Product Description

The fast-paced action extravaganza that set the standard for martial arts films. Bruce lee plays a british agent who infiltrates the island fortress and brutal martial arts torunament of death-dealing drug baron. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 12/11/2007 Starring: Bruce Lee John Saxon Run time: 102 minutes Rating: R Director: Robert Clouse

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1980 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 1998-07-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.com
The last film completed by Bruce Lee before his untimely death, Enter the Dragon was his entrée into Hollywood. The American-Hong Kong coproduction, shot in Asia by American director Robert Clouse, stars Lee as a British agent sent to infiltrate the criminal empire of bloodthirsty Asian crime lord Han (Shih Kien) through his annual international martial arts tournament. Lee spends his days taking on tournament combatants and nights breaking into the heavily guarded underground fortress, kicking the living tar out of anyone who stands in his way. The mix of kung fu fighting (choreographed by Lee himself) and James Bond intrigue (the plot has more than a passing resemblance to Dr. No) is pulpy by any standard, but the generous budget and talented cast of world-class martial artists puts this film in a category well above Lee's primitive Hong Kong productions. Unfortunately he's off the screen for large chunks of time as American maverick competitors (and champion martial artists) John Saxon and Jim Kelly take center stage, but once the fighting starts Lee takes over. The tournament setting provides an ample display of martial arts mastery of many styles and climaxes with a huge free-for-all, but the highlight is Lee's brutal one-on-one with the claw-fisted Han in the dynamic hall-of-mirrors battle. Lee narrows his eyes and tenses into a wiry force of sinew, speed, and ruthless determination. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Wow!!!
I bought this already loving the movie, but hating the "grainy" poor quality that comes with being a 60-70's film ,etc. The film looks Awesome in Blu-ray!! If makes the film that much more enjoyable.

The Dragon Soars
"Enter the Dragon" is a pure gold Bruce Lee classic. The movie opens with Bruce Lee pitted against a chubby opponent at the famous Shaolin Temple (guess who wins) Bruce soon expounds on Buddhist/Taoist philosophy with his teacher and a young boy. He talks about "fighting without fighting." But we're not here for the philosophy,are we?

Soon,Bruce learns that bodies of young women are washing up on the beach,and about the evil crime lord,Han. He's recruited to take down Han with the help of an African-American man with a period Afro,and John Saxon himself. They go to Han's fantasy island for the great tournament. A beautiful British blonde tempts the three young men with a harem of beautiful lasses--only Bruce refuses (he was happily married at the time) So,Bruce is no James Bond. Still, Bruce does some investigating and finds out the real evil underground.

"Enter the Dragon" has a threadbare plot--Bruce battling Han. There's plenty of kung fu fighting. There's Han with his detachable hands. As a martial arts movie, it's excellent. It's good cheesy fun. It's one of Bruce Lee's classics. Take a cinematic slow boat to China... and enjoy!

Enter-tainment By the Best Martial Artist of All Time! Too Bad About the Picture Quality Though!
I really enjoyed this film because it was a lot more than just a martial arts flick in which the plot was just an afterthought to surround the fighting scenes like most martial arts films then and even now. In fact, as has been pointed out by many reviewers here the action scenes are certainly not the best fight scenes ever but that's okay as it's clear that that was never Bruce Lee's intention in the first place. This film was more of a vehicle for Bruce to try and pass along his philosophy which is why the previously deleted scenes from the original screening which has been added here are so important.

That's not to say that all the fight scenes were poor because that's just not true. The scenes were pretty brief because as Bruce himself has mentioned, the real-life fights are never drawn out and lengthy as the fastest one who strikes first is almost always the winner and Bruce shows just how fast he is in his fight scenes. His fight with Bob Wall was quick, efficient and deadly and is realistic. Those who were expecting a Wong Fei Hong type one man against an entire village kinda flick won't get it here as that is simply not realistic as far as fight scenes go.

The final scene with the mirrors is so apt as it reminds us of the beginning of the film where Lee's teacher explains to him how the enemy uses images to deceive and to destroy the enemy you need to destroy the images which is what we get. So we get a better balance here of philosophy, storyline and action scenes. This film also made Asian Kung Fu films well known and popularised them in the West and so for that reason alone this film is worthy of respect.

This dvd has great sound quality having been given the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround treatment and has great special features with interviews with Linda Lee his wife as well as with Bruce which gives us a glimpse of what the real person was like. The only problem though was with the picture quality that hasn't been restored and so is not worthy of the rest of the dvd package with spots and other imperfections present on many of the frames. Let's hope the new Blu-ray version is better and that they have cleaned up the picture quality.

Great film, great sound and special features but perhaps you should go for the Blu-ray version if the picture quality has been restored or wait for a restored standard version to surface.