The Way of the Dragon

猛龙过江

Hong Kong, 1972, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.

Director: Li Xiaolong 李小龙 [Bruce Lee].

Rating: 7/10.

Rome-set martial arts drama is a personal statement by the late Li Xiaolong [Bruce Lee] that combines both his shortcomings and his genius.

STORY

Rome, the present day. Tang Long (Li Xiaolong), a simple guy from the New Territories who’s interested in Chinese martial arts, flies from Hong Kong to Italy to help out Chen Qinghua (Miao Kexiu), the niece of a friend. She inherited the Shanghai Restaurant from her father but is now being pressured by an Italian crime syndicate to sell out so they can redevelop her land. As her uncle was not feeling well, he sent Tang Long in his place. The syndicate has driven business away from the restaurant, and its Chinese representative, He (Wei Ping’ao), has given Chen Qinghua an ultimatum to decide on whether she will sell. To pass the time, the waiters have been learning Japanese karate. Initially, Chen Qinghua and the waiters think Tang Long is just a country bumpkin, but after he beats up some of the syndicate’s thugs they change their opinion and become enamoured of Chinese martial arts.

REVIEW

Like it or not, this is the last of Li Xiaolong 李小龙 [Bruce Lee], as well as being his one and only exercise in direction. His death in Kowloon on 20 Jul 1973 (officially from an acute cerebral oedema, but rumours of assassination are current) contained a double irony: not only did it occur a mere week before the premiere of Enter the Dragon 龙争虎斗 (1973), which was to set the seal on his success, but it also rocketed him in a matter of hours to super-mythic status. Lee left behind an American wife, Linda, two young children, extant footage of an uncompleted film [The Game of Death 死亡游戏], and a cast-iron legend. The Way of the Dragon 猛龙过江 survives as his personal testament, and though not completely satisfying on all levels, contains some of the very best of his accumulated personality.

It would be pleasant to report that Li had learned something from Luo Wei 罗维, his director in The Big Boss 唐山大兄 (1971) and Fist of Fury 精武门 (1972), but that would be mostly wishful thinking. Structurally, The Way of the Dragon is uninspired, and time and again Li misses dramatic opportunities that Luo would have exploited more fully. The story is wafer-thin: Tang Long (Li) flies to Rome from Hong Kong to defend a family friend’s restaurant from local gangsters; the battle over the piddling little Chinese eating-house reaches epic proportions, and the gangster boss finally flies in his own martial arts experts – one from Japan, another from America, the latter meeting Li in a duel to the death in the Colosseum. The Way of the Dragon adheres to the basic recipe of provocation-retaliation-showdown that forms the structural stuff of kung fu films. Li, however, takes time out between these exchanges to embrace a host of other forms: the theme of an innocent abroad (to be found in The Big Boss) provides several opportunities for silent-screen comedy; Li uses few words, the merest flick of his head or flash of a smile signalling recognition, enmity or pleasure. The sexual innocent is a complementary theme, deriving from the puritanism inherent in dedicated martial arts practitioners: the scrumptious Miao Kexiu 苗可秀 [Nora Miao] (from Fist of Fury), as the young owner of the restaurant, provides ever-present sexual temptation, but Li plays Tang Long as a self-contained vacuum. One scene, besides being very funny, sums up this puritanism: Li, led home by a Rome prostitute, goes through a ferocious work-out in front of a mirror; when the girl enters the room naked, his iron will shatters in sheer panic. Parody of this sort (self-parody only to the extent of self-recognition) is particularly strong throughout the film. It is to Li’s credit that this parody never descends into flippancy, and can be abruptly halted whenever serious combat is called for.

One of Li’s most gaping dramatic omissions is in his use of the Colosseum for the final showdown: the lead-up, with shots of the imported American champion [played by Chuck Norris] standing atop the ruins, promises a finale worthy of Sergio Leone, but (by now predictably) Li muffs his chances. When the pair finally come face to face, lurid studio back-projection replaces the actual locale, and for a moment the tension is lost. Again, however, it is Li’s sheer presence which rescues his technical naivete, the following duel (rising to rare heights of narcissism), if not the most violent of his career, certainly the most epic in terms of convention and ritual. In a rare flash of brilliance, Li intercuts shots of a young kitten lost in the ruins between scenes of the two giants at battle. True to form, no quarter is given (or expected) until the other party is dead – Colt, the American, drags himself to his feet despite a shattered leg and appalling injuries to receive more blows from his Chinese opponent. In a sequence which forms a neat coda to his career, Li picks up the dead American’s karate jacket and lays it over his body. Recognition of an opponent’s dedication to his art (and Way of the Dragon contains not only karate and hapkido, but also Li’s own jeet kune do – a variation of kung fu with more extensive footwork) once again triumphs over more personal considerations like friendship and enmity. This dogged concern with the philosophy of the martial arts is Way of the Dragon‘s strength and drawback: if plot ludicracies and dubbing are accepted as inevitable (and attractive) facets of Hong Kong films’ rough diamond quality, then individual charisma rules the day. Li possessed this in vast amounts, and if he was no director or screenwriter, this hardly mattered. He will be remembered for his art, and The Way of the Dragon is a personal statement of both his shortcomings and genius.

CREDITS

Presented by Golden Harvest (HK). Produced by Concord Production (HK).

Script: Li Xiaolong [Bruce Lee]. Photography: Nishimoto Tadashi. Editing: Zhang Yaozong [Peter Cheung]. Music: Gu Jiahui [Joseph Koo]. Art direction: Qian Xin. Costumes: Zhu Shengxi. Sound: Wang Ping. Action: Li Xiaolong [Bruce Lee], Xiao Qilin [Unicorn Chan].

Cast: Li Xiaolong [Bruce Lee] (Tang Long), Miao Kexiu [Nora Miao] (Chen Qinghua), Wei Ping’ao (He), Huang Zongxun (Uncle Wang), Liu Yong (Tony), Xiao Qilin [Unicorn Chan] (Jimmy), Chuck Norris (Colt), Malisa Longo (Italian prostitute), Robert Wall (Fred), Hwang In-shik (Japanese hapkido fighter), Chen Fuqing (Thomas), Jin Di (Kun), Hu En (Quan), Chen Bingchi [Robert Chan] (Robert), Jon T. Benn (crime syndicate boss).

Release: Hong Kong, 30 Dec 1972.

(Review section originally published in UK monthly films and filming, Aug 1974. Modern annotations in square brackets.)