Rejected titles, mirror troubles, and martial arts legends of the past and future... turns out you don't need a huge budget to make a masterpiece like "Enter the Dragon."
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00Rejected titles, mirror troubles, and martial arts legends of the past and future.
00:05Turns out you don't need a huge budget to make a masterpiece like Enter the Dragon.
00:09Bruce Lee didn't necessarily come to America to be a movie star. In fact,
00:13according to Lee himself, he came to America to escape his growing life as a street criminal.
00:17In America, he began teaching Wing Chun Kung Fu and gained a reputation as one of the best
00:21martial arts instructors in the country, giving him a star-studded cast of students.
00:26Lee's student list would be the envy of any starstruck sensei.
00:29According to AsianJournalUSA.com, he taught Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
00:33Lee Marvin, Roman Polanski, and Sharon Tate. He also trained martial arts legends Chuck
00:38Norris and Taki Kamara. But according to several sources, James Coburn was Lee's
00:43favorite Hollywood student. Coburn was a pallbearer at Lee's funeral, as was Coburn's
00:48fellow The Magnificent Seven alum Steve McQueen. Given McQueen's lifelong reputation as one of
00:53Hollywood's true tough guys, his friendship with Lee spoke to his deep respect for the man.
00:58Now, as a fighter, Steve, Steve McQueen, that son of a gun, got the toughness in him."
01:05While Lee reportedly fell out with some of his A-list clients at the time because of his own
01:08Hollywood ambitions, no doubt he learned some kernels of showbiz wisdom while teaching them
01:12how to throw kicks and punches like a true master.
01:15If you're a fan of Kung Fu films, you've probably watched the Ip Man series.
01:19Ip Man was a real Wing Chun master, and his skill was so legendary that he had a film series based
01:24on him, an honor attained by almost no other living sensei. It makes sense, then, that Ip Man
01:28was Lee's Kung Fu master. That also explains Lee's devotion to authenticity. Not only was he a
01:33legitimate martial artist, but the best way to honor his master and the man's teachings would
01:37be to authentically share them with a world audience. Ip Man was such a legendary and
01:41skilled martial artist that not only did he inspire the four Ip Man films in the main series
01:46and several other standalone Ip Man films, but he's also the focus of a film called The Grand
01:50Master. The actor who played Ip Man in the popular series, Donnie Yen, would achieve
01:54American mainstream success for his role as a force monk in Rogue One of Star Wars Story.
01:58There's no doubt having trained under a real master, whose life also makes such compelling
02:02cinema, would go on to influence Bruce Lee's films, including Enter the Dragon.
02:07Although Warner Bros. Pictures got behind Enter the Dragon and bet on Bruce Lee becoming a star,
02:12he still had trouble convincing the executives there of his vision. Lee's daughter, Shannon,
02:16wrote in her book Be Water, My Friend, The Teachings of Bruce Lee, that her father battled
02:20the studio over the Enter the Dragon screenplay. As Shannon put it,
02:23"[The original script had none of the iconic scenes that exist today.]
02:31Boards don't hit back."
02:34Warner Bros. reportedly brought in a screenwriter who didn't know much about kung fu.
02:38Lee protested, and according to Shannon, the star himself rewrote most of the screenplay.
02:42Although Warner Bros. promised to get rid of the writer,
02:44the studio secretly sent him to Hong Kong instead to continue working on the script while not
02:49incorporating any of Lee's changes. As a result, Lee did not show up to begin filming for two
02:53weeks, a standoff with the studio that he eventually won. His changes were utilized
02:58in the screenplay, and Lee made Enter the Dragon well and truly his own.
03:02Bruce Lee's issues with the film and script also included his dislike for the alternate
03:06titles that the studio wanted to use, including Blood and Steel and Hans Island. The big problem
03:11seemed to be that the studio wanted a blood-filled fighting movie, while Lee wanted something more
03:15transcendent, steeped in the philosophical pursuits that had defined Lee's martial arts pursuits.
03:20Blood and Steel hinted at a lurid action movie, which could be considered a draw for an audience
03:25whose knowledge of kung fu was limited at the time. It might have also been a reference to
03:29the steel blade hand that the villainous Han busts out in his fight against Lee.
03:33Hans Island was a pretty on-the-nose title that simply explained the setting of the movie,
03:37a tournament on opium kingpin Han's private atoll. Enter the Dragon gave the movie the depth
03:42that Lee brought to his martial arts, and the dragon in the title hinted at the heritage that
03:46was so important to Lee. For Lee, bringing legitimacy to his first big Hollywood film
03:51was everything. He wanted it to be as genuine as possible, from the locations to the philosophies
03:56he studied. Even more important to him was the authenticity of the martial arts practiced in the
04:00movie.
04:01A good fight should be like a small play, but played seriously.
04:09John Saxon, who played Roper, trained in judo and karate for years before Enter the Dragon.
04:14Jim Kelly, who handled the role of Williams, was a black belt and international karate champion.
04:19Kian Shi, who played Han, had been training in martial arts for most of his life,
04:23and starred in several hundred martial arts films. Bob Wall, Angela Mao, Bolo Young,
04:28and Samuel Hung were a few of the other big names in martial arts to round out the cast.
04:33According to Variety, racial issues also affected Lee's big studio film with Warner Bros.
04:38Lee had long dealt with racism and intolerance in America, but Shannon Lee explained in her
04:42book how Warner Bros. was influenced by the racial sentiments of the time, writing,
04:46"[Hollywood built it as a double lead in case their gamble on My Father didn't pay off,
04:50and in part due to the intense prejudice and concern surrounding the xenophobia of
04:54audiences of that time."
04:56In the film's opening credits, it's John Saxon who shares co-lead credit with Lee,
04:59but both he and Jim Kelly share coverage on the movie poster.
05:02Kelly was an American and a great martial artist, but he was Black,
05:06while Saxon was American and White. Either way, according to Shannon Lee,
05:10the studio didn't think an Asian man would be able to carry the film,
05:13regardless of the fact that he was arguably the best martial artist of his generation.
05:17Thankfully, Lee's role as a champion of Eastern culture continues today,
05:21and the endless influence his philosophy and his films continue to have.
05:25One of the most eye-catching scenes in Enter the Dragon is the one where Han lures Lee into a hall
05:29of mirrors. The disorienting nature of that scene isn't just a camera trick — it was actually a
05:34tough scene to execute. They had to build a closet full of mirrors, then shoot inside it despite any
05:39and all challenges of reflection, lighting, and movement. Cinematographer Phil Hubbs went
05:43through the process in a Q&A about the film. According to Hubbs, the sequence was director
05:48Robert Klaus' idea. When they shot it, they would cut a hole in a different spot in the mirrored wall
05:52to move with Bruce to a different location. As Hubbs explained,
05:56That complicated the image a lot because we were shooting into a mirror, and the mirror
06:00bounced all around. You actually got nauseous in the room. Bruce banged himself into the mirrors
06:04a whole bunch. For a movie that was so financially successful and had such a lasting legacy,
06:10you might be struck by how few household names star in it. In fact, the only actor from the
06:14movie who would go on to achieve stardom was an unnamed extra, a young martial artist named Jackie
06:19Chan. Chan would continue making movies, gaining attention for Drunken Master in 1978 and then the
06:25Police Story series. It should be noted that both were produced by Golden Harvest, a company owned
06:30by Raymond Chow that got a huge boost from Bruce Lee films. Most Western audiences first discovered
06:35him in Rush Hour, and he's been in seemingly countless Hollywood action films since.
06:40Since Enter the Dragon was a martial arts film shot in Hong Kong with a mostly Chinese cast,
06:44there was bound to be some peacocking. The extras had some training, and supposedly,
06:48one of them actually challenged Lee to a real fight. Many people wanted to test Lee's fighting
06:53skills, as is standard within the martial arts community. According to a vintage interview with
06:58cast member Bolo Young, Lee was too fast for his challenger and won, although the extra did land
07:02a few blows. In the end, whether participating in a choreographed or actual fight, it seems Lee
07:08couldn't be defeated by fist, foot, or weapon. The budget for Enter the Dragon was $850,000,
07:14which might seem low, but at the time, there had been no big Hollywood martial arts movies.
07:19Producer Fred Weintraub explained in a Q&A for the film's 40th anniversary release that it was
07:24tough to get the funding, saying,
07:25"...I had to go to foreign investment. The foreign guy told me,
07:28well, I can get you $200,000 or $300,000 out of the Far East. And I said, that's all?"
07:33"...you have offended my family, and you have offended the Shaolin Temple."
07:39Apparently, the Chinese market was not interested in an American film starring an actor from Hong
07:44Kong. After that, Weintraub approached Warner Bros. co-owner Ted Ashley to ask for another
07:49$300,000, which Ashley agreed to provide with the condition that he did not spend a dime more.
07:54The hustle paid off in spades, however. Enter the Dragon landed at number 13 on the list of
07:59top-grossing films of 1973, and was Warner Bros.' third-highest-grossing film of the year.
08:04Enter the Dragon not only showed that martial arts movies could play in America,
08:08it showed that they could dominate, with the movie ultimately earning more than $21 million
08:12in the U.S. alone. According to an interview with Fred Weintraub by Black Belt Magazine,
08:17the nightclub owner-turned-producer at Warner Bros. had learned about Lee through his Golden
08:21Harvest films, and wanted to make a Hollywood picture with him. When Warner Bros. finally
08:25produced Enter the Dragon, it was Lee's first great exposure on American soil,
08:29aside from his role as Kato in the short-lived 1966 TV series The Green Hornet.
08:34After the success of Lee's Hong Kong movies, he was finally able to make a Hollywood movie,
08:38and make it on his terms. Unfortunately, during what should have been Lee's great moment of glory,
08:43the premiere of his first Hollywood film, Lee wasn't present. The movie premiered on August
08:4819, 1973, but Lee had already passed away on July 20 of the same year. The cause of death
08:54was a cerebral edema, or swelling of the brain. He died while filming his next movie, Game of
08:59Death, which might have cemented him as Hollywood's next great leading man.
09:03You would be hard-pressed to find a Hollywood film featuring martial arts before Enter the
09:07Dragon, much less focusing on it. A great example of how things changed is found in the zeitgeist
09:13following James Bond movies. In Goldfinger, the only martial artist is a powerfully built man of
09:18unnamed Asian descent whose skills consist of being very strong and throwing a steel-lined hat.
09:23In 1967's You Only Live Twice, Bond goes to a ninja school whose students are used as a
09:28mercenary army. By The Man with a Golden Gun, which came out in 1974, Bond puts on a gi and
09:33does karate himself. When people talk about classic kung fu movies, they're often referring
09:37to the movies produced by the Shaw brothers in Hong Kong, which at the time were mostly only
09:42hits in China. After Enter the Dragon, American action movies began to feature choreographed
09:46martial arts fights. Martial arts swept the U.K. and North America in the early 1970s and never
09:52left.