Warner Bros.
In many walks of life, a combination of recency bias and genuine progress makes it easy to think that the latest thing is also the greatest thing. However, this thought process doesn’t apply to the martial arts movie genre, where a man who died in 1973 continues to be the yardstick all other stars are measured with — and generally fall short.
Bruce Lee’s death at the age of 32 cut short his life but not his legend. It can be easy to forget that his “Bruce Lee era” was just the final, star-making phase of his career. Before breaking through with his English name on “Green Hornet,” Lee appeared in 20 Hong Kong movies, often using his Chinese name Lee Jun Fan and stage names like Lee Siu Lung (“Lee Little Dragon”). This means that a true Lee aficionado has plenty of comparatively obscure material to wade through — from the 1941 film “Golden Gate Girl,” where he appears as a baby, to his drama turns in “The Thunderstorm” (aka “Lei yu,” 1957) and “The Orphan” (aka “Ren hai gu hong,” 1960).
Even so, when we think of Bruce Lee, we generally think of the very specific period of his career where he used the name to make a series of instant martial arts classics. Because he died so young, he only had time to star in a handful of these high-kicking movies, but fortunately for viewers, many of them are very good. But which of the five Bruce Lee movies is the best? Let’s find out.
5. Game of Death (1978)
Fortune Star Media Ltd.
There’s no way around it: Bruce Lee’s final movie, “Game of Death,” is a mess. The five years between Lee’s death in 1973 and the film’s premiere in 1978 created a strange golem around the skeletonized remainder of what the movie was originally supposed to be. The footage Lee had filmed before passing away had been padded with extra scenes that feature patchwork methods ranging from semi-competent body doubles to actual cardboard cutouts of the deceased star.
Lee filmed select scenes for “Game of Death” in 1972 before heading off to make “Enter the Dragon” (1973). The original plot was heist-themed, and Lee’s character spent much of the film scaling a large pagoda, facing a series of increasingly difficult opponents. In a truly historic and time-consuming act of Brucesploitation, the Golden Harvest studio and “Enter the Dragon” director Robert Clouse merged the available Lee footage with a reimagined revenge story that’s 100 minutes long and contains some 12 minutes of Bruce Lee … depending on whether you count the footage of Lee’s very real funeral that the movie chose to incorporate.
“Game of Death” has its moments. In the rare instances you actually see Lee, he’s reliably great. The film is also notorious for unveiling his famous yellow jumpsuit, an iconic look that inspired Beatrix Kiddo’s (Uma Thurman) getup in “Kill Bill: Vol. 1.” However, if the cringe factor of the movie’s many flaws and unsavory origin story is too much — as it very well might — you might want to check out the 2019 cut “Game of Death Redux,” a 40-minute version that’s included in the “Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits” Criterion Collection (2020) and focuses on Lee’s original footage.
4. The Big Boss (1971)
Golden Harvest
“The Big Boss” – sometimes known as “Fists of Fury” — may fall short of “Game of Death” when it comes to its pop culture prominence, but it overcomes the 1978 film and earns its place among Bruce Lee’s greatest hits by virtue of being a complete movie. It doesn’t hurt that “The Big Boss” is heaps of fun, either. It unleashes the Bruce Lee of legend upon the unwary world — or at least Thailand, where the movie takes place.
“The Big Boss” pulls a bit of a bait-and-switch with its protagonists, first focusing on brave martial artist Hsu Chien (James Tien) while Lee plays unassuming ice factory worker Cheng Chao-an, who’s made a solemn vow to stay away from physical combat. This goes roughly as well as one might assume, and as Tien’s character exits stage left, Lee steps front and center to unleash his full fury.
This makes for a slow burn experience where you only get to watch a Bruce Lee movie after sitting through a considerably worse non-Bruce Lee martial arts flick, which doesn’t do “The Big Boss” any favors. Combine this with production values that compare poorly to Lee’s later fare, and the movie is effectively a demo tape from an artist at the brink of a breakthrough. The intro is far too long, the comedic beats and fights are rougher around the edges than you’d expect, and the plot is flimsy even by the genre’s standards. However, director duo Wei Lo and Chia-Hsiang Wu’s movie is still an entertaining watch, and essential viewing for any Lee fan.
3. Fist of Fury (1972)
Golden Harvest
What “The Big Boss” started, “Fist of Fury” perfected. Director Wei Lo’s streamlined tale of Kung Fu student Chen Zhen’s (Lee) quest for vengeance against an antagonistic Japanese dojo features thrills, disguises, some extremely pointed commentary on the wrought history between China and Japan — and, above all else, Lee in full kicking, wailing, raging, nunchuck-wielding invincibility mode.
If the Bruce Lee image you have in your head is that of the quintessential Hong Kong Kung Fu hero, this is the ultimate Lee film for you. For all intents and purposes, Chen Zhen is presented as a borderline superhero who’s completely unable to lose a fair fight and who’s more than willing to fight dirty to even the odds. The film’s invariably intense martial arts sequences do their level best to hammer home his nature as a walking cheat code.
Apart from Chen Zhen’s ability to kick his way through a fully-staffed dojo, the thing that sets “Fist of Fury” apart from Lee’s other martial arts films is its comparatively serious tone. If Lee smiles here, it tends to be before or after a killing blow. No victorious walks toward the sunset for him, either. As mighty as Zhen is, at the end of the day he’s just a man who’s victimized by political forces he’s utterly powerless to stop. Of course, things are still just as corny as you’d assume from a 1970s martial arts film, but the themes of discrimination and the obsessive, unrelenting nature of Zhen’s rampage make sure that you won’t mistake this for a Jackie Chan movie in a hurry.
2. The Way of the Dragon (1972)
Golden Harvest
Thanks to the various completely Bruce Lee-free Brucesploitation films that flooded the market after his death, diving into the star’s filmography can be surprisingly challenging for the casual fan. It doesn’t help that some of his real movies carry multiple titles — for instance, the 1972 film “The Way of the Dragon” is sometimes labeled as a 1974 movie called “Return of the Dragon.”
Still, whatever its title card says, “The Way of the Dragon” remains an essential piece of martial arts cinema. Its improbable premise — a battle over the fate of a Chinese restaurant in Rome — works to its favor, as Lee’s rural martial arts master Tang Lung expertly dismantles both prejudices and an all-star array of opponents. “The Way of the Dragon” is a true Lee showcase, as he not only plays the main role but also wrote and directed the movie. Among the many highlights that ensue, one stands out above the rest. Indeed, the tense, tactical Colosseum showdown between Lee and fellow martial arts legend Chuck Norris (who plays the fist-for-hire Colt) is easily one of the most legendary movie fights of all time — even with the otherwise slim Norris eating lots of cheeseburgers beforehand to become noticeably bigger than Lee.
That being said, the rest of the film is well worth watching, as well. From the unassuming and even negative first impression the protagonist gives to the other characters to the laundry list of different martial artists he mows down after unveiling his true talents, “The Way of the Dragon” is a masterful lesson on making an efficient martial arts movie.
1. Enter the Dragon (1973)
Warner Bros.
If you’ve ever seen a martial arts film where the protagonist competes in a mysterious tournament, there’s a decent chance that the movie in question owes a nod to Bruce Lee’s best-known film, “Enter the Dragon.” It distills every aspect of Lee’s previous movies — such as spy antics, revenge missions, memorable antagonists, and great fight scenes — into one silly yet extremely impressive and entertaining package that’s rightfully revered as one of the best kung fu movies in history. Even if nothing else in Lee’s catalog interests you, be sure to check out the mind-bending mirror scene in “Enter the Dragon” where his character — who’s also named Lee — faces off against Han (Kien Shih), a nefarious villain who wouldn’t look out of place in a James Bond movie.
Lee died mere days before “Enter the Dragon” released in theaters in Hong Kong, so he never got to see how his greatest movie impacted the world. However, he put in plenty of work to ensure that the film adhered to his vision. Lee didn’t show up on the first day of shooting because of a creative dispute with Warner Bros., which the studio passed off as Lee getting a case of nerves. Apart from this, “Enter the Dragon” faced a multitude of challenges that could potentially have disrupted the movie or even ousted Lee from the production. Fortunately, Lee prevailed and managed to make a Hollywood film that didn’t lean on traditional Western-style action tropes but instead stayed true to his Hong Kong action roots. To say the least, Lee choosing to do what he did best paid off.
