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Birth of the Dragon (2016)

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Birth of the Dragon (2016)

Even Bruce Lee fanatics will be dissatisfied by Birth of the Dragon. Sure the actors do a good job and the action is well staged, but the story is so thin! It’s padded out with an increasingly ludicrous plot and characters that you won’t care about.

In 1965, San Francisco, Bruce Lee (Philip Ng) is an up-and-coming movie star and martial arts teacher. Arrogant and brash, he challenges Shaolin monk and kung fu master Wong Jack Man (Xia Yu) to a legendary fight.

I can't remember another film whose end credits state that “many” of the events, characters, and situations have been created for dramatic purposes. Even if the alleged fight DID take place, there's no way, even with the setup that it added up to more than what? About 40 minutes’ worth? So where does the rest of the film come from?

What the trailers don’t tell you is that Birth of the Dragon focusses largely on a bunch of "who cares?" side characters. The lead is Billy Magnussen as Steve McKee, a (fictional) student of Lee’s who falls in love with an indebted Chinese woman, Xiulan (Jingjing Qu). In order for her to win her freedom, she’s got to buy herself from gangster Auntie Blossom (Jing Xing). How are they going to come up with the money? By convincing Lee and Wong Jack Man to fight. Once a loser is declared, Blossom will collect on the bets and the girl released. When even that proves to be too little material for a full-length feature, we follow another of Lee’s fictional students, Simon Yin as Vinnie.

I’ll give the film a few points. The performances, particularly by Philip Ng and Xia Yu are quite good. Ng captures the ferocity, intensity, and charisma of the real Bruce Lee. Both actors are capable fighters and that means the action scenes are long, well-shot and satisfying (hats off to director George Nolfi and cinematographer Amir Mokri). Even that only goes so far. During the film's fan fiction-like climax you keep wondering why nobody pulls out a gun until you realize that it’s a full-blown fantasy… approaching the realm of parody. Then there’s an homage to a key scene in Enter the Dragon (I bet you can guess) that’s downright embarrassing.

If you think the Lee facsimile (skilled as he may be) is enough to make Birth of the Dragon worth the trip to the theatre, it isn’t. The main event isn't enough the follow-up impossible to take seriously. Birth of the Dragon feels like a schoolyard exaggeration or some random story juiced up by inserting so-called historical facts. It's all an attempt to get credit from easily swindled fans. (Theatrical version on the big screen, August 27, 2017)