’s no way in hell he should be in this tournament), gives his secretary the last $63.43 in his bank account, and confirms his tickets to Hong Kong. (I can only surmise that there’s a pot to be won in the tournament, though no one ever mentions it). And then out of the flashback.

And finally — Williams (Jim Kelly) paddles out, accompanied by his ‘Fro of Power. Oddly enough, he gets all the waves and giggles from the little kids living on houseboats. Flashback: He picks up his suitcase at an all-black dojo on his way to Hong Kong. While walking down the street at night, he is harassed for no apparent reason by two white cops who each make a point of calling him “jig.” He knocks them both out and steals their police car. (Do you mean he drove that to the airport? Hey, I know security didn’t used to be as tight, but do you think a soul brother could really drive in and part a squad car at LAX without raising some eyebrows?)

End of all flashbacks, thank all that’s holy. Williams arrives at the larger boat and is greeted heartily by Roper, who knew him in ‘Nam. Also on the boat is Parsons, a mean-for-the-sake-of-being-mean Australian that they both know.

Later in the voyage, Parson wanders around tripping crewmembers and generally being an ass. (Great, just what we need — a schoolground bully with a black belt.) Lee, with almost Spock-like calm, tricks him into getting into a little lifeboat (ostensibly to go fight on the beach of an island) and then strings the lifeboat behind the main boat. He calls it “the style of fighting without fighting.” Umm, Bruce, I’m sure your Shaolin masters would approve, but it’s been almost half an hour now, and all we’ve seen from you is the little demonstration before the opening credits. Break a sweat, man!

Their boat arrives at Han’s island, where they’re greeted by Han’s strawberry blonde secretary Tania, and Bolo, a massive Asian. This is Yang Sze, known in recent years as Bolo Yeung, and he is by far the most muscle-bound Asian I’ve ever seen. (He was recently featured in TC 2000 (1993), and if anything he’s only put on the muscle.)

They are ushered into the castle-like complex, past courtyard-upon-courtyard of gi-dressed trainees, and into a banquet where Sumo wrestlers put on an exhibition, acrobats do handstands, and young Asian girls entertain the fighters. Everything falls silent when Han enters (the Sumo wrestlers even freeze in mid-bout). Han is a diminutive man with an evil leer, and Keye Luke’s voice. he welcomes them, and then has a little exhibition of his own: the coterie of girls following him demonstrate their ability to skewer thrown apples with darts. (Always a good party gag.) Lee recognizes one of them as Mei Ling, the government agent.

That night, Tania leads a little parade of girls from room to room, offering them to contestants. Williams chooses four and apologizes to the rest of them; he’s a little tired today. (Only in the seventies could you get away with such blatant references to the mystique of African-American prowess — for a different take on the same mystique, see Soul Vengeance.) Lee chooses Mei Ling (how convenient). Roper, charmer that he is, chooses Tania herself, who accepts the invitation.

Lee discusses the situation with Mei Ling. She’s never seen outside the castle itself, but she knows that “people disappear.” (Great — good to have an agent planted for several months and have absolutely no useful information.)

So. Morning. The tournament begins, and we finally get some real fighting. Williams easily wipes the floor with Parson, while Roper makes some bets on the side. Then Roper takes on a shaggy-haired Asian, performing poorly until Williams gives him the signal that the betting has gotten high enough; then he finishes him off.

Night. Roper’s getting cosy with Tania again. Lee, meanwhile, dresses in black and leaves the castle to explore. He evades and knocks out various guards, then discovers a hatch leading to the underground complex. But his rope is discovered, and he has to vamoose. Significantly, Williams is also outside (against the rules), getting some fresh air after his, um, display of prowess.

The next morning, in front of the contestants and his trainees, Han castigates the beaten guards from the night before for letting the intruder get by them. In punishment, they each have to face Bolo, who easily and gleefully kills them all.

The first bout of the day is Lee vs. O’Hara. It’s a perfect bout for Lee, as O’Hara never lays a finger on him; Lee keeps getting rabbit punches in under his guard, then knocks him about soundly. When the officially defeated O’Hara grabs two broken bottles and comes back into the ring, Lee knocks him down and jumps on his neck. Snap. Han, oddly enough, is not upset with Lee; he’s more nonplussed by O’Hara’s treachery.

After the bout, Han calls Williams into his office. Seems he’s put two and two together: since someone was roaming the complex covertly, and Williams was known to be outside, Williams must be the spy! Williams denies it and asks to leave the island, laying out two of Han’s henchman as evidence of sincerity. Han fights him himself, and he turns out to be deceptively good; he knocks Williams through several walls and ends up killing him. It turns out he has a secret weapon: one of his gloved hands is metal. (Aha — the old Gloved Metal Hand gambit!)

Han then talks to Roper, but in a much less adversarial way. He ushers him through his personal museum of armor and hands — metal hands, wooden hands, bladed hands, and a complete hand skeleton (which he refers to as a “souvenir”). He takes Roper into the underground complex, showing him the opium cooking, the slave girls in their cells, and a big group of homeless men that Han has collected for no discernable purpose (see below). Han knows of Roper’s debts, and wants him to join up as Han’s U.S. rep. Roper seems to be seriously considering the offer, until he sees Williams’ body suspended over a pool of water. Apparently it’s some sort of test on Han’s part, although I don’t know what purpose it serves; displaying someone’s dead friends is not listed as a sure-fire technique in How To Win Friends and Influence People.

That night, Lee goes out on the prowl again, using the very same hatch. Apparently Han’s idea of high security is to put a cobra near that hatch; Lee simply shoves it in a bag for later.

You’d think the guards would be double careful of intruders now, but Lee still manages to sneak up on them. He passes the drugged women and the pointless men, and arrives at some sort of radio room. He clears it by releasing the cobra into the room, then uses the telegraph to send a message to Braithwaite; got the evidence, old boy!

But of course alarms go off, and Bruce spends the next twenty minutes fighting guards. This is, of course, what the movie is for — watching Bruce Lee make monkey faces, scream in falsetto, and generally kick asses clear across the International Date Line. It’s so much fun to watch, I almost forgot to catch the bad plotting. Sure, Han had a “bad experience” with a gun, so guns are disallowed on the island. That helps level the playing field. But it seems that the only alternative to guns that IS allowed is sticks. You heard me, sticks. How about some edged weapons? For that matter, how about a crossbow? Someone could take out Lee without getting close to his little whirlwind of death.

Fortunately, no one’s that smart, and Lee lays out probably fifty men (including, if you look really close, an uncredited extra named Jackie Chan), but then gets trapped as steel doors drop all around him.

In the morning, Han assembles his trainees to witness Lee’s destruction, and Roper is the one he handpicks to put Lee in his place. Roper finally chooses sides here, and refuses. In anger, Han sics Bolo on Roper. Now here’s where this movie steps over the line from farfetched action/adventure to full-blown fantasy: Roper beats Bolo. I mean, I’m sure that John Saxon’s a credible fighter and all, and I wouldn’t want to face him down in a bar, but he’s got nowhere near the speed or agility of any of the other contestants (with the possible exception of O’Hara, who went down so fast we never got to see his moves). There is no way in hell that Roper should have been able to beat such a mass of cruel muscle as Bolo. But hey, they didn’t have me in the director’s chair (which is good, because I was two years old at the time).

In the meantime, Mei Ling has snuck from Han’s side into the underground complex, where she releases the cells full of homeless men.

With Bolo down, Han rages and starts siccing the rest of his trainee troops on Lee and Roper (about six at a time, calling them out by name — nice that he knows his underlings). And naturally, Lee and Roper have no trouble sopping them up. To add to the melee, the homeless men all burst onto the scene, and from what I can see, they’re at least as good at the martial arts as all of Han’s trainees. (Again, the question comes up: What, exactly, was the point of having all those guys in the basement? Answer: The director needed them to even up the odds.)

Han even comes out of the stands with a claw in place of his metal hand and starts fighting Lee. Lee fights him to the point of losing the claw, at which put Han turns and runs, getting enough of a lead time to get into his museum and find a replacement: a handwith four long knife blades for fingers. Lee shows up and says, in judgement: “You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Wait, that’s not right. “You have offended my family, and you have offended the Shaolin temple.” (You forgot the Brits, Bruce! He ticked off the Brits too!)

So now the famous end battle begins, first through the museum and then into the adjoining room, the famous hall of mirrors. This is the stunning sequence that everyone has seen clips of at least once: Lee and Han, prowling among thousands of reflected images, unsure of which is real and which an illusion. I can say, it must have been hell to film; I watched and watched, and didn’t see a single camera or crew reflection. It’s such a visual treat that I almost forgot my big critique — almost. Question is, why would Han have such a maze? Does he like playing hide and see with his concubines? And wouldn’t he have some sort of master plan memorized, so that he doesn’t stumble around like as confused as Lee? (Lee also demonstrates the marvelous martial-arts skill of not bleeding. I mean, Han slashes him several times with these super-sharp finger thingies, and all it leaves is red lines which apparently coagulate immediately.)

I know, I’m a party-pooper.

Finally, Lee hits on the brilliant ideas of smashing the mirrors as he goes to he can distinguish the reflection from the real thing. (It’s a Zen thing, see — removing the enemy’s illusion to reveal the truth.) He ends up killing Han by impaling him on a pike stuck through the wall.

Above, on ground level, the fight is over, with the homeless guys pushing around the few remaining trainees. Roper looks with sadness at Tania’s body lying on the side. Remember, they had this whole relationship and stuff? Oh, the humanity. Lee comes back up, and he and Roper share a silent moment of camaraderie before the British choppers finally show up.

Now, I want to point out a matter of peripheral interest. Director Robert Clouse used his credit on Enter the Dragon as his selling point for the rest of his career (his last movie was in 1992, and he died in 1997). Even such tripe as China O’Brien 2 (1991) bears the caption “From the Director of Enter the Dragon” on the video box. Rather than be an inducement to rent, this should be seen as a warning to renters: If the director’s claim to fame is almost twenty years ago, what does that tell you? That he hasn’t done anything nearly so good since, which means that the good movie was probably a fluke, which means there’s no guarantee of quality here. In this case, the success of Enter the Dragon can be laid squarely to the credit of Bruce Lee, in spite of Clouse’s direction. It was a good note for Bruce to go out on, and the beginnings of a fruitful (if not over-laden with quality) genre: the American-made martial arts film.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 12
• breasts: 3
• explosions: 0
• dream sequences: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0