The Way of the Dragon (1972)

 ●  English ● 1 hr 40 mins

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Tang Lung arrives in Rome to help his cousins in the restaurant business. They are being pressured to sell their property to the syndicate, who will stop at nothing to get what they want. When Tang arrives he poses a new threat to the syndicate, and they are unable to defeat him. The syndicate boss hires the best Japanese and European martial artists to fight Tang, but he easily finishes them off. The American martial artist Colt is hired and has a showdown with Tang in Rome's famous Colosseum.

Cast: Bruce Lee, Nora Miao

Crew: Bruce Lee (Director), Tadashi Nishimoto (Director of Photography), Joseph Koo (Music Director)

Genres: Action, Crime, Comedy

Release Dates: 01 Jan 1982 (India), 30 Dec 1972 (Hong Kong), 25 Jan 1975 (Japan), 14 Jun 1974 (United Kingdom), 14 Aug 1972 (United States)

Tagline: MAN, CAN WE USE HIM NOW! Bruce Lee is back in the fantastic all new adventures of the Super Hero from "Enter the Dragon..." ..his last performance is his best!

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Did you know? According to the Bruce Lee Documentary, this is Linda Lee Cadwell's (Bruce's wife) favorite of all her husband's films. Read More
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Direction

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Production

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Gaffer

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Film Type:
Feature
Language:
English
Spoken Languages:
Cantonese, Italian, Mandarin
Colour Info:
Color
Sound Mix:
Mono
Frame Rate:
24 fps
Aspect Ratio:
2.35:1
Stereoscopy:
No
Taglines:
MAN, CAN WE USE HIM NOW! Bruce Lee is back in the fantastic all new adventures of the Super Hero from "Enter the Dragon..." ..his last performance is his best!
The Colosseum . . the battleground of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris
Movie Connection(s):
Dubbed into: The Return Of Dragon (Tamil)
Dubbed into: The Way of the Dragon (Cantonese)
Goofs:
Miscellaneous
In the opening credits it lists "Directed and Scriped" by Bruce Lee. It should read "Scripted", with a T.

Continuity
When the gunman is first revealed in Chen's apartment, Tang Lung beats the guy all over, but never hits his face. Later when the gunman is being chewed out, he's shown with a bandaged forehead, two bruised cheeks and a black eye.

Continuity
The position of Tang Lung and the restaurant workers when they are standing at the boss's office door.

Continuity
In an early fight scene at the restaurant, one of the protection racket heavies shapes up to Lee's character. He's seen apathetically in a boxing stance of sorts. When Lee performs a roundhouse kick, the scene (from behind the 'thug') clearly shows him with his arms behind his back and hands near/on his hips so that the kick is delivered unchallenged. He then clearly waves his arms forward from that position to up in the air, which creates a more dramatic effect as to the power of the kick, i.e. knocking him that far off balance.

Continuity
In the second fight scene at the restaurant. There are 2 wooden staffs at the stairs. At first Bruce grabs the left one, the right one is standing on the right side of the cardboard. But when the man with black beard gets back with more guys it stands on the left side of the cardboard.

Continuity
At the beginning of the movie, Bruce Lee is eating several different types of soups and several times he takes a spoonful of an orange colored soup and as he puts it into his mouth some dribbles on his chin. The soup he dribbles on his chin is white.

Continuity
Tang Lung picks up Colt's Black Belt and Gi Jacket. The belt is hanging loosely from the rear and then folded neatly from the front.
Trivia:
Last movie to be filmed in the actual Roman Colosseum.

Bruce Lee had Chuck Norris put on weight to appear larger and more formidable.

The whole thing was shot without sound, with the actors looping their lines in post-production.

Bruce Lee dubbed almost all of the English speaking characters in this film including one line for the boss. That line is: "Take him out, but be careful with that gun in public".

According to the Bruce Lee Documentary, this is Linda Lee Cadwell's (Bruce's wife) favorite of all her husband's films.

Bruce Lee wrote the death threat note which the mafia gave to Uncle Wang.

In the Chinese language versions of the film (Cantonese and Mandarin), Korean actor Wong In-Sik actually spoke both English ("Who can do Karate better than the Japanese?") and Japanese ("Omae wa Tang Long ka?" meaning "Are you Tang Long?).

Was billed "Return of the Dragon" during its western release in order to cash in on the success of "Enter the Dragon" as its "sequel".