Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

Linda Lee's book

Rob Cohen loosely adapts Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, the 1975 biography by Linda Lee Cadwell, the actor's widow. The film takes Linda's point of view, played by Lauren Holly, on a husband who teaches kung fu to Americans, builds his own method and runs up against Hollywood. It was shot from May to August 1992 in Hong Kong, Macau and California and opened in the US on 7 May 1993, two months after Brandon Lee's death on the set of The Crow; it is dedicated to him.

An actor trained in Jeet Kune Do

Jason Scott Lee, who had no martial arts background, trained for months in Jeet Kune Do under Jerry Poteet, a former Bruce Lee student. John Cheung, fight and stunt coordinator, staged the fights in the Hong Kong manner. The film traces the move from the Wing Chun Lee learned in Hong Kong to a personal method built for real fighting, which he would call Jeet Kune Do. Roger Ebert wrote that the fights defy gravity and logic, but are fun to watch.

What the film makes up

The film takes wide liberties. The fight with Wong Jack Man is staged in a way Wong always disputed. Bruce Lee's back injury came from weight training, not from a blow in a fight as shown. The Sun brothers, the attack on the Big Boss set and the broken ice block are invented; manager Bill Krieger, played by Robert Wagner, is a composite of several real people. Jerome Sprout is based on Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee's first student in the United States.

A box office hit

The film opened at number one in the US with just over 10 million dollars and took 63.5 million worldwide. Reviews were mostly positive (75% on Rotten Tomatoes, 69 on Metacritic), and Jason Scott Lee's performance was widely praised.

Who it's for

For a dramatised introduction to Bruce Lee's life before watching his own films.