I first saw this movie on late night TV many years ago. I only caught the ending, and thought it was very surreal and peculiar.
I recently saw the film again in its entirety, and it is far less bad than I expected or remembered. Sure, it is rife with inaccuracies (as are nearly all Bruce Lee biopics), but, surprisingly, it is significantly less inaccurate in my opinion than "Dragon, the Bruce Lee Story" (1993) with Jason Scott Lee and Lauren Holly. I enjoyed both films, but both were wildly inaccurate. But I felt this movie, surprisingly, was closer to the "spirit" of Lee's life than the much more recent American film. (I can go in great detail in comparing the relative inaccuracies of both films but I trust that is a topic of only minor interest here).
Bruce Lee was definitely a complex individual with many flaws, but also with a remarkable genius in his field-- martial arts. I've read many bios of Lee and have also met with, talked with, and even briefly trained with some of his students, first and second generation. My personal martial arts skills are very modest at best, but I do know quite a bit about Lee's life from personal research and reading.
This film does accurately portray Lee's distaste with negative Chinese stereotypes in American cinema. That element was touched upon in "Dragon" (1993) briefly but is explored much more here. The film also includes his probable affair with Betty Ting Pei, something which is never referred to in Dragon (presumably because it was based on his widow Linda's rather glowing and romanticized account of Bruce's life). It also touches on his overtraining and the outright hostility and opposition he faced in trying to become a genuine film star in worldwide (not just Hong Kong) cinema.
The fights herein are suitably ludicrous and unrealistic, but no less so than those in Dragon or in most martial arts movies, for that matter. Of course Lee never fought the world's heavyweight boxing champion in the ring or elsewhere, and it is doubtful he could survive that many hard hits. How he might have fared against Ali in a street fight is anyone's guess, but I would place the odds as fairly close, personally, although that would only be if he could avoid being hit (of course, in the ring, it would be no contest, and Lee would go down fast under the strict rules therein). I recommend Glover's book (mentioned below) for the reasons why. In fact, I encourage anyone interested in Lee to do their own research and draw their own conclusions, as there is a vast amount of good (and bad) information out there.
Is this a great film? Hardly. Is it terrible? I think not. If it inspires the viewer to learn more about the real details of Lee's life, it has served a useful purpose. At the very least, it does run close to the broad outlines of Lee's life, from Hong Kong to San Francisco to stardom. Lee's life has been documented in innumerable accounts, some of the best of which include, in my opinion, Robert Clouse's biography, "Bruce Lee: The Biography" and Jesse Glover's outstanding, if a bit hard to find, book, "Bruce Lee Between Wing Chun and Jeet Kune Do." (Glover was literally Lee's first friend in America and one of his earliest students). The latter in particular is a terrific read and highly recommended.
For further information, I also suggest contacting Bruce's first generation American student, Jim DeMile, a powerful martial artist based in Seattle. I have never met DeMile but know him by reputation as a formidable fighter and very knowledgeable; or Dan Inosanto, his senior student in Los Angeles, who is still teaching as far as I know.
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