Bruce Lee/Martial Arts Fans REJOICE!!!!

[Woochifer]

This is the "REAL" Wooch.... right? I mean you're not some clone from another planet bent on infiltrating AR.com with insidious reviews? On a more serious note. I've always been a big Bruce Lee fan since the days of "The Green Hornet". Will be quite happy to buy this collection. Thanks for the heads up and please accept my sincere apologies if I've ever offended you in your wars with Lex. Seems I was quite wrong about that guy. He's obviously guite ill in the head.

Da Worfster

Oh yeah, nothing but the one and only Wooch!

I went REALLY long-form on this one (brevity is not one of my strongsuits, in case you haven't noticed! ) because I've been waiting for something like to come out since I bought my first DVD player, and because I know from my viewings how much better these Bruce Lee movies are in their original unedited and undubbed versions. Gotta share the love, and spread the gospel to any other Bruce Lee fans who might be interested in seeing these movies in their rightful form.

No prob from me on Lex. You may be Sergeant at Arms, but you get along with everybody on this board! This board would be a better place if everyone asked "What would Worfster say?" before posting.

i think what was genius on jackie's part was that, once he found his niche/expertise, he never tried to be 'the next bruce.' i think it was in Fist of Fury, i read that jackie was a stunt performer in the movie and was the only volunteer to take a kick from bruce and be pulled by wires through a window (or a wall, i cant remember which). that and enter the dragon have the two jackie/bruce scenes in them (he got hit by a nun-chuck).

Chan was the stunt double in the scene where that karate master Suzuki (?) gets kicked through a screen wall and into a pond.

i completely forgot about meels on wheels! what a fun movie that was too! i've seen the dubbed miracles and am trying to find the original Lady Rose version. also loved drunken master, the sequence with the benches, just.... wow. and how he did it then, and still does, his whole flick up the bottle, cup, item and kick it at the badguy all in one continuous take. he talks about this particular move in the documentary My Stunts. another great scene, or stunt actually, (i think from the project a series?) is the clock tower fall!!! holy minkey! that was unbelievable. that was also a good scene to show how much jackie has influenced editing techniques in action movies, allowing (even in hollywood) overlap of action, repeating the same shot from multiple angles, although not to the extent done in hong kong movies.

Drunken Master 2 was amazing because of how many wide angle continuous shots were used in the stunt scenes. No opportunity whatsoever to insert a stunt double or do closeups where the action is especially dangerous -- it's all Jackie and his stunt team for real. I saw that movie with a friend of mine whose boyfriend works as a stuntman, and the stuntman just kept pausing the tape and rewinding and slo-mo'ing the action because he was so amazed by the stuntwork (as a stuntman, he knew how dangerous those scenes were and commented that it would be suicidal for him to ever work on any film with Chan).

I also have that My Stunts documentary -- VERY interesting DVD because I never knew that Chan used wires in his stunts. The clock tower fall was from the original Project A (one of the all-timer greats, and includes Yuen Bieu and Sammo Hung) and the most amazing stunt in that movie was the BOTCHED version of the clock tower fall that was shown in the outtakes -- yes, he had to do TWO takes on that stunt! (on the first take, the last awning did not break his fall, which mean that instead of falling on the flat side below his neck, which is "safe", he went splatto on his side and injured his arm after bouncing off the awning and getting twisted up)

It's remarkable to now see how much Hong Kong films have influenced action pics in Hollywood over the last decade. Even more so considering that a lot of the techniques used in HK films (such as the off-angle camera positions, the slo-mo, the flying building materials) were created because HK films had such low budgets and could not afford visual effects and CGI. (I think that John Woo's Hard Boiled had a total budget of $4 million, yet it featured some of the best high octane action scenes I've ever seen.)

just saw this special on ifc Chop Socky: Kung Fu in Cinema. and it was really interesting, if you can find it, check it out. they talked about how martial arts in film has gone through so many permutations and changes. how it started real, then moved on to the fantastical for the longest period, then was brought back to stark realism with bruce, who changed the philosophy that 'real' kungfu looks bad on film. he made real moves on film without any major superfluousness and made them look better than anything else. i think the flaw in his logic, however, was in himself. HE made real kungfu look badass, not everyone else would be (or has been able to) pull that off. while real kungfu worked for Bruce, it doesnt for anyone else. the flourish and fancy of movement is alot easier to pull off visually (even though harder, physically in some sense). i've done fight choreography for some indie films and have taken a lot of martial arts myself, and i can attest to this first hand. what's real does NOT look good on film with very few exceptions, and the exceptions arent in the movements, but who is performing them.

I caught the tail end of that IFC documentary once, and haven't seen it since then. I'll have to look for it again, it seemed very interesting.

Bruce Lee was not a big guy, but boy did he ever have screen presence! After watching a lot of Jackie Chan and "wire fu" films, rewatching the Bruce Lee films creates a huge contrast. You're right that his fight scenes look real, and Lee is amazing with how action much comes across with such economical fight choreography.

have you seen Ong Bak by any chance with Tony Jaa, and ong bak 2 (cant remember the name, but the sequel to it). now that has quite a few HOLY CRUD i can't believe he just did that! which i havent said since watching those early jackie movies. especially since tony jaa is sans wires completely (supposedly). while jackie always used wires, but used them in ways no one else had even thought too, and still does.

No I haven't, but I looked it up and now I'll have to check it out! Thanx for pointing me in that direction.

Thanks for the heads-up, Wooch. I've been a huge Bruce Lee fan for as long as I can remember and have seen all of his movies. I even thought Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was terrific! Of course, casting Lauren Holly doesn't hurt . Nice review, brother. I'll have to get this.

Ah! Lauren Holly ... nice!

I've also been a huge Bruce Lee fan, but did not buy any of the U.S. versions of his first three movies because I can't stand dubbed movies. Almost right after I got my first DVD player, I bought Fist of Fury (known as "The Chinese Connection" in the U.S.) on a Hong Kong DVD, and while it had the original language tracks, the picture quality was not very good. The original U.S. DVD apparently has better picture quality, but only includes the English language track. This new DVD set is the best of both worlds, and it costs less than $40 for a five-DVD set. Whether the two gawdawful Game of Death movies count is debatable, but the set's still a bargain even if you only watch the first three movies.

Warner already put out the definitive version of Enter The Dragon a couple of years ago (this is the one that includes the two Bruce Lee documentaries and the reedited Game of Death fight sequences). So, if you get that two-disc set along with the Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection, you'll have the definitive versions of all of Bruce Lee's movies -- not a bad place to be! And if you've never seen the original language versions of these films, it will be like seeing these movies all over again for the first time.