Anthony's Film Review - Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)

This drama about a martial arts legend is captivating with intense drama...

I definitely consider Bruce Lee to be a fascinating person. Like anyone else who is or has been famous and intriguing, there are many dimensions of the individual to explore and study. There's the personality, the beliefs, the life experiences, and many other things. In the case of Bruce Lee, he was a martial arts legend on film as well as an Asian immigrant who was eventually married interracially to a white American woman. Plus, he died young under mysterious circumstances. As you can see, Lee was quite a fascinating man.

In 1993, the semi-biographical movie Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was released in theaters. Here, Bruce Lee is portrayed by Jason Scott Lee, an actor who is not related to the martial arts star but does a pretty job in the role. It seems to be a tough job, too, because he has to do both the physical fighting scenes and the drama scenes. Thankfully, he pulls it off. His performance is definitely worth seeing.

There is also the other star of the movie who is worth seeing. Lauren Holly as Linda also delivers a fine performance as the woman who falls for Bruce and eventually marries him. She and her husband have their ups and downs, but it is she who truly understood who this man was. In fact, this movie is based on a book by this woman, Linda Lee Cadwell, providing a detailed account of her late husband's life. Though this movie does fictionalize some of it, it's still dramatic and captivating.

If you are a Bruce Lee fan, I can tell you this. It's rather interesting to see another side of him. There is action in scenes where he is filming a movie, but there's also competitive fighting that, to Linda's concern, he seems to be obsessed with doing. Then there's the romantic side with the relationship between him and Linda as well as the birth of their son Brandon, who in real life eventually died young like his father.

While it's not one of the greatest biopics ever, I'm still giving it a positive review. I found myself caring about the two main characters and what they go through together. I didn't really care about the story being partially true and partially false. The most important thing is that the film is still a nice tribute to the late Bruce Lee. Hollywood had one chance to put his life in a movie and managed to do it well enough.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, visit the Internet Movie Database.