Any jackie Chan and Bruce Lee Movie

Way Of The Dragon is my personal favourite of the Bruce Lee movies. Although it wasn't the first film to get me hooked on the Little Dragon, it will always be the one that gets a special place in my heart. I often wonder why this one and not the others ? Here I will try to explain it's appeal to me and how the Hong Kong Legends DVD lived up to my expectations.

Packaging

The Amaray case contains a nice, though hardly inspiring black/grey cover featuring a dynamic shot of Bruce with the nunchaku. This matches the rest of the other films in the series. It's quite minimal compared to, say the Hong Kong dvd release of the film Back Alley Princess that proudly reproduces the original poster art of the film in vibrant colours. Of course a different market demands images for that particular audience but I have to admit to being slightly underwhelmed by the simplicity of the cover.The rear of the cover features some quite small thumbnails of scenes from the movie along with difficult to read text (for those of you, like me who need specs) outlining the plot and special features on the disc.Inside we have a chapter list and along with some small ads for Hong Kong Legends other product.The disc itself actually does look nice and is a repeat of the cover art.

Having owned the film in a number of VHS versions (and the R1 disc) over the years I wondered if this Special Collector's Edition would live up to theprevious releases of The Big Boss and Fist Of Fury. I have to say that it didn't let me down. Quite simply Way Of The Dragon has been lovingly restored frame by frame from the best original elements available.

It's not perfect by any means as parts of the movie have obviously not aged very well due to the notoriously lousy film preservation techniques that were once the norm in Hong Kong. If I have one major gripe, being something of a sad nostalgia buff; the non inclusion of the original old Golden Harvest and Concord (yin/yang animation) logos at the start of the film is a loss for me.A veritable number of Media Asia logos instead preceed the film proper.

Thank heavens the old logos still preceed the VHS version.As the opening credits roll we can see that HKL have decided to use the original HK version (in lovely anamorphically enhanced widescreen) for the transfer coming with a Cantonese language track or the usual (and best, for me that is) English dubbed version. Subtitles are also present in English or Dutch, and there are a thirty chapter stops .Another slightly controversial feature of the film is that the soundtrack has been re-mixed to a 5:1 Dolby Digital surround track. A lot of older films have been re-released this way and sometimes it works. I'm afraid that here it dosen't. It's certainly a nice touch but hardly tweaks your speakers at all, though the music track does admittedly sound nice through the rear speakers.It would have been a good idea to include an option for the mono track to be utilised. A similar complaint has been levelled at the Jaws 'Special Edition' disc, whereupon the Oscar winning mono track was abandoned for the new 5:1track.

As stated earlier a couple of sequences in the film have not stood the test of time in terms of preservation. The most jarring are the scene where Bruce and the lovely Nora Miao encounter the gunman in her apartment. The gunman's closeup is pretty poor and a later sequence where Bruce ascends the stairs in the dark to confont him on the rooftop. There seems to be a lot of digital 'blocking' in these short clips along with ( possibly) ruined film emulsion.What of the actual film as a whole? Well obviously I'm 100% biased in saying that if this isn't THE best Bruce Lee film (and his most personal) then 'The Clones of Bruce Lee' is !

My reasons for loving this movie are not complex by any means. From the opening strains of Joseph Koo's fabulous music, to the lovely compositions of Roman land marks, from Bruce's twinkling eyes and boyish charm, to his masterful demonstrations of his martial prowess, from the quaint humour of Tang Lung's encounter with the west to the deadly confrontation in the Colleseum and the finale, those parting moments with Nora and that famous walk up the hill as he disappears into the sun....whew! I'm getting quite emotional just sitting here playing those images through my mind.

I first saw the film in the Summer of 1974 on it's original UK release and even then in it's butchered form I knew it was something quite different than all the other 'Kung Fu' movies doing the rounds. If anything it plays more like a sophisticated Italian comedy from the mid '60's a fact that probably wasn't lost on Bruce himself. If we didn't know better it wouldn't be a sin to suggest it rolled out of Cinecitta studios in Rome itself. It's evident on viewing that Bruce was very adept when it came to not only directing but all other aspects of film. If you look at the colour scheme of the interiors (at Golden Harvest in HK) and the exteriors of Rome you'll see that they fit together almost seamlessly with only budget constraintssometimes not reaching the mark. The dvd brings out these sets and exteriors in a lovely rich detail, from the opening airport bustle to the sad sunny end.