Enter The Dragon is a 1973 Asian American film directed by Robert Clouse (IMDb). The film stars Bruce Lee, the iconic Asian American martial artist. Bruce plays the character of 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 of Roper, who travels to the island to win the prize money and pay off some debt back home. Kelly plays the character of Williams, a martial artist who is in trouble with the cops.
The film was released in a time when there was a lack of Asian representation in popular culture. It mainly stars Asian actors and extras, as the story takes place in Hong Kong but it features a diverse range of main/supporting characters: Asian, Caucasian, and African American, all of whom had backgrounds 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). Lee is the main character of the film while Saxon and Kelly are supporting characters. However, the film’s marketing in the United States told a different story. Pierre-François Peirano writes,
In the American trailer, the three characters appear in succession–first Roper, then Williams, then Lee–and are then called ‘the deathly three.’ Each of them thus seems to play an equivalent role in the plot, probably because the various types of American spectators could identify to such and such character. (Pierre- François Peirano, 2013, 16)
This tactic was used for the United States/European demographic to accept a Chinese film. Pierre-François Peirano also writes,
In view of those trailers, the spectator would probably have thought this was a ‘hybrid’ kung-fu movie, in which the various characters came from various ethnic groups and different backgrounds. This feature is much more emphasized in the American trailer than in the Hong Kong one. (Pierre-François Peirano, 2013,11)
Unfortunately, Asian kung fu movies had not yet become mainstream in American popular culture. The producers of the film wanted the film to be a success, so they stretched the truth regarding the size of Williams’ and Roper’s characters. It is a tricky question to ponder whether the film would of had the same success if accurately represented in Americas media. Racism is deeply rooted into Hollywood filmmaking; Asians were not the main character of films and were sometimes portrayed by white actors doing “yellow face”. Even today, there is a lack of Asian representation in Hollywood. Movies like Enter the Dragon have helped pave the way, but there is still a long way to go.
The entire movie was filmed without sound; dialogue and sound effects were later dubbed into the film (IMDb). Dubbing is a technique of adding sounds in post-production of the filmmaking process. Popularized by the “spaghetti western,” 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 parts of this film, the dubbing is extremely obvious. Kien Shih, who plays Han in the film, was dubbed by Chinese American actor, Keye Luke, as Kien did not speak English (IMDb). He mouthed the lines the best he could, and I think that he excelled in his performance. 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 “westernized” 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 negative choice and the job should have gone to someone with a Chinese accent to create a realistic character.
“‘My style? You can call it the art of fighting without fighting.’” (Enter the Dragon, IMDb). Lee was heavily involved in the making of Enter the Dragon. He choreographed all the fight scenes and trained some of the cast (IMDb). In the action scenes, the screenplay notes stated regarding the scenes, “they will be choreographed by Mr. Bruce Lee” (IMDb). Lee primarily worked with Han’s girls so they would be able to overpower John Saxon (IMDb). Lee developed his own version of martial arts called Jeet Kune Do. Paul Bowman describes it: “Jeet Kune Do means the way of the stopping fist, or the way of the intercepting fist. So, instead of blocking and then hitting, our main concept is to dispense with blocking completely, and instead to intercept and hit” (Bowman, 58).
Enter the Dragon 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” (Tajima, 1). 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 intercourse with them—Williams takes three. I also found 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” (Tajima, 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 sex workers for the film, so real sex workers were hired instead (IMDb).
Enter the Dragon is different than other kung fu films and seems to be heavily inspired by detective films or film noir, such as 007. It is a perfect mix of the genres as Lee is hired to investigate Han’s island undercover, but his only weapon is kung fu. Bernard Benoliel writes, “Bruce Lee, who has become a secret agent, thus listens to his interlocutor’s lecture and takes on, without any effort, some of 007’s attributes as well as the codes of this large symbolic and economic machine” (Benoliel, 11). Han’s island, where no guns are allowed, was created because they wanted to create a kung fu movie without guns and Lee was annoyed that he wasn’t allowed to use a gun once during the duration of the film (IMDb). I believe that the director Robert Clouse was also heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, as there are distinct parallels in motifs.
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 and a birdcage is in the shot when Han confronts and kills Williams. During the fight, Han knocks over the cage, breaking it and the bird can be seen flying around during the fight. 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’s video Feathered Foes: Birds in Horror, she states that birds in films “are used to signal danger, associated with death and witchcraft” (Grace Lee).
I first saw this film roughly ten years ago. I was with my grandpa and we were channel surfing on television. 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 its name. Interestingly enough, Alfred Hitchcock was 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. (H. Perry Horton, 2017)
I find this idea to be accurate in the scene of Lee and Han in the hall of mirrors, as it is the most suspenseful scene in the film. The scene starts with long shots and the shots progressively become faster with more cuts to add a sense of anxiety for the viewer. 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). The hall of mirrors scene was not even in the original script. The cinematographer was inspired by a restaurant in Hong Kong that had mirrors from the wall to the ceiling (IMDb). It is interesting how the most iconic scene of the film came from out of the blue.
There is a theme of breaking of mirrors/glass through the film. First, Su Lin’s attackers break the glass of a window to corner her, she takes a shard of glass and stabs herself to death. Second, O’Hara, one of Han’s men, breaks two glass bottles to create a weapon when losing a fight to Lee. Third, Lee throws a snake into the control room and the men break the windows to escape, while Lee sends a message for help. Fourth, Han breaks the glass containing his hands/claws during the fight with Lee. Last, Lee begins to break the mirrors to help him find the real Han. Bruce Lee actually hid a piece of iron in his hand in order to break the mirrors in that particular scene (IMDb). breaking of the glass is used in the film during fighting scenes. Broken glass/mirrors is said to be a universal symbol of bad luck, signaling the viewer that one of the characters will have bad luck and meet their fate.
Han only has one hand and attaches claws to the other to aid in fights. He has a variety of claws that he displays inside of glass, including a bear claw. Bears are significant in Chinese culture. The bear became the preferred totem in The Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), the second Imperial Dynasty of China (Levy). The Han Dynasty is considered to be “the golden age” of China. During this period, bears were worshiped and honored by decorating jade objects, pottery, lacquerwork, bronze equipment, sculptures and bronze mirrors with bears (Levy). Han has a variety of claws ranging from bear claws to claws made of metal and knives. It looks like the association to the character Han and bears/claws was deliberate in the making of Han’s characterization.
Besides the icon Bruce Lee, another Asian American Hollywood icon was a part of 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 accidentally got struck in the face by one of Lee’s fighting sticks (IMDb). After Lee’s passing, Chan continued in Lee’s efforts to popularize the martial arts film genre in America and beyond.
Enter the Dragon was Bruce Lee’s final film, although several more of his movies were released posthumously. The film was released on August 19, 1973, and Bruce Lee passed away on July 20, 1973 (IMDb). Lee died of a brain edema most likely caused by a prescription painkiller. His autopsy was ruled “death by misadventure,” meaning that his death was an accident. In the scene before going to Han’s island, Lee is seen at a graveyard visiting his dead sister. The scene feels like a foreshadow and is hard for a viewer to watch knowing Lee died not long after. This is an eerie scene to watch as Bruce Lee died in 1973, the year that this film was released. Bruce Lee’s career was tragically cut short, but his work in Enter the Dragon will live on.
Enter the Dragon is Bruce Lee’s most popular film as well. It is often considered to be the start of the “kung fu craze,” and it is significant in Asian American popular culture. Produced by Warner Brothers, it was the first Chinese martial arts film to be produced by a major studio (IMDb). Over a million dollars were spent on advertising, the most ever spent on promotion at the time (IMDb). With a budget of $850,000, the film went on to gross 90 million dollars at the box-office (IMDb). The film was deemed “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant” in 2004 by the National Film Registry (IMDb).
Enter the Dragon is an incredibly well done film. It was ahead of its time in terms of film techniques and dynamics. But I feel as though it is important to acknowledge that it was also incredibly late in terms of Asian representation in popular culture, as the craze began only in the 1970s. Enter the Dragon played a quintessential role in the acceptance of kung fu films by the American public. Bruce Lee hoped that this film would be more than just an action movie but a portrayal of the beauty within Chinese culture (IMDb). He wanted the West to accept the Chinese hero he played on screen and for the Chinese to accept the new approach to the characterization of Lee (IMDb). Bruce sadly never got to witness the success and significance of the film. But I personally believe that Lee’s goals for the film were met as the film holds a special place in cinematic history.
Works Cited
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Stice, Joel. “Bruce Lee Was Bitten By A Cobra And 5 Other Surprising ‘Enter The Dragon’ Facts.” Uproxx, Novermber 27 2015,
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Tajima, Renee E. “Lotus Blossoms Don’t Bleed: Images of Asian Women.” Asian Woman United, 2010,
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