(Taken from “Knowing Is Not Enough”, Summer 1998) Enter the Dragon should make it. This is the movie that I’m proud of because it is made for the US audience as well as for the European and the Oriental. This is definitely the biggest movie I ever made. I’m excited to see what will happen. I think it’s going to gross $20 million in the US. --Bruce Lee One of the questions that has been posed with great frequency over the quarter of a century since Bruce Lee’s most popular film, Enter the Dragon, was released is, “Why has Enter the Dragon withstood the test of time so well? This is a good question and, given that it is now the 25th anniversary of both Bruce’s passing and the release of this film, it is time to seriously consider it. Enter the Dragon has endured in popularity over the past quarter of a century – not because the special effects in it are the most spectacular, nor that its story line is the most impressive – but rather, I believe, it is because of Bruce’s presence in the movie that it continues to have that special effect upon people. The is something about Bruce’s screen presence that people from all walks of life can relate to. Bruce comes across the screen and enters into their hearts and minds. And you have to ask, “Why is this?” “How can this happen?” “What is it about Bruce Lee that has done this to me?” After all, there are many martial artists and actors who came before and after Bruce who are very skilled in the martial arts action and who are also good actors and actresses – so what is that special thing about Bruce that comes across to people so strongly that they are still talking about him 25 years after he left this earth? Linda Lee Cadwell has said on numerous occasions that Bruce was proud to say, and, indeed, to have people say about him, that he was “a real human being” who communicated the truth of his art through his actions and his presence on the screen. Indeed, here was a person that people could look at and say, “Wow! This guy is real! I know that he could make those moves, and that he would be deadly if he was right here in front of me.” People feel this about him. Perhaps they are unable to articulate exactly what it was about Bruce that turned them on so much, or what first inspired them, but it nevertheless is a fact that Bruce Lee was the genuine article, he was that person that you saw in the films. “Bruce was not a different person off screen than he was on screen,” Linda recalls today. “He was vibrant, he was full of life – and he was the real thing.” This is what really comes across and inspires people to want to better themselves to become better martial artists, and to become better people – and to become more genuine. The scene in Enter the Dragon where Bruce is speaking to the young student (played by a yon Tung Wai, who has since gone on to become a fight choreographer himself and also a director of some note, most recently directing Jet Li in the film Hitmen) about “emotional content” reveals so much about Bruce’s martial art and the way that he taught and tried to communicate it to his students. But it also goes much further than that. This scene is also representative of Bruce’s input into his role in Enter the Dragon (and for that matter in all of his films), in addition to how he conducted himself as a martial artist outside of his films. The honest expression of human emotions is the essential ingredient that comes across on the screen between Bruce – the actor – and the audience. It is this emotional content that he gave to every character that he portrayed in his films. Linda believes that this is what people who see Bruce Lee can relate to most readily, and that is how they get this feeling that he was this real human being who expressed all of his emotions FULLY at the time that he was experiencing them – both on and off the screen. When he was, for example, filming a fight scene and was supposed to display rage, fury and anger, the audience could feel that Bruce was actually experiencing these emotions as an actor and, as an actor, he was relating to those feelings deep within himself that were real and actually bringing them forward. What I’m talking about here are deep, profound human emotions that everyone experiences in their daily life, and it doesn’t matter whether they are of a certain nationality or race, or age, or ability, or disability, everyone experiences these range of emotions. And I think that people can sense from Bruce Lee that if they can fully appreciate an emotion at the time that it’s happening, and give intelligence to that emotion so that it’s not just some abstract feeling, and then translate that emotion into an action, then they can experience a much fuller life. According to Linda: “When we experience the emotion of joy as a result of, say, the birth of a child, or a joyful moment in our life, we can have a much greater appreciation of it. And when we experience rage or fury, we can find an appropriate expression for it in our daily life – which does not mean that we can tear people apart and get into confrontations, because – and whether or not this actually comes through Bruce’s films to you is highly personal thing – this was not Bruce’s message of martial arts. That is to say, that violence is not the answer to every situation. And so, while an emotion that might be aroused through a confrontational circumstance may lead to a violent reaction in a film, in our daily life we need to be able to subvert that outlet so that we can all get along in a humane way.” In all of Bruce’s martial arts classes in addition to his voluminous writings, and in his philosophy, he not only taught the physical self-defense aspect of martial art, but also the way to use martial art as a mental self-defense, which provides us with a more practical outlet for these emotions. This is the “art of fighting without fighting” lesson that he wrote and performed in Enter the Dragon, and it was, to Bruce’s way of thinking, the highest level of martial understanding. Enter the Dragon is full of such personal lessons to the audience from Bruce, who patiently and painstakingly applied himself to every detail of the film, and time has proven the worthiness of his efforts. It was, perhaps, Bruce’s destiny to become a filmmaker because he always had the ability to honestly observe humanity and to truthfully express it on the screen. As Linda recalls: “Bruce put his heart and soul into Enter the Dragon and for this reason, it remains a film that can be enjoyed on many levels. For action enthusiasts, there’s no shortage of action, for martial arts aficionados, it has remained the “classic” cinematic presentation of the arts, for those seeking some philosophical inspiration it has proven to be a film of great redeeming value, and to those of us who knew Bruce personally, this movie offers a wonderful opportunity for us to see him expressing himself once more as only he could.” It behooves now to pause and acknowledge the “emotional content” that Bruce Lee put into this film, and, further, to acknowledge Bruce as the wonderful artist and human being that he was – and continues to be – even 25 years later. |
