Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger
January. 02,1976 RThis martial arts movie tries to explain the strange death of the international movie star and kung fu master Bruce Lee. Most of the story centers on a former disciple of Lee who launches a private investigation and ends up avenging the brutal death of his own girlfriend.
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Reviews
I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
You won't be disappointed!
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Not convinced that Bruce Lee died by accident, his good friend "David Lee" (Bruce Li) sets out to investigate the real cause of death. His first clue comes from Bruce Lee's mistress and Hong Kong film star "Suzy Yung" (Chao Hsauo-Chun) who has some possible incriminating evidence against a major crime figure known as "the Baron" (Li Chang). But when "the Tiger" (the other name David Lee is known by) begins to get too close to the truth, the Baron becomes intent upon stopping him at all costs and comes after both Suzy Yung and David's girlfriend "Susie" (Kong Sam-Yi) to make his point. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that the death of Bruce Lee left a very large void in martial arts movies which several different film studios tried to fill--and Bruce Li happened to be one of the actors chosen in that regard. Unfortunately, unlike his famous predecessor, he didn't have the acting ability to really appeal to world-wide audiences and his films suffered as a result. And this particular movie is indicative of that fact as it pales in comparison to any and all of Bruce Lee's films. That being said, I have rated it accordingly. Below average.
EXIT THE DRAGON, ENTER THE TIGER is your run-of-the-mill Bruceploitation film, shot by a Hong Kong outfit in Taiwan. The story takes the real-life circumstances surrounding the death of Bruce Lee and uses it as a basis for a story about Bruce's buddy going after the gangsters who had him killed. I always think there's something a bit repellent about these rip-off films which include real-life footage of the star's funeral including shots inside the open casket.In any case, EXIT THE DRAGON, ENTER THE TIGER is very much par for the course for this genre. The title is probably the best thing about it. There's a lot of routine action, some of it quite well-handled, and not much in the way of wit or originality. The plot never really goes beyond having our Bruce Lee impersonator beating up one bunch of bad guys and going on to the next. The '70s trappings are as fun as ever and there's some snazzy music ripped from a blaxploitation movie. Bruce Li is the star of this one and even though he's not trying to be Bruce Lee, he does a good job of playing someone very similar.
I don't blame the lesser denizens of the Hong Kong film industry for trying to make a buck when the biggest breakout sensation of that industry (probably ever) suddenly died and the industry lost its biggest marquee draw. But really, this is a little too much in terms of exploitation. Bruce Lee was a man,not just a celebrity, and his reputation (and his family and friends) deserved better than the bunch of pretenders who wanted to cash in on the tragedy of his death. If someone had tried to exploit the death a friend of Bruce Lee like this, he would have probably punched them in the face. But if you can get past the ham-handed sanctimonious cheese of the first few minutes, the film isn't all that bad. Some of the fight scenes are obviously a tribute to the source - the "Tiger" fights a giant, a gymnast in a yellow track suit(!) and a whole bunch of familiar looking "gangsters" (I recognized actor/stunt man An Ping from a string of early Shaw Brothers films before he was kicked off a roof top) multiple times, etc. And the final big fight/showdown with "the Big Boss" (yes, that's a Bruce Lee in-joke) actually is pretty good.The trouble is that the story and the direction and the fight choreography are hopelessly stale and unoriginal and derivative.No one here has access to the larger-than-life qualities Bruce was able to bring to the screen. So having the nerve to compare their efforts to something like "Fists Of Fury" makes the actors and action look even more trivial and 2nd rate than they would on their own. Bruce's presence (and some suitably archetypal skillful scripting) turned his four feature films into epics of adventure, honor, revenge, tragedy and heroism.In contrast, all a film like this is about is the "hero" beating up a bunch of guys. Penalized a couple of stars for the opening moments which exploit the stock footage of Lee's funeral, but gets those two stars back as a bonus for having an English dub that doesn't make my ears bleed.
I'd just like to say, if you listen closely to the music in some of the sequences, you'll also hear Pink Floyd's 'Shine on You Crazy Diamond'. It was quite common for kung-fu in the 70's to use popular music from radio and other movies as main theme's and incidental music. Every now and then you'll hear some Ennio Morricone or some Jerry Goldsmith peice somewhat briefly but still recognizable. One of oriental films' odder attributes.