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 Story
tells the story of the martial arts star born on November 27th, 1940, but
whom 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 as
Game Of Death, The Big Boss and Enter The Dragon, although
he made his debut as a child movie star in a number of films from the age
of eight that I couldn't hope to translate into English, as well as the
TV series The Green Hornet.
His elder brother died in childbirth and according to his father, "the demons
came for him". So, Bruce was dressed in girl's dresses and given a girl's
name, Sai-Fong, as if to fool the demons, but in 1961, his father tells him he
thinks the demons are coming for Bruce again and sends him packing to America
to see his fame and fortune which he does.
Of course, we now know that the demons never existed and that he died from
a brain edema and the coroner registered the verdict as "Death By
Misadventure", but that doesn't stop director Rob Cohen creating
an interesting film starring Jason Scott Lee (no relation) in the title
role and with brilliantly-choreographed fight sequences.
Jason Scott Lee seems to equip himself well as the martial arts master
with the determination one would expect, although I was never Bruce Lee's
biggest 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 her
stretch herself in anything she does and it begs the question as to why she
ever gets hired.
Robert Wagner shows up 80 minutes in as Bill Kreiger, the TV producer who
gives 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 the
Region 1 DVD, but why is that the case? The whole thing looks great so why
should 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 the
fight sequences, the speakers will be ripped apart when Bruce's demons come
to 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 chapters
spread 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 a
surround soundtrack goes to German, French, Italian and Spanish, the Czech's get
plain 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 usual
cast and crew interviews but is way too short to do the film justice.
There's several pages of informative Production Notes, Filmographies
and Biographies for the four actors listed atop this review, plus director
Rob Cohen.
There's two Theatrical Trailers both in 2.35:1 widescreen and subtitled
and a stack of Storyboards for the opening sequence, Johnny Sun's
fight sequence, the Phantom/Seattle Kwoon sequence, the Phantom/Oakland
Kwoon 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 of
Jason Scott Lee fighting in the ring for five minutes with Johnny Sun, plus
a bit more chat from the real Linda and Lauren Holly.
Add to this a selection of Production Photographs, Dragon Promotional
Materials, Bruce Lee Photographs, a seven-minute Bruce Lee Interview,
a feature-length Director's Commentary and to top it off an Introduction
from Linda Lee Cadwell at the top of the pile and it gives you just about
anything anyone could expect from this release, without Columbia having to
licence any special footage from Warner Bros.
Menu :
Static, but all menus here contain the enigmatic soundtrack by Randy
Edelman which I'm sure has gone on to be one of those soundtracks that
gets 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 language
or 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 see
the scenes featuring the birth of Bruce's son Brandon, since only a year after this film
was released was Brandon to die in a gunshot accident on the set of
The Crow.
Was there some mysterious force at work there? This film implies that for Bruce at least
there 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 staggering
and 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 get
censored from the original Bruce Lee's movies, particularly all the scenes involving
nunchakas. Apparently they're starting to take a more relaxed attitude on this now but will
they go back and repair past mistakes? I doubt it unless the film companies involved respectively
cough up more dosh to get them re-rated uncut.
Also caught up in this, as I understand it, is the final fight scene between
Bruce and... well, let's not spoil it if you've not watched the film yet.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
