Customer Reviews

Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story

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4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I don't think so! What is it about these types of pseudo-documentary releases that the manufacturers think that they can throw a "cool"(?) sounding name and some flashy pictures on the cover and fool us into buying this tripe? Poor Bruce Lee would be spinning in his grave (If he's really dead that is!), at the thought of his life being exploited in this way! Certainly many superstars and celebreties have had lame "tributes" released in their names but surely poor Mr Lee has to be the most sinned against! This release being an example of such! How many times can the limited footage be re-hashed and recycled in such a frustrating way???? Theres nothing new here, no insights, no revelations, no interest! If you want to know Bruce Lee, watch his movies. For more, watch the movie he wanted to, but never got the chance to make.... "The Magic Flute" starring David Carradine (who also robbed him of "HIS" series "Kung Fu") Or just watch "Dragon- The Bruce Lee Story" for the basic outline followed by a better and more enlightening documentary, "Death By Misadventure" which as a bonus also includes a look at his son, Brandon and his brief but worthy career! Steer clear of this twaddle. Its cheap because its "CHEAP"!!!!!

Having watched this film from start to finish I am convinced that CD Now should give us the option of voting 0-1/2. Considering this "MOCKUMENTARY" isn't worth a whole paragraph...the whole movie can be summed up as follows: (1)The 1st fraction of the movie touches on Lee's college life, marriage, opening of a kung-fu school,and early film career, and (2) The rest of the movie is GARBAGE...Lee's pretty much portrayed as an infidel and emotionless adulterer who forsook his wife and kids to be with Betty Ting Pei and appeared to love her more than his own family. And the closing credits have Bety Ting Pei appearing to be the victim/widow as she walks alone on the beach. TRASH...a cruel joke. What's worst is the fact that Lee Roy Lung(Bruce Li) was supposed to have idolized Bruce Lee and wanted to carry on his legacy, yet he was a part of the TRASH! No love for this one.

Despite the poor acting and dialouge, this film does show alot of things that really happened to Bruce Lee. When Bruce goes back to Hong Kong to find work as an actor, he really was offered $200 a month when he wanted $10,000. The 1st director of the "Big Boss" was a loud mouthed sissy who cussed and screamed at all the actors. Another fact was that Mrs Lo Wei (the wife of the director of the Big Boss) did indeed get Bruce Lee his first film role and got her husband to direct it. All the key characters are portrayed: Raymond Chow, Nora Maio, Lo Wei, Betty Ting Pei. You can pretty much say that this movie has more facts than does "Dragon". Obviously this was the 1st Bruce Lee biopic and this probably was Bruce Li's first film role, because he acted terribly and his martial arts sucked. But don't get down on Bruce Li, he really is a good martial artist and decent actor. I give it 3 stars because the facts are there but all in all this movie sucks!!!!!!!!!!

This early Bruce Li movie is a biography of Bruce Lee but a very ill researched one. When Bruce Li made this movie, he apparently wasn't very good at martial arts and like all of his other movies that were made around the same time as this one, the fight choreography is awful. Some of the far too few fight scenes feature Li wearing a hair piece and these fights appear to be cribbed from another movie. There are two versionsof this film. The other one is now impossibly rare and is entitled "The Bruce Lee Story" which features a completely different dialogue track. The "Bruce Lee A Dragon Story" is reccomended. To be honest, I don't reccomend the film at all unless you're a big Bruce Li fan

"Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story" was probably the first of the phony, exploitative Bruce Lee biopics that came out shortly after his death. This one stars everyone's favourite Bruce Lee clone, Bruce Li. This mind-bogglingly innacurate movie pseudo-traces Bruce Lee's life from working in the United States on "The Green Hornet" to going back to Hong Kong to work for Golden Harvest Studios and director Lo Wei. These are about the only facts that it gets right, though, with Bruce Lee's alleged affair with Betty Ting Pei dominating the story (even going so far as to have Betty miscarry Bruce's child!). It blows big time, but honestly, it's good for a few unintentional laughs, particularly from the dubbing (listen to the director of the "Green Hornet" show - he's a riot) and parts of the melodramatic story. What few fight scenes there are aren't very impressive.
The DVD from Goodtimes has the obviously widescreen movie cropposed to full frame. It looks abominable, really faded with many scratches, but it's a budget disc that I found for $2 at Wal-Mart, so why should I complain?

Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story is nothing short of horrible. It supposedly provides us a biographical look at the life, career, and death of the great Bruce Lee, yet half the time it doesn't even seem to have anything to do with him. I could not make heads or tails out of anything this "mockumentary" related, and what little light it does shine on the man is rather unfavorable. This story says absolutely nothing about Lee's fighting style, his personal philosophy, or anything else. After a few scenes from an early film or two in Hong Kong, no specific film is ever even mentioned; thus, nothing is revealed about the entertainment side of Lee's life and career. I was never sure who the business associates that plod through the story actually were; I'm not even sure how many of the "facts" presented here are actually even remotely true. And don't get me started on the dubbing. This feature has the worst dubbing I have ever heard in my life. The actors themselves look pretty untalented going about the motions onscreen, but the dubbing is atrocious. It is as if the speakers can read English words but have no comprehension of the meaning of any single one of them, and a couple of the voice actors scream every single one of their lines. In all honesty, I can't name one good thing about Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story. It is uninformative to the Bruce Lee novice and anathema to the Bruce Lee fan.

Bruce Li returns for another crappy, hilarious, incoherent, and completely inaccurate tale about Bruce Lee's life and death. The movie tries really hard to be an accurate biographical story; but fails miserably. First of the acting is horrible, the editing as well and the fight scenes... Well... I guess they are okay but I have seen much better. The editing is so laughably bad. There are moments were you just have to laugh because its so badly put together. For example the beginning where we see Bruce handing out news papers, out of nowhere it jumps to a ludicrous fight scene that is badly choreographed. Also they put Bruce Lee in this movie as an infidel husband to Linda Lee Caldwell. There are scenes where we hear Li mentioning that he is going to compete with other fighters, but it is never seen. We see him enter combat but he never fights, others do. The only thread of accuracy here is the fact that Bruce Li is seen preparing for the role of The Green Hornet. They demonstrate some tiny accuracy such as Bruce having migraines on set, and dying in his sleep. But these accuracies are presented in the most laughable manners. Such as the ending where we see Bruce once again being infidel to his wife, decides to leave his children and wife for some other women and in her house he lies down in bed and dies in a very funny way. This is not biography this is an insult to the man who reinvented the Martial Arts genre.

As for the picture quality I must say it looks really poor, it is watchable but very poor. The sound is average, mono sound.

MY PERSONAL RATING: 1 OUT OF 5

Bruce Li returns for another crappy, hilarious, incoherent, and completely inaccurate tale about Bruce Lee's life and death. The movie tries really hard to be an accurate biographical story but fails miserably. First of the acting is horrible, the editing as well and the fight scenes. Well... I guess they are okay but I have seen much better. The editing is so laughably bad. There are moments were you just have to laugh because its so badly put together. For example the beginning where we see Bruce handing out news papers, out of nowhere it jumps to a ludicrous fight scene that is badly choreographed. Also they put Bruce Lee in this movie as an infidel husband to Linda Lee Caldwell. There are scenes where we hear Li mentioning that he is going to compete with other fighters, but it is never seen. We see him enter combat but he never fights, others do. The only thread of accuracy here is the fact that Bruce Li is seen preparing for the role of The Green Hornet. They demonstrate some tiny accuracy such as Bruce having migraines on set, and dying in his sleep. But these accuracies are presented in the most laughable manners. Such as the ending where we see Bruce once again being infidel to his wife, decides to leave his children and wife for some other women and in her house he lies down in bed and dies in a very funny way. This is not biography this is an insult to the man who reinvented the Martial Arts genre.

As for the picture quality I must say it looks really poor, it is watchable but very poor. The sound is average, mono sound.

MY PERSONAL RATING: 1 OUT OF 5