My copy of the latest Mortal Kombat game is coming out this week, so I thought what better way to celebrate the thirty years of Mortal Kombat's success is to review a few films that were the inspiration behind Mortal Kombat's success. Moreover, what greater time to talk about a great martial arts movie that's officially fifty years old furthermore that stars one of the greatest iconic martial arts masters, Bruce Lee. Enter the Dragon is a movie that brought Bruce Lee to stardom though sadly was one of the few films he made after is unfortunate death in July of 1973. Furthermore, this was the first ever film to combine martial arts action with spy film elements and the emergence of the blaxploitation genre that became infamous in the 1970's decade.
Bruce Lee plays a martial-arts-expert determined to help capture the narcotics dealer whose gang was responsible for the death of his sister. Lee enters a Kung Fu competition to fight his way to the dealer’s headquarters with the help of some friends.
My first time viewing the film, I remember, I didn't take it quite serious from the sense of dubbing moreover Bruce Lee's teachings when it comes to fighting or his concepts for many reasons, I didn't quite understand what he was talking about other than it was awesome but also some of those scenes were to me unintentionally funny. Though granted a few scenes are funny at times but in all retrospect all of Bruce Lee's teachings in martial arts are so deep moreover makes you think in what he talks about especially when it comes to fighting and not fighting. Even if you haven't seen any of Bruce Lee's films, Enter the Dragon is defiantly a movie I would highly recommend if you haven't seen a Bruce Lee film. And even if you have no intention in wanting to watch any of his films you do need to appreciate him because without Enter the Dragon you wouldn't have any of the most important pieces of entertainment today, for this was a movie that started the blaxploitation films with films like Shaft moreover gave us a rising star in Jim Kelly (no not the football player, the actor/martial artist) and Pam Greir, and after the success of the movie Jim Kelly signed a three year deal with Warner Bros. and went on to make several martial arts-themed blaxploitation films in the 1970's. Even Quentin Tarentino cited that Enter the Dragon was a formative influence on his career. The other influence I never expected was MMA fighting for which I never expected realizing to be true, and once I looked back from the first opening shot of the film Lee is fighting with another opponent wearing the same gear as the UFC fighters are wearing today and even UFC hall of fame legend Urijah Faber says, "that was the moment that MMA was born". Even a lot of fighting games were inspired by Enter the Dragon's impact from games like Street fighter and Tekken, but nothing compared to Mortal Kombat which borrowed a lot of the movie's story elements including the 1995 film as well. From start to finish Enter the Dragon is one of the Greatest Martial-arts films of all time and needs to be seen, not just because it's an iconic film but it’s the success of one man who wanted to live the American dream teaching and honing his craft in Martial Arts moreover wanted to express his art on television and films though learned the hard way of the business especially in sixties era where it was all about oppressions and even till his death defied all the odds and created an impactful film for everyone to see, and the sad thing is I often wondered if he lived a bit longer would he of created more influential movies or shows? I guess will never know.
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