Karlie Gochnour
5/19/19
Asian American Pop Culture
First Draft
Enter The Dragon Film Analysis
Enter The Dragon is a 1973 film directed by Robert Clouse (IMDb). The film stars Bruce Lee, the iconic 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, played by Kien Shih, who is responsible for Lee’s sister, Su Lin’s death. 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.
The film mainly stars Asian actors and extras, as the story takes place in Hong Kong. But It features a diverse range of the main characters; Asian, Caucasian, and African American. All of the men whom had background in martial arts. John Saxon had a black belt in karate, Jim Kelly was the international middleweight karate champion and Bruce Lee was the most famous martial artist of all time (IMDb).
Enter the Dragon was filmed without sound. Dialogue and sound effects were later dubbed into the film (IMDb). Dubbing is a technique of adding sounds post-production. Popularized by “spaghetti westerns” movies will cast no-name actors for a cheap price, some who don’t even speak the language of the film, and later dub another voice over them. In some part of this film, the dubbing is extremely obvious. Kein Shih who plays Han in the film was dubbed as he spoke no english. Although his voice was dubbed by a Chinese American actor, Keye Luke. He mouthed the lines the best he could and I think that he did a good job. Also, in the beginning of the film when Lee is talking with a monk, not only does the dialogue not match his lips but the voice does not match the character. The voice is extremely “americanized” and it caught me off guard, as the character is a monk in Hong Kong. I am to assume that he did not speak English either, but I feel it was a bad choice and the job should have gone with someone with a Chinese accent to create a realistic character.
Bruce Lee was heavily involved in the making of Enter the Dragon. He choreographed all of the fight scenes and trained some of the cast. In the action scenes, the screenplay wrote; “they will be choreographed by Mr. Bruce Lee”. Lee primarily worked with the Han’s girls so they would be able overpower John Saxon (IMDb).
The film references the stereotypes of Asian women, as Han’s girls are prostitutes. Historically, Asian women have been stereotyped as “lotus blossom baby” and “dragon lady”. Asian women are stereotyped as quiet, passive, submissive and prostitutes. They are both fetishized and objectified. In the film, Han’s girls are delivered to the rooms of the martial arts contestants to have sex with them – Williams takes three. I also found it interesting the overlapping of the theme of the dragon. The film is titled Enter the Dragon and the film exhibits “dragon ladies”. Renee E. Tajima writes “Asian women in America cinema are interchangeable in appearance and name, and are joined together by the common language of non-language – that is, uninterpretable chattering, pidgin English, giggling, or silence.” (1) This observation is accurate for this film, as Han’s girls have little to no dialogue and are often silent. Some of the girls witness Han murdering Williams. They giggle and do nothing to stop Han. It is said that they had a hard time casting the roles of the prostitutes, so real prostitutes were hired instead (IMDb).
Birds are heavily used in the scenes once the men get to Han’s island. Birds in birdcages fill the ceiling at Han’s welcoming party, there is a bird in Lee’s room, a birdcage is in the shot when Han confronts and kills Williams. Birds are commonly used in suspense films. Alfred Hitchcock was known for using birds in his films. Birds are used to provoke fate, freedom, suspense, or insanity to the viewer (Whiteley). In Grace Lee video Feathered Foes: Birds in Horror, she states that birds in films “are used to signal danger, associated with death and witchcraft”
I first saw this film roughly ten years ago. I was with my grandpa and we were channel surfing on tv. At the time, I had no idea who Bruce Lee was. I remember my grandpa told me that Bruce was so fast that they had to slow him down in post-production. I watched the film and always remembered the scene at the end with the mirrors. When recalling the film I would refer to it as “the Bruce Lee film with the mirrors” as I didn’t know the name. Interestingly enough, Alfred Hitchcock also known for using mirrors in his movies. Over eight thousand mirrors were used for the hall of mirrors scene (IMDb). H Perry Horton writes “A persona is never more vulnerable, nor stronger, than when it is staring at itself, and the visual power of these moments have been used in cinematic narratives beginning at the dawn of the medium and continuing to the present day.” I find this idea to be accurate in the scene of Lee and Han in the hall of mirrors.
Bruce lee hid a piece of iron in his hand in order to break the mirrors (IMDb). Lee, Han and the camera operators couldn’t stay in the hall of mirrors for more than fifteen minutes at a time before getting nauseous (Stice).
Besides the icon Bruce Lee, another Asian American Hollywood icon was in the film, Jackie Chan. Jackie appears as one of Su Lin’s attackers, during the cave fight scene, and Lee pulls his hair and breaks his neck. Jackie Chan was actually got struck in the face by one of Lee’s fighting sticks (IMDb).
Enter the Dragon was Bruce Lee’s final film, although several more of his movies were released post-humousoly. The film released August 19, 1973 and Bruce Lee passed away on July 20, 1973 (IMDb). 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.
Enter the Dragon is Bruce Lee’s most popular film. It is often considered to be the start of the “kung fu craze”. Produced By Warner Brothers, it was the first Chinese martial arts film to be produced by a major studio. Over a million dollars were spent on advertising, the most amount ever spent on promotion at the time. With a budget of $850,000 the film went on to gross 90 million dollars at the box-office (IMDb).
Works Cited:
Bowman, Paul. “Theorizing Bruce Lee Film-Fantasy-Fighting-Philosiphy” Rodopi, 2009.
“Enter The Dragon.” IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070034/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1
Horton, H. Perry. “Looking Glass: A Supercut of Mirror Shots.” Film School Rejects, June 13 2017, https://filmschoolrejects.com/reflections-supercut-mirror-shots/.
Lee, Grace. “Feathered Foes: Birds in Horror.” Youtube, Angust 23 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=XD5Cl7FsAHk
Stice, Joel. “Bruce Lee Was Bitten By A Cobra And 5 Other Surprising ‘Enter The Dragon’ Facts.” Uproxx, Novermber 27 2015, https://uproxx.com/movies/enter-the-draon-trivia/.
Tajima, Renee E. “Lotus Blossoms Don’t Bleed: Images of Asian Women.” Asian Woman United, 2010, http://www.samfeder.com/PDF/Making%20Waves_%20Renee%20E.%20Tajima.pdf
Whiteley, Aliya. “The Hidden Meaning of Birds in Movies.” Den Of Geek! March 20 2013,
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/24806/the-hidden-meanings-of-birds-in-the-movies.
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