3.5/4
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a semifictionalized biopic of Bruce Lee. Let me assure you now: there is a lot of fiction in this movie. However, that doesn't stop it from being a good movie. The first hour was more of a romance story between Bruce Lee (Jason Scott Lee) and his eventual wife, Linda Emery (Lauren Holly). Asian/Caucasian couples are basically nonexistent in Hollywood films, especially Asian man and white woman. No matter what, the Asian man cannot get the girl. See any of Jet Li's American movies for a good example. Despite the lack of these kind of couples, Bruce and Linda are one of the most powerful couples I have ever seen in film. What I mean by powerful is I really felt the chemistry between the two. There was so much romance in the first half of this movie. The musical score also really helped convey the emotion in the romantic moments as well as the many inspirational moments in the second half of the movie. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story has one of the most heard scores, but it is not very well-known. You have probably heard it in many movie trailers and Academy Awards montages. I felt that the rise of success in the second half of this movie was kind of rushed. I wish the movie was longer to elaborate more on Lee's success. Jason Scott Lee had a lot of funny one-liners in this film, and Lauren Holly got in some, too. I also found it very funny that it seemed everywhere Bruce went in his life, he had to get into a fight with people. Most of these fights were totally fictionalized as well as a lot of other stuff. I hated all the demon mumbo jumbo in this movie. In Dragon, Bruce's father apparently sent Bruce to learn kung fu and then sent him to live in the US, because he was afraid of demons. This is completely untrue and kind of insulting. I feel like every American movie with Asians portray all Asians to be devout believers of mystical creatures like demons. To add more insult to injury, Bruce Lee was an atheist. Throughout this movie, Bruce is haunted by images of demons. I hated these hallucinations, because I felt that they really detracted from the movie and portrays Bruce as a strong believer of that kind of stuff. I know that the demons were representing Lee's inner demons and stuff, but it was stupid. However, I have tried to ignore a lot of this when reviewing the film. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a very good semifictionalized, meaning mostly bullshit, movie about Bruce Lee. This movie was very romantic and inspirational at times. Despite being a tale of Lee's life, it is one of the best romance stories I have ever seen. I would definitely recommend it to anybody interested in Bruce Lee, even though it is mostly lies.
