- English name：The Way of the Dragon / Mang lung goh kong / Return of the Dragon / Revenge of the Dragon
- Broadcast time：December 30, 1972
- Starring：李小龙（Bruce Lee）、苗可秀（Nora Miao）、罗礼士（Chuck Norris）、小麒麟（Little Unicorn）
- director：李小龙（Bruce Lee）
Introduction
Today,we are going to talk about a 1973 film,which is written and directed by Bruce Lee (李小龙Lǐ Xiǎolóng) Return of the Dragon (龙之归来lóng zhī guīlái), it is his third film, a mix of hard-edged kung fu (功夫gōngfǔ) and goofy humor (幽默yōumò). Once again he plays the country boy who travels to a foreign land, in this case Italy, where his restaurant-owning cousins face trouble from the local syndicate. Their strong-arm tactics have driven customers away and now threaten the family, but Lee refuses to buckle under their pressure and takes them on in a series of impressive confrontations.
The film ends with a memorable showdown with world-champion karate artist Chuck Norris in the Roman Colosseum (though much of it is staged in a rather cheap studio set), a brutal, almost inhuman battle that revels in the intense punishment taken by the combatants. Norris is one of Lee’s best opponents and a marvelous physical contrast: brawny and hairy, using power and blunt karate moves while lean, wiry Lee counters with speed, gymnastic prowess, and balletic grace.
The mix of comedy and kung fu comes off as camp at times, but that’s hardly the reason to see the film. When Lee gets into action, whether he’s taking on a gang of knife-wielding thugs or dueling Norris to the death, he becomes the total focus.
Originally titled The Way of the Dragon, this film was renamed in the wake of Enter the Dragon to cash in on that movie’s popularity.
Plot
Tang Long (Bruce Lee) is a young man from the countryside of Hong Kong. Entrusted by his uncle, he went to Rome alone to assist the restaurant manager Chen Qinghua (Miao Kexiu). The restaurant was often threatened by a group of business groups, forcing it to sell the restaurant’s land, and often sent gangsters to cause trouble. The restaurant’s business was going from bad to worse. Tang Long had just arrived in Rome and was not used to the local customs, which disgusted Qinghua and the waiters in the restaurant. One night, the gangsters came to make trouble again, and a waiter was knocked unconscious. Tang Long attacked angrily and knocked down the gangster with three or two sharp kicks. Everyone looked at him and Chinese Kung Fu with new eyes. But the head of the business group did not give up. He gathered a group of armed gangsters to destroy the restaurant and pointed out that they wanted to seek revenge on Tang Long. Tang Long returned to the restaurant from outside, and the gangsters forced him to leave Rome immediately with a gun. Tang Long pretended to agree, led the gangsters out of the restaurant, and knocked them down one by one. In this fight, Bruce Lee demonstrated the power of his double nunchakus. He faced multiple enemies calmly, and attacked his opponents with his nunchakus left and right at lightning speed.
The gang leader issued an assassination order. On New Year’s Eve, a sniper was ordered to assassinate Tang Long, but Tang Long evaded and tracked the killer with his agility. When he returned home, he found that Qinghua had been captured by the gangsters. The angry Tang Long and his men went straight to the gangsters’ lair, severely taught all the gangsters a lesson, and warned the gang leader again not to make trouble again. The angry gangsters invited the American karate champion and his apprentice at a high price, and also invited a akido master, and set a trap to kill Tang Long. But Tang Long finally defeated the enemy with his superb martial arts and tenacious fighting spirit, and wiped out the gangster gang in one fell swoop.
Professional evaluation
The simple, sincere, generous and chivalrous traditional morality and grass-roots warmth embodied by the male protagonist Tang Long in Way of the Dragon touched the hearts of many audiences [8]. After the huge success of The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, Bruce Lee had full control over a film. This was an action film that he directed and acted in. It fully demonstrated his action film concept and was his most representative work during his lifetime. In particular, the scene where Bruce Lee fought Chuck Norris at the end of the film was a life-and-death battle like a ballet. The scene was so magnificent that it was breathtaking [3]. This scene can be said to be one of the more exciting martial arts scenes in Bruce Lee’s films, because he faced Chuck Norris and Robert Wallace, two former international karate champions. The competition between Chinese Kung Fu and karate was very exciting.
