Partial Draft

Enter The Dagon Film Analysis

Enter The Dragon is a 1973 film directed by Robert Clouse. The film stars Bruce Lee, the iconic Asian American martial artist. Bruce plays the character Lee, a talented martial artist in Hong Kong. Lee is invited to a martial arts tournament on a private island. However, Lee accepts the invitation to investigate the underlying crime of murder, prostitution and drugs that are covered by the facade of the competition. The mastermind of the operation is a man named Han, who is responsible for Lee’s sister’s death. Han is played by Kein Shih. Lee is out for revenge and justice. 

The film also stars John Saxon and Jim Kelly. Saxon plays the character Roper, who travels to the island to win the prize money and pay off some debt back home. Kelly plays the character Williams, a martial artist who is in trouble with the cops. John Saxon is Caucasian and Jim Kelly is African American. 

The film begins with an establishing shot of a Shaolin Temple. Soft Chinese music plays in the background. The shot fades into a scene of martial artists creating a square with Lee and his opponent in the middle. The monk nods his head and the men face each other and bow their heads. Lee is smaller than his opponent. The camera zooms onto Lee and the music begins to intensify. The men begin their fight. The camera seems to be handheld as it is shaky. Thus giving the viewer a sense of stress. The camera is at a low angle when focused on Lee. Giving the sense that he is powerful. It cuts to shots of the monks, showing how impressed they are of Lee. The opponent surrenders and Lee wins. The monks grasp their hands to form an obstacle for Lee. He impressively round-off back-handspring back-flips over their barricade. After the fight, Lee meets with the monk Abbott. Roy Chiao who plays Abbott voice is American and does not match with his lips, believing me to think that his voice was dubbed by an American actor. He informs Lee of a decipal that has used his teachings for evil. He introduces Lee to Mr. Braithwaite, a British man. Braithewaite informs Lee of a martial arts tournament held by a man named Han, in which lee has been invited to attend. 

1970’s music begins to play, setting us into the decade the film was made. We get an establishing shot of Hong Kong. A plane lands and Williams walks off of the plane and puts on sunglasses, giving the viewer a sense that Williams is cool. He stands out in a crowd, being two heads taller than those around him. He has an afro and is dressed in a full leisure suit with platform boots. 

We go back to Lee and Mr Braithwaite. He is showing Lee black and white archival footage of Han. The spinning of the reels act as background music. The film shows the police taking a dead women out of the harbor, a women who died after one of Han’s parties. It shows close up shots of the woman on the slab during her autopsy. We get a narration of Braithwaite, as he believes that Han used the girl for prostotution. However the girls cause of death was a heroin overdose. Han’s island does not allow guns, so Lee will have to go unarmed. 

We get a flashback of Su Lin, Lee’s sister. She is attacked by Han’s thugs. We believe that Su Lin will make it out alive, as she is doing well against the men. She runs into a barn, the men break the windows to enter. As they corner her, she reaches down and grabs a shard of glass. We get a point of view shot of the blade about to be stabbed into her stomach. She falls to the ground, dead. 

Lee is then seen at a graveyard visiting his sister. A man raking the leaves is used as background music. This is an eerie scene to watch as Bruce Lee died in 1973, the year that this film was released. 

We are then introduced to Roper. He is golfing and he hits a ball out of bounds. He goes to retrieve the ball. The camera does a rack focus, shifting focus from the background to the foreground. To reveal a man putting on black leather gloves. We get the impression that Roper is working with dangerous people. Three men confront Roper about him owing $175,000. Roper escapes the men by the means of kung fu.

Roper arrives with a boat full of baggage and Williams arrives with one suitcase and a TWA satchel. Roper has both physical and metaphorical baggage. Roper and Williams are old friends. They board the same boat as Lee to the Han’s island. 

Lee and Roper bet over a praying mantis fight, Lee wins. They encounter a racist man on the boat, Parsons. He begins to assault others on the boat and he challenges Lee. Lee suggests that they get in the dingy to go to an island to fight. The man gets on the dingy, but lee does not. He trials behind on the dingy, while the Chinese men hold the rope.

The boat arrives at the island, with Han’s men and Tania greeting them. Hundreds of men are practicing kung fu in white outfits. The men go to a party held by Han. Party music plays but stops when Han enters and begin again when he exits. Han enters with his entourage of women dressed in yellow. We get a birds eye view of the party; Han walking around, waiters bringing food, sumo wrestlers fighting and the ceiling is full of birds in birdcages. Birds are commonly used in suspense films. Alfred Hitchcock used birds in his films. Birds are used to provoke fate, freedom, suspense, or insanity to the viewer. Birds are heavily used in shots once they get to Han’s island. 

Tania, Han’s assistant delivers Williams and Roper prostitutes for the evening, who coincidentally are Han’s women. The film shows the real life issues of the objectification and fetishization of Asian women. 

Then men go to the opening ceremony. The characters of the film are color coordinated. All of the computers but lee are in yellow as he is in black. Han’s decimals are in white and Han’s women are in purple. Williams and Roper both fight and win. 

At night, Lee goes out to investigate the island. He tiptoes around the island, hiding in shadows. A suspenseful, low, un-harmonzied piano riff plays, it speeds up and gets louder when Lee is at risk of getting caught. The music gives the viewer added stress to the scene. Shots of shadows of guards. are used to create suspense. The music changes to a 007 esc melody with the use of a guitar. Lee shimmy down a rope from the ceiling, but his rope is cut too soon for Lee to investigate. He makes it up before it is severed and escapes the guards unharmed.

The next morning, Han makes an announcement that he knows someone was lurking around. He makes Bolo, his best fighter fight the guards who couldn’t refrain Lee the night before. Bolo brutally kills the guards infant of the competitors, to warn them.