Enter the Dragon (1973)

The British secret services convince Shaolin martial arts master Lee (Bruce Lee) to attend a martial arts tournament taking place on the fortress island of international drug lord and all around evildoer Han (Shih Kien). Since Han has disgraced the shaolin martial arts he once studied, and also murdered Lee’s sister (Angela Mao in a short but sweet flashback), there’s quite a bit of motivation provided for our hero to destroy Han’s operation.

Han for his part mostly uses the tournament as a way for recruitment, but at least two of the other martial artists, blaxploitation movie protagonist Williams (Jim Kelly) and roguish adventurer Roper (John Saxon) will turn out to be just as unhappy with their host’s lifestyle as Lee is, and thus make for natural allies.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to say that Bruce Lee never meant as much to my appreciation of martial arts cinema as he did to other people. Despite his obvious talent, the movie star image first approach he tended to take – and which fit Hollywood much better than it did Hong Kong – always did rub me the wrong way a little.

Which isn’t to say Enter the Dragon is not a fantastically successful attempt at mixing Hong Kong style martial arts, blaxploitation and spy adventure in the Ian Fleming style. This is one of those movies that seem to absolutely embody the sprit of 70s exploitation cinema (which has always been, and will always be, on of the loves of my life). There’s very little here that isn’t enjoyable – from the fights, to the gimmicks, the so wonderfully of its time production design, to the breathing noises so loud, Sonny Chiba heard them over in Japan and decided to make them even more absurd. The film is carried by a spirit of generosity towards its audience, really going all out to not just belong in half a dozen genres or so, but to provide a viewer with everything they could wish for from every single one of them.

And all that from a director like Robert Clouse who usually doesn’t understand pacing, or style, or how to direct action. Well, looked at objectively, for most of the film, it isn’t actually Clouse doing much of the heavy lifting, but the choreography, the production design and a gang of actors that appear to have a great amount of fun; the director for mostly tries not to get in the way of what he has. Which, given most of Clouse’s other films, I can’t help but wish he’d used as an approach more often.

In short: Three the Hard Way (1974)

When he becomes wind of the plans of particularly crazy white supremacist to wipe all black people from the face of the earth (or is it just the USA?) via EVIL SCIENCE!, and the bad guys kidnap his girlfriend Wendy (Sheila Frazier) to add insult to injury, record producer Jimmy Lait (Jim Brown), calls in two old friends of his. Together with martial artist Mister – that’s his first name – Keyes (Jim Kelly) and whatever the hell Jagger Daniels (Fred Williamson) is beyond awesome, Jimmy starts kicking Nazi ass. Cars explode at the slightest provocation, people shoot, Jim Kelly martial artists while directed by a guy who really has no clue how to film a martial arts fight. So much for genocide.

Need I say that Gordon Parks Jr.’s Three the Hard Way is not a very good film in the traditional sense, with the way it leaves narrative logic (or really, a plot) and characterization behind and replaces everything with blaxploitation versions of Men’s Adventure clichés? And need I also say that the film still is a whole lot of fun thanks to Parks’s pacy direction that from time to time shows excellent little explosions of 70s style, thanks to its core trio of ass-kicking heroes, as well as thanks to a sense of random abandon that replaces the filler that often mars the underwritten half of blaxploitation cinema?

If I need to or not, I’m still saying it. I’m also saying it’s pretty difficult to mess up a film this sillily eager to please and to follow its imagination wherever it leads. How could anyone resist a movie that sees Fred Williamson calling in a trio of multi-racial dominatrixes arriving on colour-coded motorcycles (and in fitting leather) when they need to torture information out of someone (poor guy dies of fright)? A film that has a scene where a truck explodes from driving through a billboard? And, you know, a film that contains the mystical trio of Brown, Williamson and Kelly - even though I have to admit that Kelly’s painfully sincere acting attempts are only saved by his afro when he’s in the same scene with Williamson’s swagger, and Brown’s laid-back charm and – here absolutely underused – actual acting abilities.

It all adds up to a thing of slightly unhinged awesomeness I enjoyed mightily.

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