Enter The Dragon Movie Review

Enter The Dragon (1973) Movie Review

Warner Bros. has been one of Hollywood’s flagship studios now for a century. Producing memorable characters, films, and franchises. I have always loved the Warner Bros brand, from their Super-Man films, to Tim Burton’s Batman, Beetlejuice, Joe Dante’s Gremlins in the 1980s to Unforgiven, The Lethal Weapon sequels and The Matrix in the 1990s, The Dark knight Trilogy and Harry Potter films in the 2000s to Mad Max: Fury Road, The DCEU and many others in the 2010s. Warner Bros. track record is very impressive, but a lot of the studio's classics that made it what it is today, are not talked about nearly enough.

The studio celebrates its 100th year anniversary this year and to celebrate, has been releasing some of the best and most recognisable titles on 4K Ultra High Definition (4K UHD). In April we saw the re-release of the Superman sequels on 4K along with ‘Maltese Falcon’, ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ and ‘Cool Hand Luke’. Now in July and August, we are getting more great titles with the re-release of the John Wayne, Western classic ‘Rio Bravo’, another James Dean film, ‘East of Eden’ Bruce Lee’s classic 1973 martial arts masterpiece ‘Enter the Dragon’, and National Lampoon’s classic Chevy Chase comedy, ‘Vacation’. If you’re a film fan you best be saving for these ones, because you will want them in your collection!

To celebrate this month’s releases ‘Rio Bravo’, ‘East of Eden’ and ‘Enter the Dragon’, I will be reviewing each of these tiles on 4K UHD. The first cab off the rank to launch this review series is Bruce Lee’s 1973 action masterpiece ‘Enter the Dragon’. So, without further ado, let’s do it!

Bruce Lee has gone down as one of the most talented physical actors of all-time. His contribution to cinema and representation in an era, where it was rare to see a man of Chinese descent in major motion pictures, let alone leading them, is monumental. His physical presence was unmatched for many years and the greatest example of his work is his performance in the 1973 classic, ‘Enter the Dragon’. Enter The Dragon was directed by Robert Clouse, who was a frequent collaborator with Bruce Lee, directing him in a number of films and starred Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly, John Saxon and a very early, uncredited performance from international superstar, Jackie Chan. The film follows a Shaolin martial artist, who travels to an island fortress as a spy for an opium lord, who is also a former monk from his temple where he trained. He arrives under the guise of attending a fighting tournament. The film's premise is simple but remains the perfect framework to handle a martial arts driven story.

The film has been parodied to death, with a memorable episode of SpongeBob, that sees SpongeBob Squarepants and Sandy Cheeks appear in a similar situation on 'Karate Island'. The film's influence can still be seen to this day, serving as an obvious inspiration for films such as Gareth Evans Indonesian classic ‘The Raid’ and its sequel ‘The Raid 2: Redemption’ and of course Pete Travis’s pseudo-American remake in the form of ‘2012s ‘Dredd’. The film utilises its star to the best of its ability. Bruce Lee is awesome here, performing all his own stunts and utilising his martial arts background to make each punch, each kick, each deadly attack feel real.  Bruce Lee of course went on to do other fantastic martial arts themed films, including ‘Fist of Fury’, ‘The Big Boss’, ‘Game of Death’ and ‘The Way of The Dragon’, just to name a few, but to this day, the most impactful, memorable, and well-made of all these films for me is of course ‘Enter the Dragon’. Lee’s dedication to his craft is to the benefit of the audience.

If you are a martial arts fan or a cinema fan in general, you need to add ‘Enter the Dragon’ to your collection, especially in glorious 4K UHD, it’s a must-own in this format. It still holds up remarkably well, providing fun and excitement every time I watch it. Head on over to Sanity now to shop ‘Enter the Dragon’ and why you’re at it, shop all of the Warner Bros. 100-year titles on 4K. They’re amazing and well worth the addition to your collection and make sure you subscribe to Sanity's mailing list so you don't miss out on future titles with 'Batman: Mask of The Phantasm' arriving in September and the late, great William Friedkin's horror masterpiece 'The Exorcist' arriving just in time for Halloween in October. There's still plenty more to come!  Happy shopping and long live physical media!

Buy Enter The Dragon on 4K UHD here

Christopher Pattison wrote this blog post for Sanity. See more from Chris here