Review of Way of the Dragon

Introduction

Way of The Dragon is another of those films that are unique in many ways. It marked Bruce Lee`s directorial debut, and in some eyes his only stint in the chair (that depends on whether you count "Game of Death", released 5 years after his untimely demise).

It was also the first of many Chinese films that weren`t filmed in China, as Bruce took his crew to Italy for filming. They didn`t have work permits, and had to complete all of the location work in 3 weeks. In fact it was completed in 2, including some sneaky shots of a famous landmark which they weren`t allowed to film in!

The plot is one that you`ll be fairly familiar with if you`ve watched any Eastern cinema. Our hero arrives in Italy to help out some Chinese who are being terrorised by local gangsters (all of whom appear to have been born in England or America as opposed to Italy....) Along the way we are treated to some classic fight scenes, an incredibly camp gangster, some wonderful 1970s outfits, some equally wonderful decor and some very comical dialogue.

And the best news of all is that the film has finally escaped the scissors of the BBFC. Ever since its release, all the nunchaku (there are millions of spellings of this word, and that`s my preferred one) scenes were removed, depriving us not only of several minutes of film, but also of one of the most realistic nunchaku fighting scenes ever committed to celluloid, according to many experts in the art.

Video

A tricky video section to write. Let`s get a few technical details out of the way first. It`s a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer which has been extensively restored by those nice chaps at Hong Kong Legends.

But it`s far from perfect. The film is nearly 30 years old, and if you know much about Hong Kong cinema then you`ll know that they didn`t always look after their films very well. This means that despite a lot of restoration work there`s still some print damage visible, and quite a few other problems with the image.

You might get a shock when watching the opening scenes too. Firstly, because you probably won`t have seen them before (they weren`t cut by the BBFC though). And secondly because there are a lot of shots that are out of focus. I would guess that this is the reason why they were cut, so it`s interesting to see them inserted back into the main feature. Many other distributors might have included them as deleted scenes instead.

Throughout the rest of the film the quality varies, with some scenes looking excellent and others looking quite bad. Brightness levels go up and down from time to time, there are some very bright reds, and you`ll spot quite a few artefacts and the odd bit of film grain now and again.

But in the end you`ll probably forgive all of this, since it`s such an improvement over any other version of the film that you might have seen. It`s not a case of a lack of effort, as there`s been a lot of hard work put in to get it to this stage. It`s questionable whether there`s much more that could be done to improve it further, so this is about as good as this film is ever going to look. A shame overall, but you can`t change history.

Audio

We are presented with two DD5.1 soundtracks, both of which are technically "dubbed", since the film was recorded silent. You can choose between Cantonese and English, and as ever I chose Cantonese with English subtitles turned on.

As you would expect this is not a reference soundtrack. That`s not to say that it`s bad, just that most of the action is centred around the centre channel, with other channels being used sparingly for the odd atmospheric sound and also for elements of the score. Thankfully, the sound is free of crackles, pops and hiss. The score may also remind you of a certain film about a diamond and a big cat that is pink...

Features

Another excellent selection of extras.

Let`s start with the now customary Bey Logan audio commentary, which is insightful and interesting as ever. Jon Benn (the head of the bad guys in the film) joins in with this one and adds his own comments along the way. An essential listen for any fan of this film.

Next up we have an interview section, with three 10 minute sections covering the aforementioned Jon Benn, Andre Morgan (producer) and Anders Nielsen (another bad guy in the film). The final section is called "Reflections on the Little Dragon", featuring various interviewees talking about Bruce Lee. These are all interesting to watch.

There`s also a big text section on the making of the film. This includes lots more background information, and various quotes for you to navigate through at your leisure. You can also navigate through a photo gallery featuring some rare shots.

We also have a selection of trailers, including a new one made by HKL, an original trailer from China, and a rare trailer and two TV spots from the UK at the time of release. These are an interesting addition, as it`s amusing to see how bad they were, including a "thrills, spills and action!" voice-over man!

There are also trailers for other discs from Hong Kong Legends.

Conclusion

Any fan of Bruce Lee is definitely going to want this disc, if only for the uncut footage and the extras. Ok, the video isn`t stunning, but it has been extensively restored and is about as good as it could be. Just don`t buy this one expecting miracles on the video front, and do persevere through the opening scenes.

The sound is good, and the extras are excellent, particularly the commentary track. And don`t forget that much vaunted nunchaku fight is available in the UK for the first time...

Hardcore fans will want this, and casual fans should be impressed. Just don`t expect "Crouching Tiger" or "Iron Monkey".

Recommended, but with the aforementioned warnings about video quality.