Enter The Dragon: Uncut Version

[Bakunin]

I was toddling around the town earlier, pootling around the charity shops in search of intersting finds as I often do, and what should I discover but the full and uncut version of the Bruce Lee classic 'Enter The Dragon.'

I'm just getting to the bit where it all kicks off, bigtime, and the final fight scene in the hall of mirrors is, IMHO, my all-time second favourite ending to a film (my absolute favourite being the end of 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with the three-way gunfight in the graveyard.

IMHO, everyone who even vaguely likes the occasional chop-socky flick should see the uncut version of 'Enter The Dragon.'

What do folk think of this film in particular, and Bruce Lee's undoubted influence on Western action films in general?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I saw the uncut version first IIRC and, from then on, whenever it was on TV I'd say "ooh! ooh! that's good that is! I must watch it again" and then being baffled as to why it wasn't nearly as good as I remembered.

 

[isitme]

I love Enter the Dragon

His other films are too old fashioned to be that much fun compared with the 70s stuff and the newer stuff for me

 

[DotCommunist]

Fist of Fury, and the underrated 'Big Boss' ftw

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Wasn't there a moral panic about nunchaku or something?

I know that scene in the tunnels got savagely cut from the original (I saw it in the cinema when it came out, had to lie about my age to get in ... hehe)

 

[Bakunin]

Wasn't there a moral panic about nunchaku or something?

I know that scene in the tunnels got savagely cut from the original (I saw it in the cinema when it came out, had to lie about my age to get in ... hehe)

IIRC, they were made illegal or banned at one point. That's why the nunchaku scenes were cut from the film and original video release, in which the censors also butchered the final fight scene in the hall of mirrors.

How did they manage to film that scene without reflections of the crew and equipment showing up anyway? I've never seen another fight scene like that one anywhere.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I never really rated the final hall of mirrors scene, cos the evil genius boss dude is crap at kung fu.

I loved the tunnels scene though. Perfect set-up when you see the incompentent nunchaku guy wandering about on guard duty while Bruce is sneaking about. Then that perfect moment in the big tunnel fight where incompetent nunchaku guy goes for Bruce, loses the nunchaku and Bruce just holds them for a sec, looks at them and gets this sort of amused/demonic look on his face.

Then spins them up ...

 

[FridgeMagnet]

IIRC, they were made illegal or banned at one point.

Yeah, they were. That was also why the British version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn't include them, and also had to be renamed "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles".

 

[Cid]

Enter the dragon was great, but the best fight scene has to be from the otherwise crap way of the dragon.

It should need no introduction.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Incredibly enough I just watched that before clicking back on this thread

It is good though. Poor old Chuck. He's quick as a weasel but compared to Bruce he just looks like a hippo.

 

[Bakunin]

I never really rated the final hall of mirrors scene, cos the evil genius boss dude is crap at kung fu.

I loved the tunnels scene though. Perfect set-up when you see the incompentent nunchaku guy wandering about on guard duty while Bruce is sneaking about. Then that perfect moment in the big tunnel fight where incompetent nunchaku guy goes for Bruce, loses the nunchaku and Bruce just holds them for a sec, looks at them and gets this sort of amused/demonic look on his face.

Then spins them up ...

You can see the guard's face as he's pretty obviously thinking:

'Ohhhhhhhhh, shit...'

 

[Cid]

Incredibly enough I just watched that before clicking back on this thread

It is good though. Poor old Chuck. He's quick as a weasel but compared to Bruce he just looks like a hippo.

I love the bit about a third of the way through where Norris takes him out. He sits up, does this kind of irritated 'hmph', gets to his feet and goes into uber-JKD-Bruce mode. Never has the simple act of bouncing from one foot to the other seemed so loaded with menace.

 

[isitme]

I love that story about how when he was making Enter the Dragon, all of the extras kept challenging Bruce Lee, and the 'mericans had to keep dragging him away from fights to make a film

And then he put a stop to it by one inch punching a guy through a wall

Half remembered rumours are awesome

 

[rollinder]

Yeah, they were. That was also why the British version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles didn't include them, and also had to be renamed "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles".

their was a story at one point about about the bbfc (alegedly) cutting what they thought was a nunchaku scene from the film or one of the cartoons that turned out to be one of the turtles flighting with spagetti and meatballs

 

[Cid]

What the hell is a cuting? Is it like where they have pikachu and... and the small lion from the lion king mating?! You should be shot!

 

[gnoriac]

Remember in 1976, me & a bunch of mates taking over a 3 bedroom house on the outskirts of Cov. In my bedroom there was a huge spray of dried blood all up one wall, when I asked the landlord he said it came from one night when a taxi driver had come back and eventually got all shirty so he'd whacked him with the nunchuks.

 

[Macabre]

I love that story about how when he was making Enter the Dragon, all of the extras kept challenging Bruce Lee, and the 'mericans had to keep dragging him away from fights to make a film

And then he put a stop to it by one inch punching a guy through a wall

Half remembered rumours are awesome

Ted Wong told us at a seminar about that, when the two of them were choreographing a scene three extras turned up for to challenge Bruce. The first one walked up, they eyeballed each other, then Bruce side kicked they guy in the stomach before they guy could blink. He flew back, doubled over and vomiting, then was carried away by the other who sensibly never came back.