28-04-2005, 02:25
Forget for a second, if you can, the well-worn images we associate with Bruce Lee. Just try to remember the impact of seeing Lee for the first time in this, his last "official" full-length feature: his physicality, his calmness and his self-control. Then think back to the moment in the film when he first attacks an opponent ... and the sense that this person might be both invincible and unstoppable is impossible to shake. "Enter the Dragon" wasn't Lee's first film, but it is the one movie most associated with both the man and his myth, the definitive pinnacle of his career and the genre; all martial-arts films can be categorized as before or after it. The kung-fu movie got its Balanchine, its Valentino and its Cary Grant whenever Lee stepped into the frame, and the sight of Lee near the film's end, poised to attack and scarred from his archrival Han's metal-claw hand, is part of pop iconography. More than any other actor, Bruce Lee is the face of martial arts in America. And more than any other film, "Enter the Dragon" highlights why he remains a legend.
There's no stoppin' what can't be stopped, no killin' what can't be killed. You can't see the eyes of the demon, until him come callin'...