Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a 1993 American biographical drama film directed by Rob Cohen. The film stars Jason Scott Lee, with a supporting cast including Lauren Holly, Nancy Kwan, and Robert Wagner. The film follows the life of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee (Jason) from his relocation to the United States from Hong Kong to his career as a martial arts teacher, and then as a television and film actor. It also focuses on the relationship between Bruce and his wife Linda, and the racism to which Bruce was subjected.
The primary source of the screenplay is Cadwell's 1975 biography Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew. Other sources include Robert Clouse's book Bruce Lee: The Biography and research by Cohen, including interviews with Cadwell and Bruce's son, Brandon Lee. Rather than a traditional biographical film, Cohen decided to include elements of mysticism and to dramatise fight scenes to give it the same tone as the films in which Bruce starred. Dragon was filmed primarily in Hong Kong, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story received generally positive reviews, with critics finding it entertaining despite criticisms of its veneration of Bruce. Jason was widely praised for his performance. The film was a commercial success and its revenue exceeded box office averages for biographical films, which was attributed to its romantic themes and its appeal to people outside the traditional kung fu film audience. A video game adaptation of the same name was released the following year. Dragon is dedicated to Brandon, who died several weeks before its release.
Plot
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In Hong Kong, Bruce Lee's father Lee Hoi-chuen awakens from a nightmare about a phantom, known as the Demon, haunting his young son. He subsequently enrolls him in Chinese martial arts training with instructor Yip Man. As a young adult, Bruce fights British
Writing in the Asian Journal of Communication in 2013, academic Zheng Zhu listed Dragon alongside Kiss of the Dragon (2001) and The Tuxedo (2002) as films that broke from the Western tradition of portraying Asian men as asexual, stating that while they are often featured as heroes in martial arts films, they are rarely portrayed as romantic or loving. Noting the films each show an Asian martial artist with a white female partner, Zhu states they reverse the conventional portrayal of a "dominant white knight and a submissive Oriental lady". However, he makes critiques of the portrayal of these relationships. For example, each film shows "white women play[ing] the most important role" in helping Chinese men accomplish success, as evidenced by Linda's support for Bruce while he recovers from his back injury. Asian men, Zhu argues, are portrayed as incapable of achieving success in Western society unless they are supported by white femininity.
Production
Pre-production
A major source for the film's screenplay, which was written by director Rob Cohen in cooperation with Edward Khmara and John Raffo, was Linda Lee Cadwell's biography Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew. Cadwell provided resources for the film's production. Scenes showing hand-written notes and drawings from Bruce's book Tao of Jeet Kune Do are his original works. She also provided access to Bruce's clothing so replicas could be created for the film.
Cohen stated his first problem when writing the screenplay was to condense Bruce's life into under two hours of film. He decided to avoid making a standard biographical film and instead incorporate "mystical and legendary aspects" to dramatise Bruce's life, While Brandon was the right age and had appropriate martial arts training to portray his father, and was perceived by some as a likely choice for the role, producer Raffaella De Laurentiis said he did not look Chinese enough and that she would have refused to work on the project if they had to resort to making Brandon appear more Asian. Jason Scott Lee, who had auditioned for a role in The Last of the Mohicans but was rejected because he did not appear Native American, was recommended for the role of Bruce early in pre-production. Jason said at first he felt intimidated by his role portraying Bruce but he overcame his fear after speaking to Brandon. To prepare for their roles, Jason and Lauren Holly trained in Bruce's martial-arts style of Jeet Kune Do for months under Bruce's former student Jerry Poteet.
Cohen cast Nancy Kwan as Gussie Yang, a restaurant owner and Bruce's employer. Like Bruce, Kwan played a pivotal role in the acceptance of actors of Asian ancestry in major Hollywood film roles and Cohen wanted audiences to be reminded of her achievement and the struggle of Asian American actors. He cast Michael Learned as Vivian Emery because he loved her portrayal of Olivia in The Waltons and wished to see Bruce's confrontation with the person recognisable as that character. Bruce's daughter, Shannon, has a cameo as a singer in the party scene, at which Linda tells Bruce she is pregnant with Shannon. Sven-Ole Thorsen was cast as the Demon due to his height and physique. Cohen states he did a "remarkable job" during the fight scenes considering he was unable to see out of the costume's headpiece. Cohen gave himself a cameo as the director of Enter the Dragon.
Filming
thumb|left|[[Lo Pan Temple was used for the film's opening scene. The ceramic figures at the top drew Cohen's attention when he was scouting locations. The setbacks used up the entirety of the film's $1.3million contingency budget. and some of the scenes that take place in Hong Kong were filmed in California. The outdoor scene in which Bruce teaches martial arts to a football team was filmed at a college in Los Angeles using exact replicas of the columns at the University of Washington, where Bruce used to teach. The crowd scenes during the premiere of The Big Boss were shot in Macao, China, because the crew could not obtain permission to close roads and film scenes involving hundreds of extras in Hong Kong, where the scene is set. Cohen inserted several references to Bruce's films; the extended warm-up routine by Bruce and Johnny before their fight is a reference to the one performed by Bruce and Chuck Norris before their fight in The Way of the Dragon. Despite exhausting the contingency budget, Universal agreed to spend a further $1million on fight-scene sound effects and the soundtrack after viewing the film's rough cut, bringing the final cost to $16million.
Cohen decided to expand the theme of Bruce's father's belief that a demon was stalking his son, by showing the Demon chasing Brandon. Filming was completed and Dragon was less than two months away from opening when Brandon died in a shooting accident while filming The Crow in March 1993. Following Brandon's death, Cohen asked Cadwell whether she wanted to postpone the release or modify the film; she declined and asked for it to be dedicated to his memory with an appropriate quotation. With Cadwell's approval, Cohen chose a quotation by Saint Augustine he originally had on the front of the script: "The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering", which he felt applied to both Bruce and Brandon.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was composed by Randy Edelman, who used a 90-piece orchestra and traditional Chinese instruments. Cohen praised the soundtrack for acting as a kind of "emotional through line" for his film. Ray Apello from Entertainment Weekly lauded its romantic tracks, Edelman's soundtrack has been licensed for use in trailers for several other films.
Release
Critical response
The film received positive reception, with reviewers typically finding it entertaining despite criticisms of its veneration of Bruce. Peter Rainer from the Los Angeles Times described the depiction as "hero-worshiping", though he gave a favorable review, saying, "you can forgive the way the film concocts and inflates incidents in Lee's life, because... that's the way it is with larger-than-life actors: They prime you for larger-than-life stories." Roger Ebert said the martial arts sequences defy "gravity and logic... but what the heck: It's fun to watch," and Vincent Canby described it as "an enjoyably hokey, big-budget theatrical film with a lot of kicks and the soul of a television movie". Richard Harrington of The Washington Post praised the film's ability to appeal to more people than just fans of Bruce and martial arts, saying it also explored issues such as love, interracial romance, marriage and parenthood. Sheila Johnston from The Independent, however, argued the attempt to cater to multiple audiences with numerous themes convoluted the film. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Jason's performance as Bruce was widely praised. Jason received a nomination for "Most Promising Actor" at the 1993 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards for his roles in both Dragon and Map of the Human Heart, and a nomination for "Best Breakthrough Performance" for Dragon at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards.
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 69 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Initial screening and box office
thumb|right|Bruce's star on the [[Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated on the day Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story premiered.]]
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story premiered in Hollywood at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on 28 April 1993; Bruce's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated earlier that day. A postscreening after party was held in a nearby parking lot under a tent that was decorated with Chinese themes. More than 1,200 guests including Demi Moore, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Sheila E., Mike Myers, Cadwell and Shannon attended, together with the film's co-stars Lauren Holly, Robert Wagner, Nancy Kwan and Van Williams, and producer Raffaella De Laurentiis.
The film opened to the public in the US on May 7, and debuted at number one, grossing just over $10million in its opening weekend. The film's revenue outperformed expectations for a biography, which was largely attributed to the number of women who attended screenings; 45% of the film's audience for the opening weekend were women, whereas audiences for Bruce's actual films were overwhelmingly male. The success of the film and also the political satire Dave were credited with raising cinema audiences 65% from the same weekend period the previous year. David Fox from Los Angeles Times described the earnings as "impressive" for a debut in the historically slow period of early May. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story had a gross of $35.1million in the United States and Canada, and a gross of $28.4million in other territories, making a total worldwide revenue of $63.5million. it was later released in other continents and ported to other platforms. It is a fighting game in which players assume the role of Bruce and fight his opponents in the film, including one of the English sailors and the chefs; the final boss is the Demon. The game omits some of the film's plot elements, such as the romance between Bruce and Cadwell. The game was met with mixed reviews. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the Atari Jaguar version 4.4/10, calling it "more or less your run-of-the-mill action fighter game" and commenting it was released too long after the film to benefit from the license.
Home media
The film was released on VHS by MCA/Universal Home Video on December 14, 1993, on LaserDisc on December 15, 1993, and on DVD on July 1, 1998.
Historical accuracy
In Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Bruce travels to the US in steerage; Cohen acknowledges this is inaccurate and was done to show the typical experiences of emigration by Chinese people. It also allowed him to introduce the character called the History Teacher, who illustrates the difficulties Chinese immigrants faced once they arrived. Extrapolations are made of events in Bruce's life before he met Cadwell. For example, Bruce had a reputation for street fighting and was also employed as a dishwasher, but there is no evidence he fought with a group of chefs while he was at work as shown in the film.
Some elements of Bruce's life were condensed to reduce the length of the story, such as all his managers being replaced with the fictional Bill Krieger. The allegation that Bruce's idea was stolen was first raised in Cadwell's biography Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, though it is contested. Bruce did audition for the lead role in Kung Fu. According to Bruce Lee biographer Matthew E. Polly, he was overlooked due to his accent and also his personality not matching the character, though Warner Bros. insist that Kung Fu was a separate project from The Warrior, an assertion that is supported by Polly.
Bruce's assertion that the Chinese martial-arts community confronted him about teaching martial arts to non-Chinese people, and subsequently challenged him to a fight as depicted in the film, is debated. Bruce's opponent in the film, Johnny, is fictional, as is his brother Luke. Bruce's real-life opponent Wong Jack-man contests Bruce's version of events, saying the challenge note he issued to him had nothing to do with his teaching of non-Chinese people. Martial artist Leo Fong, who was Bruce's friend, also said the fight was not about who he was teaching, rather it "really had to do with Bruce's personality". Bruce had publicly denounced other styles of martial arts and had previously accepted and won a challenge fight issued by a karate practitioner who had taken offense at his comments. While supporting Bruce's version of events, Cohen said he dramatised the fight's location and formal setting, While Ed Parker invited Bruce to speak at the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships, Bruce was not challenged to a fight there as depicted in the film. The attack of Bruce on the set of The Big Boss is also fictional, as is his ability to break a block of ice with his fist during the fight.