Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

According to Wong or his people the fight wasn't even about Bruce teaching non-Chinese. Bruce supposedly was going around challenging everybody and anybody, being a cocky dude, in order to get his name out there. And that Bruce wanted a no holds barred-type fight in order to intimidate and gain some edge over someone who wanted a more traditional sportsman-like match.

For Bruce to change up his whole style after the fight makes more sense if it went down like Wong said it did. I mean, if you have some great style, and you're opponent is running away from you the whole time, why toss it out and start from scratch?

That would certainly be interesting but it would make Bruce look like a villain. And why are they making a movie around one particular match? Why an action movie? It's not like was special forces going on missions his whole life. He studied at college, opened his own Kung Fu studio, and was an actor. His life is more like a drama. Plus, I don't think any actor can capture his charisma, which is more important in my opinion for a biographical movie than martial arts prowess.

Yeah, including the supposed womanizing, trash talking, and sometime-pot smoking that eventually killed him. A biographical movie, warts and all. Reading about his life according to his friends and critics paints a much more human picture IMO, than making him this superman-like character.

He was a guy who wrote poetry, developed a serious and through provoking philosophy and yet craved financial success and was jealous of his Hollywood friend and student Steve McQueen.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

That's the movie I want to see but this isn't it.

From the original article:

"THR specifies that the further plot of the film will see Lee teamed up with Wong to fight the Chinese triads that controlled Chinatown at the time. Not quite a biopic, then, as you can see."

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

I want a film criticizing Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Bruce Lei, Bruce Liang and Dragon Lee. When I was a kid in the 70's these bastards tricked me into thinking I was actually watching a Bruce Lee film.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

What would a good biographical film on him be about? Being born in the US, grow up in HK, learn from Ip Man, come back to the states, does some college while teaching martial arts, meets his wife, starts building and growing his martial arts nature, meets Ed Parker, goes to that karate championship to show off his skills, the Wong situation, JKD is born, Brandon is born, gets annoyed w/ how Hollywood treats him, makes it big in HK, comes back an international star, starts working on GoD, does Enter The Dragon, dies at Betty Ping Tei's place.

within all that... he has the kids, you got to show that he had a friend called Steve McQueen, who by his fame, influenced Lee's want for fame and success in film. He did some drugs. (Possibly?) had mistresses during his time as an actor. And a lot of other little stuff.

Bruce Lee is a legendary figure.. but he's not mythical. The man was flawed as hell.

I'm iffy on his mistresses. The way Linda has handled it, you'd swear nothing happened at all. I'm always confused about that. For a woman who was cheated on... she takes it rather well. I can see Lee fucking about cuz.. well... he was surrounded by a lot of HK tail. His daughter also paints him as a mythical figure too. Granted... she seems to be a business whore.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Dude. I grew up as a little kid thinking that all these awesome HK flicks were the same man. My dad had so many VHS flicks of the Bruceploitation stuff. Some of them were actually really fucking good HK stuff. I was kind of hurt to find out by the time I could google that Bruce Lee only finished 4 films that he starred in. There were at least 20 other films that I saw thinking it was all him and thought it was weird that they misspelled his name. But I saw an asian guy, doing bruce lee stuff, named Bruce Lo.. Li...Le... whatever else, looking like Lee, in HK films.

There was a damn good one where a Bruce wrangled up these criminals to take down some bad guy. Even had Bolo Yeung in it I think. The baddie died by having some bottle he sniffed out of swallowed by one of the lowly criminals.

Anyone remember that one? Fuck. I'd buy it on DVD if I ever found out what it was.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Bruce Li has said he actually felt bad after doing all the bruceploitation films. Sort of hard to believe since he was getting paid.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Linda and Shannon wants to turn him into a myth which is why there are so many people hating on the Bruce Lee Enterprise and foundation. He did take drugs. Hash or weed was found in his system during the autopsy. He also used steroids which was actually legal at that time. I think he did, others say otherwise.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

I think he was the most famous of the "Bruce" clones.

http://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...IV/blog/Li.jpg

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Fixed. :D

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

For a second I thought it said Philip Kwok was going to play Lee and I got all excited.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Yeah, I was also confused by the Bruceploitation movies as a kid in the early 80's. I always read Black Belt magazine, and read all about Bruce Lee, and saw the ads for the yellow jumpsuit and other Bruce-related gear, but I had never seen any of his movies. Cable came through our area when I was 12 or so, and then I started to see a lot of HK kung fu movies. But I saw a bunch of Bruceploitation movies before I ever saw one of Bruce's real ones. I got really confused, because the movies didn't seem that great, but they had names like "True Game of Death" or something, and the guy kind of dressed and looked like Bruce....took me a while to figure out the deal.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Pics from the set. Looks like they went all out to make Vancouver look like SF in the 60's.

http://cityonfire.com/wp-content/upl...Untitled-1.jpg

I'm still iffy on this flick but I did like Philip Ng in "Once Upon A time in Shanghai". It felt like an old school Bruce Lee film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2290567/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_6

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

James Lee, Bruce's friend from Oakland? He passed away before Bruce, in 1972.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

I don't know why I wrote that. I meant his son Greg.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Variety review from the Toronto Film Festival.

http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews...ee-1201859875/

https://i2.wp.com/teaser-trailer.com...new-poster.jpg

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

From the martial arts team behind X-Men? Did it really need to have that credit? -ohbfrank-

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

1st trailer:



This is screaming coming to video on demand. I don't know. That trailer doesn't really excite me. And that promo plug for the Martial arts team that brought you X-Men...:lol: Seriously?

The actor they cast looks nothing like Bruce.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

I thought the trailer was too long, but I'd definitely check the movie out.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

...jesus. That looks laughable.

And why the fuck does it matter about the martial arts team behind X-Men? Which one? X1?

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Kinda shows you where their heads were at with this show; more mythologizing, this time taking a fight that probably wasn't all that visually interesting to begin with -- two guys doing flappy hands and feet in a room someplace -- and wire-working and CG-ing the shit out of it like it could only be happening in a movie.

This "from the martial arts team/choreographer of [Big American Hit Movie here]" business really pigeonholes just about every show it's used on. While these guys more than deserve -- and often don't get -- name checked in the opening credits of the U.S. films they work on, something about pimping it so heavily in trailers and on posters just makes it seem like the producers and marketing people really didn't see much else they could latch onto as selling features (besides the director's previous work). Certainly based on that trailer, the story and especially the performances aren't exactly screaming to be thrown front and centre.

This was a potential back-up pick for me at TIFF this year, but having read the early reviews, I'm kinda glad I got all my first picks and decided to hold off on this one. Have a feeling 1993's DRAGON -- despite its many liberties with the real story -- will still be the preferred American Lee hagiography for a while to come. :)

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

This doesn't even look as good as "Dragon" and Dragon wasn't anything spectacular.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Kinda my point. :)

Frankly, Bruce Lee's life wasn't that spectacular. Why filmmakers insist on outsizing it at every opportunity is beyond me. He was an actor, for chrissakes. Great screen fighter and choreographer, too. But really just a guy, not some myth.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

Looks pretty interesting.

Is this movie from the martial arts team that was behind X-Men? Cause if not I don't have any interest in watching it to be honest. I only watch action movies that have the martial arts team behind X-Men movies those are the best ones.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

I agree; the myth is bigger than the man. He was just an average guy but had some serious skills. He was a martial artists first before he was an actor. Try telling Joe Lewis or Chuck Norris that Bruce isn't a great martial artist and they would probably kick you in the face. :lol: They paid $150 an hour to train with him. Obviously, they knew he had something special.

As for this movie I had a feeling it will be shit. I hate that they just don't go with the real story about his personal struggle with drugs, womanizing and martial arts. A flawed individual that overcame a lot. Sounds more interesting to me than some made up shit.

Re: Birth of the Dragon
 

He did a remake of the 1972 film 'The Boxer from Shantung' called 'Once Upon a Time in Shanghai'. It actually feels more like a remake of 'The Big Boss'. It's worth a watch if you haven't seen it. It has that old school Kung Fu movie feel and the choreography is really good.

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