‘You have offended my family and you have offended the Shaolin Temple...’
Everyone has glaring omissions on their watchlist. I’ve never seen The Godfather II, for heaven’s sake. But aside from westerns and musicals, the next biggest miss for me is the entire martial arts genre, specifically the oeuvre of Bruce Lee. I don’t know why this is. I love punching. I love ridiculous action movies. I love how Lee looks like the perfect specimen of a man in every conceivable way. And yet here we are…
Lee (Lee) – and yes, I know that formatting is confusing, the character is called Lee and is played by Bruce Lee who I have already mentioned once, so Lee (Lee) is grammatically correct here. Calm down. Anyway, Lee (Lee) must travel somewhere to kick and punch many people. He also has to spy on some guys and hang around with beautiful women. Roper (John Saxon) is also there for some premium punching and kicking, and he is also very much open to canoodling with beautiful women. The intricacies of the plot are not important.
Obviously, I’ve seen many clips of Bruce Lee doing his thing, but to see him in all his technicolour glory really is something to behold. All of his fight sequences are spectacular, but it is his final showdown in the hall of mirrors with Han (Kien Shih) and his knife hand that remains Lee’s most iconic moment. This wouldn’t be the last time that John Saxon would be in the same film as a guy with knives for fingers, of course.
Martial arts movies have been copied and parodied so much that it is almost odd to watch one now. It is undoubtedly the star power of Bruce Lee that elevates this movie into something incredibly captivating and, at times, oddly beautiful. I’m a fan. Sign me up for another one.