Way of the Dragon (Meng long guojiang)

2 Ratings: 4.5

A movie

The film was looped in post-production. Bruce Lee provided most of the English speaking voices in the Cantonese and Mandarin prints. Parts of the movie were shot at the Roman Colosseum. … see full wiki

Tags: Comedy Movies, Action Movies, Action, Hong Kong Movies, Kung Fu, Kung Fu Movies, see all

Cast: Bruce Lee, Robert Baker, Chuck Norris, Robert Wall, Yuen Biao, Lam Ching-Ying, see all

Director: Bruce Lee

Genre: Action, Comedy, Adventure

Release Date: December 30, 1972

MPAA Rating: R

1 review about Way of the Dragon (Meng long guojiang)

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Bruce Lee's Directorial debut!

May 1, 2009

by Captain_Couth
posted in Welcome to the Grindhouse

Rating:

Way of the Dragon a.k.a. Return of the Dragon is the first and only film that Bruce Lee had managed to direct solo. He also was the co-action director, writer and actor. For this project, Bruce Lee set this picture in Rome, Italy. He and a film crew shot footage for a few days in Rome and headed back to shoot the rest of the movie in Hong Kong. This was also the first and only time Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris fought on screen.

Bruce Lee stars as a country bumpkin who travels to Rome so he could help out his cousins who are in trouble with some local thugs. The syndicate wants the restaurant that his family owns. For some time they have put up some resistance but to no avail. When they met Bruce and see that he could fight, everyone thought that he was the answer to their prayers, or is he?

More comedic than his previous two films. This was because Bruce Lee was making a film that was catered to his Hong Kong audience. He wanted to make a movie that could make him some money so he could concentrate on a more personal project (The Game of Death). But by the time he completed this film he was already set to work on his break through movie Enter the Dragon (1973). Way of the Dragon was proof that Bruce Lee could work within Golden Harvest.

I have to highly recommend this film. If you like Bruce Lee then look no further. This is a nice watch because the tone of the movie is somewhat light hearted compared to his earlier films. He proved that he could play comic roles as well as a hardcore fighter.

Followed by Enter the Dragon and stock footage appearances in The Game of Death and The Tower of Death.

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QUEENBFLIX May 01, 2009

I haven't checked out recent DVD releases of this film but people should definitely try to look for the uncut original release and not the American release which has all the comedy cut out and leaves the viewer sort of baffled by Bruce's behavior--the western toilet scene for instance.