Bruce Lee was riding high in his career when he signed to direct his first feature in
The Way of the Dragon. As lead actor in the Golden Harvest studio’s films
The Big Boss (1971) and
Fist of Fury (1972), both directed by Lo Wei, Lee had caused a sensation with his incredible physical skill set. But the young star, who’d already been involved in action directing for those two films and earlier works in the US, was itching to fully take the reins.
With a production company now formed in a partnership between him and Golden Harvest head Raymond Chow, Lee sought to pull the standards of Hong Kong cinema up a few rungs with the ambitious Italian-set Way of the Dragon.
And the achievement paid off, with Lee’s directorial debut eventually setting a Hong Kong cinema box office record on its release at the end of 1972.
Audiences first meet Lee’s character Tang Lung when he arrives at the Rome airport, famished and only able to speak Cantonese.
He’s a Hong Kong country boy who’s been sent to Italy to help out a friend’s relative whose Chinese restaurant has been targeted for acquisition by a syndicate. After reaching the diner, Tang keeps his abilities largely under wraps, but it’s not long before the bad guys turn up, force his hand and spark a major night-time brawl in an alleyway.
Tang’s retaliation doesn’t go down well with the syndicate’s boss (Jon Benn), and the immediate response is the hiring of better import fighters to lay waste to Tang and seize the restaurant property.
But when initial fights involving foreign fighters (Robert Wall and Whang In-sik) bring no results, top US martial artist Colt (Chuck Norris) is called in as a better match for Tang’s formidable skills.
Throughout his picture, Lee marks himself out as a capable hand in the director’s chair.
Spectacular martial arts aside, The Way of the Dragon displays a deft touch with comedy, lifting the film’s feel-good factor to offset much darker turns. Lee’s comic approach runs the gamut from physical comedy when the hapless bumpkin struggles to order food to highly local Hong Kong-style jokes, like when lead decries much-visited Roman ruins as a slum with awesome redevelopment potential.
The Way of the Dragon’s centrepiece, however, is the closing showdown in Rome’s Coliseum. Lee’s direction casts himself in a supremely flattering light – his rippling physique is on full display in the warm-up scenes and stands in contrast to Norris’ brawny look – but also approaches the scene from the perspective of an insider, eager to reflect a martial arts philosophy hinted at in earlier scenes and showing a respect for how two masters would engage in a fight.
The one-on-one with Norris develops slowly and carefully, with the two martial artists first limbering up at length, then evaluating each other between early bouts and ultimately engaging in fierce battle with a respect for each other.
The Way of the Dragon turned out to be the only feature Lee could complete as director, as he died just seven months after the film’s release and left another directing project unfinished.
Considering The Way of the Dragon’s confident blend of easy entertainment and complex all-out action, Lee’s achievements and raw talent as both martial artist and filmmaker are on full display.