I saw "Birth of the Dragon", starring-mostly Chinese actors, with one Caucasian thrown into the mix-Philip Ng-The Man From Macau, New Police Story; Yu Xia-Bull Brothers, Dragon Squad and Billy Magnussen-Bridge of Spies, Into the Woods.
I must admit, I am a big Bruce Lee fan. This is based loosely on an article written by Michael Dorgan called 'Bruce Lee's Toughest Fight'. When Bruce Lee first came to San Francisco in the early 1960's-and before he became famous-there was a fight between him and a Shaolin Kung Fu monk that supposedly changed people's lives, both his and the monk's. Bruce had opened a martial arts school and taught anyone that wanted to learn. Most of the Chinese martial artist did not like Bruce teaching non-Asians and let him know it-usually by getting into fights. Wong Jack Man was a Shaolin master that came to San Francisco for reasons of his own, but ended up getting into the legendary fight with the up and coming Bruce Lee in an abandoned warehouse that only about a dozen people witnessed. Philip plays Bruce and Yu plays Wong. Billy plays one of Bruce's students-the lone Caucasian in the film- that is based loosely on one of Bruce's real life students, Steve McQueen. Here, he is called Steve McKee and in my opinion, he could have been left out of the movie-he had a side story that was not that interesting. The actual fight is pretty good with both men getting some lumps as well as giving some-it wasn't lopsided in either man's favor. After this fight, Bruce developed his own fighting style, Jeet Kune Do, which in itself is the forefather of mixed martial arts. It's rated "PG-13" for martial arts violence and language and has a running time of 1 hour & 43 minutes. I enjoyed the fight scenes and I would buy this one on DVD.
I must admit, I am a big Bruce Lee fan. This is based loosely on an article written by Michael Dorgan called 'Bruce Lee's Toughest Fight'. When Bruce Lee first came to San Francisco in the early 1960's-and before he became famous-there was a fight between him and a Shaolin Kung Fu monk that supposedly changed people's lives, both his and the monk's. Bruce had opened a martial arts school and taught anyone that wanted to learn. Most of the Chinese martial artist did not like Bruce teaching non-Asians and let him know it-usually by getting into fights. Wong Jack Man was a Shaolin master that came to San Francisco for reasons of his own, but ended up getting into the legendary fight with the up and coming Bruce Lee in an abandoned warehouse that only about a dozen people witnessed. Philip plays Bruce and Yu plays Wong. Billy plays one of Bruce's students-the lone Caucasian in the film- that is based loosely on one of Bruce's real life students, Steve McQueen. Here, he is called Steve McKee and in my opinion, he could have been left out of the movie-he had a side story that was not that interesting. The actual fight is pretty good with both men getting some lumps as well as giving some-it wasn't lopsided in either man's favor. After this fight, Bruce developed his own fighting style, Jeet Kune Do, which in itself is the forefather of mixed martial arts. It's rated "PG-13" for martial arts violence and language and has a running time of 1 hour & 43 minutes. I enjoyed the fight scenes and I would buy this one on DVD.