Way of the Dragon
Cast and roles
Bruce Lee as "Tang
Lung" (a.k.a. "China Dragon")
Nora Miao as "Chen Ching
Hua"
Chuck Norris as "Colt"
Robert Wall as "Fred"
Hwang In-Shik as "Japanese Martial Artist"
Wei Ping-Ao as "Ho"
Tang Lung (Bruce Lee) is sent from Hong Kong to Rome to help some family friends whose restaurant is being targeted by the local gangsters. After their offers to purchase the restaurant are repeatedly turned down, the gangsters resort to intimidation. Tang Lung fends off the local gangsters. The mafia boss sends gunmen, but Tang Lung defeats them with his throwing darts. The mafia boss then hires foreign martial artists to challenge Tang Lung, but Tang Lung defeats them all. The final duel takes place between Tang Lung and the best of the foreign martial artists, Colt (Chuck Norris), in the Colosseum. Tang Lung kills Colt, and the remaining criminals are finally arrested or killed. Having solved the problem, Tang Lung returns to Hong Kong.
Way of the Dragon was the first Hong Kong film to be partially
shot on location on a Western continent.
"Way of the Dragon" shattered
all previous box office records in Hong Kong and remains his biggest hit overseas.
The Italian gangsters in the film speak English, not Italian, because all
of their scenes were shot in Hong Kong.
Only Bruce Lee and Nora Miao appear
in the outdoor sequence showing Roman monuments.
The film wasn't officially
released in the US until after his death and the release of his breakthrough hit
Enter the Dragon. The title was then changed to Return of the Dragon to imply
that it was a sequel to Enter the Dragon despite the fact that the two films have
nothing in common and even Lee's characters have different names and back stories.
The back of the home video case also made the same false claim.
Jackie Chan's
Rumble in the Bronx is said to be a tribute to Way of the Dragon. The films have
a similar plot: a young man travels to a foreign country to help out a troubled
shop.
While it went largely unnoticed by Western viewers, the soup scene proved
memorable to Chinese audiences. Campbell Soup had become a popular brand in Hong
Kong when Way of the Dragon was first released.
The nunchaku scene was heavily
edited when the movie first appeared in Britain.
Way of the Dragon is the
only movie to show Bruce Lee wielding two nunchaku at once.
The original Chinese
audio track has the Chinese characters speaking Chinese and the Italian gangsters
speaking English. This distinction explains why Tang Lung looks puzzled when the
gangsters speak to him. In the English translation, everyone speaks English, so
it is not immediately clear why he can understand some people but not others.
The film has garnered a cult following due in part to the fight scene between
Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris.
National Review author and novelist John Derbyshire
has an uncredited role in the film.
The video game Double Dragon Advance pays
homage to one of the scenes in the movie in its official art.
Aside from Slaughter
in San Francisco, it is the only other film in which Chuck Norris portrays a villain.
It is the only film in which a character played by Chuck Norris actually dies.
According to Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee pitched the idea of their duel in the
Coloseum to him over the phone; Norris, who was the world karate champion at the
time, says he asked Lee, "So you want to beat the world champion?",
and, according to Norris, Lee responded, "No, I want to KILL the world champion."
Birdie and Rose's shared stage in Street Fighter Alpha could be considered
a reference to the fight between Tang Lung and Colt, as it also takes place in
the Colosseum and also has two cats in the background, like the cat in the same
area where Tang and Colt are fighting.
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