Review of The Way of the Dragon

Really, the only part of this film worth praise is the fight scene between Bruce and "Colt" at the end. The rest of the movie, as a comedy, works in a sort of "The Gods Must Be Crazy", "What's Up Tiger Lily?" way. But as a martial arts film? No way. It's so bad at times that you really believe he made this movie with the full intention of spoofing martial arts films. The one thing that keeps this movie on its feet is the Gay Translator. That character alone carried the sagging weight of the movie as a kung-fu film. Unfortunately, the weight was picked up and carried as a comedy. Still, there are some notable fight scenes, and if you are kung-fu nut I suppose story doesn't really matter much anyway. I'm a film student, and I've always looked at movies as movies. In watching Kung-fu films I've had to discipline myself in detaching the genre from all other standards of film. These films are about the martial arts, and it's not supposed to matter how utterly bad the movies can be. This is where knowing a lot about movies actually impairs me, where I can't get used to the concept of a movie not existing for the sake of being a good movie.

Oh well.

The fight scene at the end makes you forget about everything else. The way they portray Chuck Norris' character is simply amazing. During the fight scene there was a surprising depth to it all, in which you actually sympathize with Colt. He keeps getting up, and all the while he has this look on his face that shows that he doesn't want to fight anymore, and that he knows he has lost the battle. But he keeps fighting, because that is what he has to do. He knows if he keeps fighting he'll probably die, but he goes on anyway, wearily.

That alone makes the movie, and I hope I've made sense to people.