BREAKING NEWS: ENTER THE DRAGON is a classic and it’s mainly because of Bruce Lee’s performance. More on this story as it develops.
Okay maybe that’s old news. He’d been trying for years to become a superstar in the US (he only went back to hong kong after being dissed one too many times by the white man). So it was a big deal for him to have his big american co-production. And in the movie he has so much screen presence that they had to build a special type of camera to film him, after going through six different regular cameras that broke because of his power.
Actually that’s complete bullshit, I just made that up. That woulda been cool though. Anyway anything you need to know about why Bruce Lee is such an icon is in this movie: the arrogant persona (his character is actually kind of a dick), the perfect physique, the powerful moves, the cool nunchucks, the occasional philosophy, the greatest theme song of all time (thank you Lalo Schifrin). But everybody knows that. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know if I talk about that. So let’s give some credit to the rest of the movie. For example, co-star John Saxon. (read the rest of this shit…)
aka SHAOLIN MASTER KILLER
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
Hey folks, Harry here with Vern chiming in on the latest film from Alex De La Iglesia – who one day will be paired up with a perfect project that will launch him into world wide infamy – and goddammit, I wished it had been his FU MANCHU movie he wanted to make! Do yourself a favor and track down DIA DE LA BESTIA or 800 BALAS… then you won’t be able to stop tracking down all his films. Here ya go…
SPOILER ALERT !!
Well when it comes to the classics of the kung fu genre, who the fuck knows where to start? Not me, but a recent browsing of the book THE WU-TANG MANUAL BOOK 1 by outlaw award winning composer RZA gave me some tips. In one chapter he tells about the three kung fu movies that most influenced him, and this one sounded the best. He tells a story about getting high and watching it late at night with a gentleman named “Ghostface” and some other buddies from the Stapleton projects. Supposedly they all started crying because of its messages of brotherhood. It would be interesting to know which scene got them going.
SPOILER ALERT !!
Believe it or not it took me this long to arrive in Jamaica on my ongoing journey through World Badass Studies. Sure, I saw that movie THIRD WORLD COP a while back, but I didn’t think much of it. This one is legendary, even has a Criterion Edition, and they say it’s what popularized reggae in the US and other parts of the world. Stars some guy named Jimmy Cliff, a reggae singer, but I didn’t know any of his songs so didn’t know what to expect.
Pretty much every day, somebody comes up to me and asks, “Vern, what in your opinion is the greatest badass ensemble cast of all time?” They expect me to go for a big cast like THE GREAT ESCAPE or THE DIRTY DOZEN. But I throw em a curve ball with the best possible answer: HELL IN THE PACIFIC. There are exactly two actors in the whole movie, and they’re Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. That cannot be topped. The technology just doesn’t exist.
SPOILER ALERT !!
