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Dom Robinson reviews
Columbia TriStar
- Cert:
- Cat.no: UDR 90042
- Running time: 114 minutes
- Year: 1993
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 34 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: 7 languages available.
- Subtitles: 9 languages available.
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Trailers, Storyboards, Screen Tests, Featurettes,Photo Galleries, Promotional Materials, Filmographies, Production Notes,Bruce Lee Interview, Introduction from Linda Lee Cadwell, Menu Music,Director’s Commentary
Director:
- Rob Cohen
(Daylight, Dragonheart, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Scandalous, A Small Circle of Friends)
Producer:
- Raffaella De Laurentis
Screenplay:
- Edward Khmara, John Raffo and Rob Cohen
Music:
- Randy Edelman
Cast:
- Bruce Lee: Jason Scott Lee (Back to the Future 2, Born in East L.A., Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go To College, The Jungle Book (1994), Map of the Human Heart, Murder in Mind, Rapa Nui, Talos the Mummy, s)
Linda Lee: Lauren Holly (The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Beautiful Girls, Down Periscope, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Dumb and Dumber, Sabrina, A Smile Like Yours, Turbulence)
Gussie Yang: Nancy Kwan (Cold Dog Soup, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Fowl Play, The World of Suzie Wong, Wonder Women)
Bill Kreiger: Robert Wagner (Airport 79, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Curse of the Pink Panther, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Harper, A Kiss Before Dying (1956), The Longest Day,The Pink Panther, The Player, Titanic (1953), The Towering Inferno, Wild Things, TV: Hart To Hart)
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Storytells the story of the martial arts star born on November 27th, 1940, butwhom died on July 20th, 1973 in Hong Kong at the age of 32.
He was considered to be the king of martial arts films with hits such asGame Of Death, The Big Boss and Enter The Dragon, althoughhe made his debut as a child movie star in a number of films from the ageof eight that I couldn’t hope to translate into English, as well as theTV series The Green Hornet.
His elder brother died in childbirth and according to his father, “the demonscame for him”. So, Bruce was dressed in girl’s dresses and given a girl’sname, Sai-Fong, as if to fool the demons, but in 1961, his father tells him hethinks the demons are coming for Bruce again and sends him packing to Americato see his fame and fortune which he does.
Of course, we now know that the demons never existed and that he died froma brain edema and the coroner registered the verdict as “Death ByMisadventure”, but that doesn’t stop director Rob Cohen creatingan interesting film starring Jason Scott Lee (no relation) in the titlerole and with brilliantly-choreographed fight sequences.
Jason Scott Lee seems to equip himself well as the martial arts masterwith the determination one would expect, although I was never Bruce Lee’sbiggest fan so I don’t know if he’s perfect all his mannerisms perfectly.Lauren Holly is indifferent as his other half, as I’ve never seen herstretch herself in anything she does and it begs the question as to why sheever gets hired.
Robert Wagner shows up 80 minutes in as Bill Kreiger, the TV producer whogives Bruce his big break by casting him in The Green Hornet.
The picture is in the original 2.35:1 ratio, but isn’t anamorphic, like theRegion 1 DVD, but why is that the case? The whole thing looks great so whyshould it be denied? The average bitrate is 7.12Mb/s, often peaking over 8Mb/s.
The sound is first rate though and as well as being action-packed for thefight sequences, the speakers will be ripped apart when Bruce’s demons cometo haunt him, such as in chapter 15, not to mention the smashing of two huge ‘Titanic’ice-blocks in chapter 27.
Extras : Chapters :Breaking the trend with the usual Universal-thru-Columbia releases, there are 33 chaptersspread throughout the 114 minutes plus a chapter for Linda’s introduction. Languages/Subtitles :English is the only language to get a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Second prize of asurround soundtrack goes to German, French, Italian and Spanish, the Czech’s getplain stereo, while the Polish suffer with mono only.
Subtitles are available for English, French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian,Danish, Finnish and Portuguese.
And there’s more… :There’s far too many extras to mention.. oh, go on then I’ll have a try.First off is a 6-minute ‘Making Of’ Featurette featuring the usualcast and crew interviews but is way too short to do the film justice.There’s several pages of informative Production Notes, Filmographiesand Biographies for the four actors listed atop this review, plus directorRob Cohen.
There’s two Theatrical Trailers both in 2.35:1 widescreen and subtitledand a stack of Storyboards for the opening sequence, Johnny Sun’sfight sequence, the Phantom/Seattle Kwoon sequence, the Phantom/OaklandKwoon sequence and the Hall of Mirrors sequence near the end.
All the rest of the extras are subtitled too.A Jason Scott Lee Screen-test is a neat addition that last four minutes,the Featurette Outtakes are really some behind-the-scenes footage ofJason Scott Lee fighting in the ring for five minutes with Johnny Sun, plusa bit more chat from the real Linda and Lauren Holly.
Add to this a selection of Production Photographs, Dragon PromotionalMaterials, Bruce Lee Photographs, a seven-minute Bruce Lee Interview,a feature-length Director’s Commentary and to top it off an Introductionfrom Linda Lee Cadwell at the top of the pile and it gives you just aboutanything anyone could expect from this release, without Columbia having tolicence any special footage from Warner Bros.
Menu :Static, but all menus here contain the enigmatic soundtrack by RandyEdelman which I’m sure has gone on to be one of those soundtracks thatgets featured in a number of trailers for other films because it’s so good.
There are options to start the film, select a scene, choose the languageor visit the extensive extras menu.
Overall, this is a pretty entertaining film – more so than I thought I would enjoy it -but things have changed now we know what Bruce Lee died of and it’s also quite sad to seethe scenes featuring the birth of Bruce’s son Brandon, since only a year after this filmwas released was Brandon to die in a gunshot accident on the set ofThe Crow.
Was there some mysterious force at work there? This film implies that for Bruce at leastthere are scores of people out for his blood as he tries to go about his life.
I have just one reservation about this DVD and that is the lack of an anamorphic transfer,but to compensate for that, the amount of supplemental material on this disc is staggeringand Columbia deserve a pat on the back for that.
By the same token, the BBFC deserve a slap in the face for all the fight scenes that getcensored from the original Bruce Lee’s movies, particularly all the scenes involvingnunchakas. Apparently they’re starting to take a more relaxed attitude on this now but willthey go back and repair past mistakes? I doubt it unless the film companies involved respectivelycough up more dosh to get them re-rated uncut.
Also caught up in this, as I understand it, is the final fight scene betweenBruce and… well, let’s not spoil it if you’ve not watched the film yet.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.