03/08/2023

Watch Birth Of The Dragon Trailer #1 (2017), Birth Of The Dragon Trailer #1 (2017)

Birth of the long (2016)

Birth of the dragon (2016)

Birth of the long (2016)

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Writer và comedian Brian Huskey went on the comedy podcast “Hollywood Handbook” once and, with the hosts, adlibbed a nhái screenplay called "Teen Pope." In it, a suburban skateboarder named Jason Attitude becomes Pope và indulges in every single hoary ‘80s tiệc nhỏ movie cliché. If you can picture such a film—all cliché, all terrible, tone-deaf *cool*, all horrifying tropes years beyond their sell-by date—then you can imagine George Nolfi"s “Birth of the Dragon."

A preposterous screenwriting-for-dummies exercise directed with all the flare of a mid-‘90s tourism video, Nolfi decides the best way khổng lồ get to lớn know subjects Bruce Lee and his legendary one-time rival Wong Jack Man is through a bland white guy và his romantic troubles. You know ... The important stuff. Because who cares about two titanic forces of martial arts meeting lớn settle a mysterious score unless there"s a constipated H&M catalog centerfold looking worried off lớn the side? How in the world are you supposed lớn know how khổng lồ feel without constant cutaways to lớn an anguished white face?

“Dragon” introduces Wong Jack Man (Yu Xia) fighting on behalf of the Shaolin order he represents. We"ll later learn, the match goes awry when he nearly kills his opponent from the Tai bỏ ra school (Wang Xi"An). He arrives in San Francisco a short while later to bởi vì penance for his poor performance in the match by doing dishes at his cousin"s Chinese restaurant. It just so happens that Bruce Lee (Philip Ng) is there as well, teaching Kung Fu to Americans và Chinese alike. Lee, brimming with arrogance, assumes that the real reason Wong is in town is lớn challenge him on behalf of the martial arts masters he left behind in Hong Kong. Wong just wants to lớn disappear but Lee wants lớn make a city-wide sensation of their match-up. Not helping matters is that their go-between, Steve Mc
Kee (Billy Magnussen), has gotten mixed up in Triad politics when he meets và falls for a waitress under the thumb of a local crime lord (Xing Jin). Can they put aside their differences to help love blossom, và learn a little something about themselves in the process?

Lee was rendered legendary several times over thanks khổng lồ his popular kích hoạt movies (which this film has the gall to make fun of), his prowess as an artist, his early death in the ‘70s, and the death of his only son, Brandon Lee, in the ‘90s. This film makes him a garden variety jerk in need of a quick personality tune-up, which Wong is happy lớn give him. Why you would want lớn take one of the only genuine superstars to lớn which this country has ever played host and stuff him into a rote biopic is absolutely beyond me. Why Nolfi thought he was equal to lớn the task of filming martial arts sequences worthy of Bruce Lee is an even greater mystery. His fight scenes play like expensive camera demos, showing off different frame rates & quickly changing aperture effects. I"m sure they look great on a motion-smoothing TV.

But wait, there"s less! The score wastes no opportunity to lớn hit every chú ý too hard, from classically offensive "oriental" flute when introducing Asian characters, to lớn hard charging electric guitar during fight scenes. The fashion and acting styles are all entirely too modern; no one involved with this movie is out lớn even pretend it takes place in 1964. A nameless henchman describes Lee"s movies as "chopsocky," a term that wouldn"t be coined for another 10 years. Lee wouldn"t actually start making martial arts films in America for another six years, though this film has him directing them in the street with his students as extras. A Google search could have cleared up factual mistakes like that, but who has the time? The whole endeavor is marred by that sort of carelessness. Like the way Magnussen almost never takes off his (plainly modern) leather jacket as a way to save money finding him more period appropriate clothes khổng lồ wear. There are also gags you see coming a mile away that the film wants you to lớn get excited about, as if knowing joke structure is the same thing as writing a joke.

How, this far into the 21st century, does a film lượt thích this get made? One that shunts Bruce Lee lớn the status of secondary character in a lazy & boringly familiar star-crossed romance? There are entire books và countless articles about the Wong Jack Man & Bruce Lee fight, & this film invents things wholesale lớn pad its running time? Why? Who could possibly be expected khổng lồ care about fictitious Steve Mc
Kee và his quest to lớn save an equally fictitious love interest from a likely even more fictitious crime boss? Bruce Lee"s films have never not been in hard cultural circulation in this country, but an entire movie about him is somehow going to showroom up to box office poison?

At one point, Wong warns Lee that "technique is a trap" & "style is a prison." The makers of “Birth of the Dragon” took that to lớn heart. There"s no style or technique khổng lồ get imprisoned by here. I can think of no more fitting a send-off than what the great critic David Cairns wrote of the atrocious 2012 biopic “Hitchcock”: "It seems that the mediocre despise the talented & will bide their time until they can avenge themselves."

Scout Tafoya is a critic & filmmaker who writes for và edits the arts blog Apocalypse Now & directs both feature length and short films.