Bruce Lee: In Pursuit Of The Dragon – DVD Review

• 16th Mar 2012

“Martial arts icon Bruce Lee completed just four movies between 1971 and his death in Hong Kong in 1973

In August and October of 2009, a crew of six people, hailing from America, Canada and Germany, set out to discover if the sites where Lee filmed his movies still existed”

From Northern River Productions comes a film written and directed by John Little.

As the opening mission statement indicates, this documentary concerns itself solely with the task of tracking down the significant shooting locations featured in Lee’s four completed feature films. Once located, the idea is then to see what (if anything), of interest remains now, and err…film and talk about it. That’s pretty much it.

Naturally, as budgets were always tight on Bruce’s movies, plenty of real locations were used, often with minimal enhancement, fakery or dressing. This provides the foundation upon which an endeavour of this sort can be based with any degree of success. Good job too, as later in the film, we find out that the Golden Harvest film studio itself (and any sets or large set dressings that might have still existed), has long since been demolished and redeveloped. So, the film literally goes movie by movie in chronological order, visiting as many key locations as possible.

We begin of course with The Big Boss. We see the iconic Ice factory (yes, it’s still an ice factory, and practically unchanged in 40 years). Interesting. We also see many other key locations from the movie; most of which being fairly intact and well recognisable. And so it goes on. We understand the film’s intent and thrust right from the off, and It is something of a self confessed, one trick pony. Incidentally, this first segment also irritates right from the off too, by looping the main music theme from the film round and round more times than is really comfortable to endure (particularly as it is a typically strident piece). It’s just too much.

Now then, before i continue; I do want to say that it is obvious this film has been made with a lot of love, care and attention to the brief, and that John Little and Co. do not lack for knowledge and detail on their Bruce Lee movies in general, and chosen subject in particular. All that is granted, and very impressive. You really get the sense that they are positively loving what they’re doing, and very excited to be re-treading Bruce’s footsteps on location. Camera setups are careful, and often try to recreate the same angles and pans seen in the original movie. This is all good, although I was rather expecting to see some groovy post-production dissolves between original movie and documentary shots, and back again. Alas, the transitions actually used are much more of a standard type.

Moving on, I consider myself a pretty decent Bruce Lee fan, and a long standing one at that. Yet I must admit that I found it a little hard to stay with Little’s documentary at times during it’s hour long run time. A few too many times I was reminded of a portion of Martin DiBergi’s opening monologue from This Is Spinal Tap – “In 1966, I went down to Greenwich Village, New York City to a rock club called The Electric Banana. Don’t look for it; it’s not there anymore“. There’s a fair bit of that kind of thing (particularly when covering Fist Of Fury which suffers the most in terms of lost locations). It also wonders far too much into serious trainspotter, anorak minutiae territory for me. A scene while they are in Rome (covering rather too many of the locations in Way Of The Dragon), involves tracking down a hotel room Lee stayed in while filming….and I quote:

“The same mirror, the same window frame, and the same view from the same balcony……”

Right, ok then. I think this goes a little beyond the pale. I was almost waiting for the dude to say something like “This is the same sink, and the same bog-roll dispenser, next to the same crapper Bruce Lee once laid some righteous Jeet Kune Do cable in one night, isn’t it awesome?”. To me, this kind of extreme focus renders the film immediately of interest only to like minded types. And at the cost and exclusion of a broader audience too, although I admit that is a personal opinion.

The Rome portion of the film also introduces us to a hither to only hinted at secondary mandate of the producers; that of Tour Guide. One gets the distinct impression that the filmmakers are in serious ‘padding out’ mode here. As well as dealing with the major shooting locations you’d expect to see covered (although inexplicably missing a few I could think of); the film also includes monuments and buildings that Lee’s character, merely walks or drives past in the movie. Of course, when originally shot; it was quite a coup for Lee to be on location somewhere as exotic as Rome, and he made sure to capture many of the city’s architectural sites on camera (so many in fact, that a feeling of contrivance is tangible when watching the movie). However, It would be dumb to have travelled all the way from Hong Kong to film in Rome, and not do this, so I would cut Bruce some slack. Now though, for this DVD, Lee’s copious coverage means that the producers have indulged themselves somewhat, and opted to find and shoot all these myriad fountains, statues, squares etc. many of which really don’t feature for more than a few seconds in the actual movie. This padding is compounded by the filmmakers decision to also include a detailed ‘Tour Guide’ style commentary/voiceover when looking at each of these old monuments. I was almost speechless in response to it. I kept thinking: why would anyone watching a Bruce Lee documentary want to hear this guy tell you all about some fountain, with a half submerged lion at the bottom, made a bazillion years ago and presented to Pope whatsizname, that Bruce Lee eventually pointed at while walking past it in 1972? (pardon the deep breath required to read that last sentence). It seems at best, chronically tangental, and actually serves to irritate more than anything else. This is in terms of a Bruce Lee documentary of course i.e the research and information given in the voiceover is not inherently worthless or uninteresting (although to my English sensibilities, the North American tone and delivery rankles a little); it’s just mostly irrelevant in this context, and left me impatiently willing the documentary to move on to the next location.

Further demerits are earned regarding the many clips from the original movies that the filmmakers cut in to their film. They are mostly of a grainy, pan and scan, TV style quality. They look old, that’s for sure. I’m assuming that clips from the restored, remastered, 185:1 and 235:1 widescreen versions of the movies were not available or affordable to the producers, which is a shame. Their production would have benefitted immensely from this one improvement, as the graphics, titles and packaging are nice looking.

The film dedicates it’s last segment of course to Enter The Dragon. In this part of the film, we return to a more pleasing coverage of the various remaining sites where key scenes were shot. Some interesting facts and observations are in evidence here, such as the completely different location of Han’s palace to the open tournament area (actually a bunch of grass tennis courts). No-one these days would be surprised to learn that, in the movies, all manner of trickery is employed to force a reality on the viewer that in actual fact does not exist. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool when the truth of some of these things are shown to us. The tennis courts for instance, now I never knew the main fighting events depicted in the film were filmed on what were (and still are) walled grass tennis courts. Seeing a relevant clip of Bolo Yeung, Bruce, and Bob Wall etc the court’s chalk lines are immediately apparent (although obviously disguised for filming). That’s cool. This is the aspect of Little’s film that most holds the attention.

Overall, I would say that Pursuit Of The Dragon gets an ‘A+’ for the effort and passion on the chosen subject matter, but loses out ultimately, as said subject is just too narrow in scope to really appeal to even a Lee fan like me (beyond a certain point), let alone a more casual viewer. I think it’s over long, and could have been streamlined down to a tidy 45 or 50 mins without the terribly indulgent and ‘off topic’ aspects of the Rome segment. Or, to maintain its 60+ minute length, perhaps some extended interviews. Some of the folks briefly interviewed for the film are genuinely interesting and provide colourful extra flavours to the mix. Some more of those folks’ insights and remembrances might have been a good idea to include.

Bruce Lee: Pursuit Of The Dragon is out now on DVD

Ben Pegley