Review: ENTER THE DRAGON is one of those movies that has unfortunately become a staple of Asian cinema for Americans. I say unfortunately because there are better ones in existence. There I said it, and now that I have gotten it off my chest I can review this movie more fairly. When all is said and done there are two things that are great about Enter the Dragon and there are two things that are so bad that they dragged this movie down like a cement block attached to a Mafioso. I’ll start with the positives.

Clearly ENTER THE DRAGON should be viewed because the great Bruce Lee stars in it. Say what you want about the new action stars of the world, I’ll chose Bruce over most of them any day because if it weren’t for him none of them would know what to do with themselves. In ENTER THE DRAGON, the best parts of the film involve him in either a fight, or just generally looking badass. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of these scenes, but when they do occur they are much enjoyed. Sure, he is the stereotypical martial arts character, but he did pretty much invent the stereotype for Americans. Plus, even in such a stereotypical light, he is still great.

The second enjoyable aspect of this film is the cheesy one-liners that are sprinkled throughout the film. Whether it’s Roper (played by John Saxon) trying to hustle a little bit more money, or Bruce Lee giving the thumbs up, or (my personal favorite) one of many stereotypically 70’s lines delivered by Williams (played by Jim Kelly), one cannot help but smirk in amusement.

This of course is what the film does best: it entertains. I guess I should go on record to say that ENTER THE DRAGON does not delve much deeper than pure superficial fun. This isn’t bad, it’s just a fact. However, here is where the complaints begin.

The main problem for this movie is that it never really finds its roots and eventually suffers from dual personalities. The first hour of the film tries to be more like a crime story than a martial arts film. In fact, except for the opening credits, we don’t really see Bruce Lee fight until over an hour into the movie. After this initial background story, the film turns from a mystery into a full fledged action film where the last 40 minutes of film involve Lee and his pals killing nearly an island’s worth of bad guys.

All kidding aside, it seems that at the half way point the director just chucked the script into the trash and told Lee to just go out there and kick ass. Not surprisingly, the second half is much better than the first. Why? Because when you fill a movie with action stars that can’t really act, you shouldn’t expect them to try and create a deep and involving story- it just goes against the natural order of things.

The other main problem with ENTER THE DRAGON is that Bruce Lee’s character is just too good. You never really suspect that there is anyone near his equal. Which is fine when he is fighting lowly grunt men, but lets face it, all the smoke and mirrors in the world aren’t going to save a main bad guy who was getting pummeled a second earlier.

So as the last guy is finished off and the credits begin to roll ENTER THE DRAGON leaves one torn between two conclusions: either this film is a classic piece of action cinema that has been repeatedly copied by present day films trying to recreate its original magic, or it is an over-hyped film that wastes at least an hour of the audience’s time before caving in to their desires.

I conclude with the notion that it’s a little bit of both. On one hand many martial arts films have used this 70’s film as their model for success, but on the other, you can’t help but worry that newbies to the kung-fu world would merely laugh at your recommendation of Enter the Dragon. In the end, you have to see it because of its influence on later generations of film and because, well, Bruce Lee is in it.