Released: May 1993

Director: Rob Cohen

Rated PG-13

Run Time: 120 Minutes

Genre: Action, Drama, Biography

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Cast:
Jason Scott Lee: Bruce Lee
Lauren Holly: Linda Lee
Robert Wagner: Bill Krieger
Nancy Kwan: Gussie Yang

This post is going to be different than some of the ones that I did before.  Why?  Because I’m going to discuss one of the most influential people in history, not just in the world, but in MY life as well:  Bruce Lee.  Bruce Lee has been an inspiration to so many people in his short life.  He is the reason that people like me have gotten into the martial arts in the first place.  He helped bring Kung Fu to the west and made it cool.  He made Chinese culture cool.  While there are many people in the world of Wing Chun who vehemently disagree with how he founded Jeet Kune Do and the way he taught it as truth, I don’t think anybody can deny that he changed the world, and for the better, I think.  What some people don’t seem to understand is that first and foremost, Bruce Lee was a human being.  He made mistakes.  He made enemies, both in the Chinese world and the West.  But he NEVER gave up on his dream to show the West the beauty of Chinese culture.  He did this not just by teaching Kung Fu, but by making movies.  He made the martial arts accessible.  He believed that everyone should be able to learn Kung Fu, and he defied a lot of traditions to do so.  I, for one, am grateful that he did.  While there have been movies made about the man, it was Rob Cohen’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story that got the most attention.

Based on Linda Lee Cadwell’s 1975 book, Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is the story of the legendary martial artist.  From his early life in Hong Kong to his untimely death in 1973, Dragon covers Bruce’s training under Ip Man when he was younger, to when he fell in love with and married Linda Lee.  It also covers his struggle with racism and his desire to teach people Kung Fu.  While there are certainly aspects of Dragon that are definitely fictionalized in an attempt to dramatize Lee’s life, it definitely focuses on the man himself.  It doesn’t just display his martial arts abilities, but it pays attention to who he was and his relationships with people.  I like the fact that the movie focuses on the man and not the physical fighting.  It shows that the man had his ups and downs, but it also showed that he had demons of his own, and that is illustrated literally here.  I guess that’s one thing I didn’t particularly care about, was Bruce’s fight with his demon.  I understand it was a metaphor for conquering his own fears, but I think it could have been done a little bit better.  The story is captivating, emotional and inspirational, like the man himself.  In spite of the film’s flaws, the story is amazing.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story wouldn’t have worked as well, if they didn’t get the right cast.  It was particularly brilliant of Rob Cohen to cast Jason Scott Lee as Bruce Lee, despite not being related.  In 1993, I don’t think anybody else could have done it as well.  Jason has the range in terms of drama, comedy and physicality to bring the role to life, despite not being a martial artist himself.  It’s a shame that his career didn’t take off the way I had hoped it would.  He would star in a live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book in 1994, but I don’t think anybody really paid attention to him outside of Dragon.  It’s too bad, he was really good.  Lauren Holly is fabulous as Linda.  She brought the right amount of charisma and charm that Bruce Lee fell in love with.  While everybody else in the film did a good job, it’s Bruce’s relationship to Linda that is really the forefront of the film.

You would expect a movie about Bruce Lee to include some spectacular fight scenes, and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story delivers on that account.  Be aware that some of the fights that you see in this film didn’t actually happen.  His confrontation with British sailors never happened, nor did the confrontation with his fellow cooks at the restaurant.  That used to spice up the movie, and I think it did the job.  The fights are well-choreographed, and Jason Scott Lee trained with Jerry Poteet in Jeet Kune Do, to give the film an air of authenticity.  One of the most underrated aspects of the film is the musical score by Randy Edelman.  I did a post in my Best Composers series about Randy Edelmen and this was one of the scores that I had mentioned.  It’s an incredibly powerful and moving score that I feel that Bruce Lee would appreciate.  The soundtrack to Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is one of my favorite soundtracks of all time.  It’s….beautiful.

Before I finish up, I would like to discuss Bruce Lee’s influence on my life in general.  When I was younger, I got bullied around a lot, so my parents that it was a good idea to have me study karate so I could defend myself.  So, I ended up training in Shaolin Kempo for a number of years.  While it was initially because of bullying that I started karate, it eventually became more than that.  I had watched Enter The Dragon a number of times, and it was Lee that really got me into the world of martial arts.  While I didn’t stick with karate, it definitely had a long-lasting effect on me.  I became an enormous fan of martial arts films.  The genre is one of my favorites.  Seeing everybody from Jackie Chan to Chuck Norris work their magic, was something to behold.  If it wasn’t for Bruce Lee, I probably never would have expected to get into Wing Chun Kung Fu when I did.  While I haven’t been the most consistent student lately, Wing Chun has left an incredibly positive impact on me.

Bruce Lee changed the world with his philosophy, work ethic and his desire to teach.  As I said before, there are people out there who really don’t agree with what Bruce did with Jeet Kune Do or his way of thinking.  I personally believe that the man intended no harm, but wanted to expose the world to the wonder that is China and its culture.  I can honestly say, along with millions of fans around the world, that he succeeded.  Bruce Lee’s death in 1973 sent shock-waves throughout the entire world.  Nobody had expected this to happen.  At the age of 32, Bruce Lee was taken from us far too soon.  While Enter The Dragon was his greatest film ever, I feel that had he lived, there would have been so much more for him to offer the world.  Bruce achieved so many things during his short time on earth.  There aren’t a whole lot of people out there that can honestly say that.  Bruce had two children, Brandon and Shannon Lee.  Unfortunately, Brandon was also taken from us due to an accident while he was filming The Crow in 1993, the year that Dragon was released.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a wonderful film about a legendary martial artist who was nothing more than a man who achieved extraordinary things.  Bruce Lee’s influence can be felt in almost every aspect of pop culture, movies and philosophy.  While the film isn’t perfect, it’s heart was in the right place and we got to see sides of a great man that we never saw before.  Is the film entirely accurate?  No, a good chunk of it was fictionalized, but it respected the man, and I think that was the intention.  Bruce Lee may not have been the biggest, physically, but he moved mountains.  I can honestly say that 23 years after it’s release, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story stands up as one of the best movies about Bruce Lee.  The film gets an 8.5/10, but Bruce Lee’s accomplishments cannot be measured with a score.  43 years after his death, Bruce Lee still inspires generations of film fans and martial artists alike.  There has never been a person like him and never will be again.

In 2002, The Bruce Lee Foundation was formed by Linda Lee Cadwell and Shannon Lee to help educate and inspire generations of people of all ages.  You can visit the organization at the following locations:

The Bruce Lee Foundation Official Website

The Bruce Lee Foundation Official Facebook Page

Released: September 2014(Ukraine)

Director: Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi

Not Rated

Run Time: 126 Minutes

Distributor: Drafthouse Films

Cast:
Hryhoriy Fesenko: Sergei
Yana Novikova: Anya
Rosa Babiy: Svetka

If there’s a word that I really don’t like throwing around haphazardly, it’s “unique.”  You hear a lot of people talk about art-house movies saying, “This is unique, or that is unique.”  Most of the time that word really rings hollow.  Why?  Most movies in this particular day and age are anything BUT unique.  Sure, a film-maker can have a unique take on a particular subject or genre, but that does not make the film unique.  For a film to be unique, it must be something that nobody has ever seen before.  That is the point of the word.  Yeah, we saw a fair share of “unique” movies 20-30 years ago, but movies today are basically carbon copies of something else.  Does that mean they’re bad?  Not at all.  If they’re done well, I have no problems with them whatsoever.  Whenever somebody says a movie is unique, I tend to take that with a very large grain of salt.  As film buff and blogger, I’ve seen a lot.  However, I just came across a movie called The Tribe which is probably the only modern movie which I can truly say is unique.  And it really is, in all the right ways.

Opening on a bus station, the film introduces us to Sergei, who is trying to find a local boarding school.  After a helpful person tells him how to get there, he shows up and is introduced to his classmates and surroundings.  Early on, he’s basically shunned by a group of students who have taken to running the school like the mafia.  After a hazing incident, Sergei is accepted into the gang and goes on to rob and beat people up.  Eventually, he falls for one of the girls who is a prostitute by night, and this doesn’t sit well with the gang.  While the story is actually really great, the first thing that you notice is that there’s no spoken dialogue whatsoever.  The entire film is done in Ukrainian Sign Language.  Why?  The actors are deaf and mute.  That’s why.  In fact, the opening credits actually tell you that the film is done in sign language.  There’s another thing you should be aware of:  No subtitles.

Does that present a problem?  If you’re not paying close attention to what’s going on, yeah.  Most of us are content with current movies that have spoken dialogue, whether it’s in English or some other language that’s spoken verbally.  But there are a lot of people out there who can’t hear or speak.  So, subtitles can help them understand what’s going on.  Yeah, movies are obviously a very visual medium, but The Tribe takes it to a different level.  Instead of telling you what’s happening, the film SHOWS you what’s happening, and it’s up to you to figure it out.  Again, this is where you need to pay attention.  The story is delivered through sign language, sure, but you have to SEE the actors.  You have to take a close look at their faces and the way they move.  In some ways, The Tribe is teaching you how to watch the movie from a different perspective:  That of a deaf person.  The entire movie is like that, but it’s NOT a silent movie.  There’s a lot of ambient sound with people walking and other minor sound effects.  For those of us that aren’t deaf, those sounds really stand out.  There’s no music either.  What’s the point?  A deaf person isn’t going to be appreciate it the way we do.  It’s a very unconventional approach to film-making.  It’s extremely risky, but the payoff is absolutely worth it.

The film goes to some pretty dark territory and can be pretty hard to sit through.  Some of the girls have been forced into prostitution.  The gang goes out and basically does whatever they want without much in the way of repercussions.  If you pay attention to the movie, it’s actually pretty easy to follow.  This is not an action movie, nor a horror movie, even though some horrific stuff does happen.  Most of the actors and actresses are pretty much first timers, but they really deliver.  You’ve got good actors and they’re deaf.  Most people would consider deafness to be a disability, but for this movie, I would disagree.  They have to emote through body language, sign language and facial expressions.  As a result, the film is surprisingly engaging.  While there are slow points, I was really curious about what was going to happen next.

The film is shot extremely well, as it really captures the isolation and bleakness of the school and the situation of the students.  The director doesn’t cut until the scene is complete, so you have some pretty long takes, but that’s part of the charm.  It allows you to really take in the atmosphere and what’s happening in the moment.  I can’t really think of a negative here.  I’ve NEVER seen a movie like this before, and that’s not just hyperbole.  The fact that the film was made in Ukraine, especially during the crisis that was happening at the time, makes The Tribe an usual but very gratifying experience.  It’s a pretty bleak film, but it’s extremely engaging.  This truly is a unique film and I highly recommend it to anyone who considers themselves a serious film buff.  This one gets a 10/10.

It’s absolutely no secret that money is needed for EVERYTHING these days.  From food and bathroom stuff to video games and movies, everything seems to have a price.  That’s just reality.  For film-making, money is EXTREMELY important.  Movie making is not a simple process, nor is it cheap.  There are some movies today that were made for several hundred million dollars.  It is a pricey investment.  The question that comes to mind is this:  Does that larger budget actually make for a better film?  If so or if not, why?  How much does the size of a film’s budget actually affect the movie itself?  Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?  For a movie to be made, you need to have an idea.  Then you have to write something for that idea, like a script or screenplay.  Next, you have to take that screenplay to a studio so they can approve the script if possible.  If it gets the green light, then you have to get a loan from a bank to be able to make that movie.  However, if you want to make a theatrical release, particularly here in the states, you need to have the MPAA(Motion Picture Association of America)approve the script and get a rating so you can get that loan.  What rating you get will effect how much money you can get for the film.  So, if you can get all that, what comes next?  You have to hire the actors, rent the equipment and pay the people to operate that equipment.  You also have to have a location scout to find the best place(s) to shoot your film.  Then you have to hire writers, catering and a mess of other things to get your film made.  Needless to say, it’s a pretty complicated process and can end up being very expensive.

With that in mind, how successful that film could be, regardless of budget, will depend entirely on who is at the helm.  Directors, producers, actors; these are extremely important elements of making a movie.  Now, let’s discuss the advantages and disadvantages of small and large budgets.  With larger budgets, you tend to have more room to maneuver as far getting the film made.  You can hire better quality visual effects artists and better writers.  One of the problems with having a larger budget is the tendency to go all out on a particular aspect of the film.  Most recently, in movies like Jupiter Ascending, Batman V. Superman, and The Hobbit, a lot of the money was clearly spent on trying to make the movie look great, visually.  The special effects are really good, but the story and the characters tend to suffer.  Film makers like The Wachowskis, Zack Snyder and Michael Bay tend to put the emphasis on spectacle and not substance.  Bay’s Transformers movies are a prime example  That’s not to say that all big-budget movies are bad.  Not at all.  There are PLENTY of big-budget films out there that are really, really good.  Movies like Terminator 2, which was made for 102 million dollars was a great film.  X-Men 2 was also fantastic, and that was made for about 110 million.  As I said, the success of this films depend entirely on who is at the helm.  Peter Jackson made the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy for about 300 million dollars.  As I said before, big-budget isn’t always bad.  I love a really great blockbuster.

Today, small-budget movies are generally made for 60 million or less.  What are the advantages of having a small budget?  Several, in fact.  You don’t have the resources to craft an extremely visual film like Lord of the Rings, so you’re forced to be extremely creative in how to make your movie.  You have to come up with ways to make certain aspects, like visual effects, look good while not going over-budget.  I’m not going to list any movies from the Canon Film Group, because they were KNOWN for their low-budget pictures.  Early this year, we got a really great comic book movie in Deadpool which was made for only 58 million.  The resulting film ended up being the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time with a world-wide gross of 757 million dollars.  People loved it, as I did.  I actually saw it twice in one day.  Bone Tomahawk, which was made for about 2 million dollars, ended up being one of the best westerns I have seen in years.  A lot of people share that sentiment.  The one movie that really benefited from having a small budget was George Lucas’ Star Wars.  Made for about 13 million in 1976-77, Star Wars became one of the highest-grossing movies of all time during that decade.  It earned a total of $775,398,007, which equals about 3 billion dollars by today’s standards.  Just one movie accomplished all that.  Lucas didn’t have access to CGI or super-complicated visual effects, he had to invent techniques that nobody had ever done before.

Are there bad low-budget movies?  Oh, yes.  Look at most of Cannon’s films.  There’s a reason those movies are called schlock.  That’s a list for a different day.  At the end of the day, there are obvious advantages and disadvantages to both low-budget and big-budget films.  It all comes down to who is driving the machine.  I just find it extremely interesting that a small-budget film can be infinitely more successful then a movie that costs 250 million bucks.  There is something to be said for the “less is more” approach.  More is not always a good thing, just look at Batman V. Superman.  I liked the movie okay, but it was painfully obvious they used all that money to stuff as many things and Easter eggs in there as possible.  It ended up ruining the experience, overall.  You can have a great big-budget picture, but you can also have an amazing low-budget movie at the same time.  At the end of the day, a good movie is a good movie, and a bad movie is a bad movie.

Released: 1981

Director: Umberto Lenzi

Rated R

Run Time: 93 Minutes

Distributor: Grindhouse Releasing

Genre: Horror

Cast:
Giovanni Lombardo Radici: Mike Logan
Lorraine De Selle: Gloria Davis
Danilo Mattei: Rudy Davis
Zora Kerova: Pat Johnson
Walter Lucchini: Joe Costolani
Robert Kerman: Lt. Rizzo

It’s often been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  In movie terms, we’re talking about remakes, rip-offs and movies that were inspired by the original material.  Take Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno, for example.  Eli Roth has been a massive fan of the Italian cannibal movie genre for years.  It’s clearly inspired a lot of his movies, to the point where he actually cast Ruggero Deodato in a cameo for Hostel II.  The Green Inferno was finished in 2013, but didn’t get released until last year, but it was heavily inspired by the Italian cannibal movies of the late 70s and early 80s.  I personally didn’t think The Green Inferno was a bad movie.  In fact, I thought it was a solid horror film.  But, it was definitely inspired by Ruggero’s opus, Cannibal Holocaust.  It was the first found footage movie ever made and it ended up being a pretty savage little movie.  It was notorious for several scenes of animal cruelty and for making people think that it was a snuff film.  So, the film and Ruggero Deodato have a bit of a reputation.  Along with remakes, you do get the occasional rip-off.  In 1981, another cannibal film was released onto unsuspecting audiences:  Cannibal Ferox.

As the movie begins, we are in New York City, where a young man is arriving at his apartment only to be shot to death by a couple of mobsters.  Why?  Apparently they were looking for another occupant of the apartment, who happens to be out of the country at the moment.  Heading to South America, we see a trio of photographers who are making their way up the Amazon to prove that cannibalism does not exist.  After a few mishaps in the jungle, the trio run into two suspicious guys, Mike and Joe, and then team up to get out of the jungle.  Thing is, Mike’s hiding something and when they run into the natives, the shit hits the fan.  Big time.  I’m having the strangest sense of deja vu right now.  Why?  Because I’ve seen this movie before.  What I mean by that, is that Cannibal Ferox is extremely similar to Cannibal Holocaust.  It has all the same elements:  You have a group of youngsters that are WAY out of their element, and they end up running into a village that has seen brutality at the hands of other Western youngsters.  They also run into cannibals.  It also has some scenes with live animals as well, even though the context is a little different this time around.

I’m going to come right out and say it:  Cannibal Ferox is a blatant rip-off of the superior Cannibal Holocaust.  It’s certainly a grizzly film, that’s for sure, but it lacks the visceral punch that Holocaust had.  That movie was gruesome and absolutely brutal.  It’s slower and the characters are not as interesting.  Not only that, the film throws in an unnecessary subplot involving New York mobsters.  After a couple of scenes, we never see them again.  What was the point?  The characters were extremely irritating, especially the women.  The acting?  Oh, God Almighty, the acting.  It was awful.  It’s obviously clear that besides Robert Kerman, the cast really doesn’t speak a lick of English, so they had to be dubbed.  That dubbing was gloriously awful.

The effects were mostly okay, even though you could tell that some of it was fake.  The music was abominable.  They kept repeating some of the same musical score over and over again.  It strikes me as completely lazy.  I would say that Umberto Lenzi is the poor man’s Rogero Deodato, but the truth of the matter is that he’s nowhere NEAR that level.  The animal stuff, while still utilizing live animals, isn’t nearly as atrocious.  Yeah, there’s a scene with a turtle, but the context behind the animal scenes was surprisingly tasteful, to a certain extent.  I still think they shouldn’t have used real animals, but it was nowhere near as brutal as Cannibal Holocaust.  I don’t know if it was because Lenzi didn’t want to suffer the same consequences that Deodato suffered, but it’s absolutely clear to me that Lenzi just didn’t have what it took to be a competitor for Ruggero Deodato.

Cannibal Ferox was definitely gory and controversial, but it was controversial for the sake of being controversial and that does NOT make a good movie.  Cannibal Holocaust at least had some blistering things to say about society.  It had a message about the exploitation of the third world and the responsibility of film-makers.  It was definitely in-your-face, but it got the point across.  Ferox is just a cheap knock-off of a superior film.  Now that I think about it, Eli Roth’s recent cannibal movie seems to borrow more from Lenzi’s film than it does Deodato’s.  Still, The Green Inferno is better than Cannibal Ferox in every way.  I’m digging the Italian cannibal genre right now, but if I were you, I would give Cannibal Ferox a pass.  It’s not a good movie.  It’s not even a good rip-off.  Sorry, Ferox fans, this stinker gets 3 cannibals out of 10.