Dragon exit

Li is one of the mentors of the Shaolin Monastery . He studies martial arts in terms of philosophy , but at the same time has outstanding abilities. One day, Lee receives an invitation to participate in a tournament organized by a certain Khan on the island. From his teacher, Li learns that once Khan was also a student of Shaolin, but once insulted the rules of the monastery, trying to direct his power to gain power, and was expelled.

A member of the police organization, Bratwait, comes to Lee and asks for his help: Khan is suspected of making drugs and organizing prostitution. After World War II, Khan acquired an island on which tournaments are held every three years. Here he created a school of martial arts, and also tries a new secret formula of drugs on the girls under his command.

The Braithwaite organization needs a man who penetrates the island and finds evidence of illegal actions before a detachment is sent there to capture it. They already sent there their agent Mae Lin, who took on the role of a prostitute, but since then there has been no news from her. Lee, a martial artist, is an ideal candidate for this mission, since it is forbidden to carry firearms on the island. Before leaving, Lee meets with his father, and he tells him that one of the people of Khan, O'Hara, is to blame for the death of his sister.

Lee takes the junk that belongs to Khan and sets off for the island. Other fighters are sailing on the ship: one of them, the American Roper, takes part in the tournament in the hope of winning a cash prize in order to pay his card debts to members of the gangster group. The other is African - American Williams, trying to avoid punishment after a fight with two racist cops in Los Angeles . Guests are invited to a lavish banquet upon arrival. In the evening, Khan invites prostitutes to the tournament. Lee asks Agent May Lin to call in and talks to her.

The next morning, Roper and Williams defeat their opponents in battles and, making bets, win money. At night, Lee tries to find something suspicious on the island. He finds a secret entrance to the underground base, but stumbles upon the Khan's guards and, having knocked them out, returns to his room. At this time, Williams went for a walk and noticed Lee - the guard saw a black man and reported this to Khan.

The next day, Khan warns the tournament participants that they cannot leave the rooms allotted for them, and punishes the three guards for negligence by releasing his bodyguard Bolo, who brutally kills them during the fight. After a moment, Lee is summoned to his first duel, and O'Hara becomes none other than his opponent. Lee defeats him using a few single punches, but not wanting to admit defeat, O'Hara grabs the bottles and makes roses out of them. Lee knocks out and kills the enemy, and Khan, dissatisfied with the behavior of his fighter, interrupts the tournament today.

Khan calls Williams into his office and accuses him of assaulting the guards. An African American denies the allegations and is about to leave the island, Khan releases guards at him and, after their failure, personally kills Williams in a duel. After that, the owner of the island invites Roper to walk around the underground base and offers him to become his representative in the United States. Roper is skeptical of the proposal and asks Khan why he reveals his secrets to him, not yet knowing what awaits him: consent or refusal. Then Khan shows him the body of the murdered Williams, hinting that he might suffer the same fate. Gritting his teeth, Roper accepts the offer. That same night, Li penetrates the underground base and finds grounds for the arrest of Khan. Using a radio transmitter, he sends a message to Bratwait, but without knowing all the devices, accidentally turns on the alarm . Lee defeats Khan’s numerous guards, but ultimately falls into the trap that walled him up in the passage.

In the morning, Khan orders Roper to fight Lee, but the American replies that there is still a line that he can never cross. Then the owner of the island appoints him a new rival - Bolo. Despite the difference in weight category, Roper defeats Bolo, and an enraged Khan orders all his guards to kill him and Lee. Two fighters beat off the countless number of Han people, while Mei Lin releases all the prisoners in the underground prison from the cells. Prisoners fight on the side of Lee and Roper.

During this confusion, Khan tries to escape, but Lee follows him. The hand prosthesis Khan is adapted for various “nozzles” - and this time he inserts an iron brush with blades there. Despite this, Lee leads in a duel, and Khan is forced to take refuge in a mirror hall. Due to strange reflections, Lee cannot find Khan, and he kicks him in the back. Remembering the teacher’s wisdom, “break the illusion of the enemy and draw his real form”, he begins to break the mirrors and soon meets Khan face to face. Killing him, Lee rises to the surface and sees that Roper and the prisoners were able to defeat the guards. Two fighters show each other their thumbs raised, and just at that time helicopters with reinforcements that Lee called up land on the island.

After completing the filming of The Return of the Dragon , Bruce Lee began working on scenes for the upcoming film The Game of Death . The script for him did not exist yet, but the main development of the plot was already thought out. By this time, Bruce Lee was already a famous actor, and he often received offers from various film companies ^[5] .

The Hollywood movie studio “Warner Brothers” also decided to make a joint project with Bruce and made the martial artist an offer he had been waiting for for many years: now he could get the main role in the American film and manage all the scenes of the fights ^[5] . Thus, work on the “Game of Death” was suspended, and in October 1972, Bruce Lee and producer Raymond Zhou flew to the United States to sign a contract and meet with the actors and the director.

The filming period of the film began on January 25, 1973, and ended on April 2 of the same year. By the time the filming began, Bruce Lee convinced the film studio to change the name of the future film: instead of “Blood and Steel” - “Exit the Dragon” ^[6] . It was decided to invite Robert Klause, who was then the author of only two full-length films, to the post of director of the picture. According to Robert himself, he was chosen because Bruce Lee was impressed by one of the fights he shot ^[6] . When Robert Claus arrived in Hong Kong , Bruce Lee brought him to the cinema for one of the films with his participation so that the director could feel the atmosphere of the paintings and know who he would work with ^[6] . Since the budget of the film was very modest, one of the actors - Rockney Tarkinton - left three days before the filming began. His place was taken by world champion in karate Jim Kelly ^{[~ 1]} .

Bruce Lee was very interested in the character he played: it was important for him whether the West would accept the Chinese hero and whether his compatriots would correctly understand his actions ^[6] . According to Robert Klause, screenwriter Michael Allin ironically commented on this, in his opinion the only reason they started making this film was that it was cheap, but at the same time guaranteed popularity due to the name of Bruce ^[6] . The relationship between Bruce and Michael was heating up, and one day Lee said that he could not and would not work with him, and that the script should be rewritten. “Warner Brothers” sent a new version of the script, but this time it was based only on philosophy, and it lacked action ^[6] . Filming was supposed to start without Bruce Lee, but his wife Linda assured the others that he must return. Only two weeks after the start of work on the film, Linda managed to persuade him to reconcile ^[6] .

From the very beginning of filming, everything went smoothly. The biggest difficulties arose because the cast was mixed: the Chinese and the Americans. There were not enough translators , and often it was impossible to find adequate equivalents of one or another statement in these languages ^[6] . There was not enough material for the equipment of the set: some of the scenery was made of clay and wire. Also, clashes often occurred between stuntmen and extras, as they were in rival "clans" of Chinese groups. Among other stuntmen, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung , who at that time were not yet famous actors, starred. Sammo is a participant in the fight with Bruce at the beginning of the film, and Jackie can be seen as one of the island's guards defeated by Lee.

The first scene in which Bruce Lee was to play was an episode in a room with a girl. On this day, he had nervous twitches of his face, noticeable in close-ups. Then they began to improvise with different angles of the cameras, and after lunch Bruce returned to normal. A huge load fell on Bruce Lee: he had to repeat the fight scenes dozens of times, even if one of the actors missed his cue or took a step in the wrong direction. Along with this, heat, humidity, back pain and dehydration shook Bruce's condition - he began to lose weight dramatically. At night, he could not fall asleep and practiced battle scenes ^[6] . Lee made high demands on the game, and at the same time, Bob Wall in his memoirs talked about how Robert Claus was dissatisfied with the filming of the film, where the main actor is not able to speak English correctly ^[6] :

It was Claus himself who asked Michael Allin to change the name of the British agent in the script in order to set Bruce up. Claus changed his character name to Bratwaite because he knew that it would be difficult for Bruce to say: “Yes, Mr. Bratwaite; no, Mr. Bratwaite ”- pronouncing this word, it will sound like Donald Duck . I can never understand how Bruce refrained from filling Klouse’s face ... Bruce wasn’t completely confident in his acting abilities, but he always knew how to direct the action - something that Klaus had no idea about.

Original text

It was Clouse himself who asked Michael Allin to change the name of the British agent in the script - to fuck Bruce up. Clouse changed the character's name to Braithwaite because he knew Bruce would have trouble with "Yes, Mr. Braithwaite; no, Mr. Braithwaite" - it made him sound like Donald Duck. How Bruce kept from punching out Robert Clouse, I'll never know ... Bruce was not greatly secure in his acting ability, but he knew how to direct action - something which Clouse had no idea about.

Then the problems began with the selection of actresses in the role of prostitutes. Then the real ones were hired, and they began to receive $ 150 a day, while, for example, actress Angela Mao had a fee of $ 100 for two days. It was very difficult to film the battle of the mantis during the scene on the junior, as they refused to fight. Another incident happened during the filming of the battle of Bruce Lee and Bob Wal. In this episode, Bruce pushes his opponent with a kick to a row of chairs, after which Wal grabs two bottles and breaks their bottoms, making “rosettes”. When Bob went on the attack, Bruce kicked and then turned to punch and hit the edge of the glass with his hand. Li was taken to the hospital and put twelve stitches on his finger. After this incident, there were rumors that Bruce wants to take revenge on Wahl. Bob personally called Lee and made sure it was just gossip. ^[6]

The following emergency occurred during the filming of the episode when Bruce Lee tried to infiltrate Khan's base. There was a cobra near the entrance to it, and before each break, Bruce had to slightly hit her nose to open a hood around her head. Once she bit him, but, fortunately, she was deprived of the poison before filming ^[6] .

The scene on the junky when Bruce Lee instead of going to the island and fighting with the Parsons who offered him this, puts him in a boat and unties, making a toy in his hands, based on the anecdote of the famous Japanese samurai Tsukahara Bokuden ^[7] . In the film, you can only see how the boat quickly glides over the water, but in fact, a few moments after that, it turned over and threw actor Peter Archer into the China Sea ^[6] .

Quite often, one of the three hundred extras consisting of street guys approached Bruce in order to challenge the genuineness of his game. More often than not, the martial artist ignored this, but in extreme cases, he tapped the opponent’s foot lightly three times, recalling his nickname “Bruce Three Legs,” and that ended with that ^[6] . In such cases, it was possible to understand the difference between when Lee plays in the movies and how he fights in ordinary life: everything should be beautiful on the film, but effective and simple in life. According to Robert Klause, in order to see how Bruce Lee’s hand lunges and strikes, you had to accelerate the camera to thirty-two frames per second, since at normal speed of the film it would simply be impossible to see ^[6] .

In the original scenario, there was no room for a final fight between Lee and Khan: according to this option, the island owner had to run into a blade nozzle on his arm. On some of the films shot by cameraman Henry Wong, scenes of fights not included in the film were captured. After completion of work, they were destroyed and can no longer be restored.

The fate of Bruce Lee after filming

On May 10, 1973, Bruce Lee worked on the voice of The Dragon Exit at Golden Harvest. In a small room there was a lot of heat, because the air conditioner was turned off so that noise from it would not affect the recording. Not having time to relax after a grueling shoot, Bruce was in these conditions for several days. Once he said that he was unwell and went to the toilet to wash his face with cold water ^[8] . Twenty minutes later, the assistant began looking for Lee and found him lying on the floor in a half-faint state. On the way back to the studio, he fell again and began to choke.

Bruce was immediately taken to the nearest hospital, where they found that his temperature had risen to forty degrees. Lee’s eyes opened and closed, and could not focus at one point. Doctors thought about the possible causes of the attack and, when a tumor was found in the brain, they decided that it was most likely caused by cerebral edema ^[8] . According to doctors, at that time Bruce Lee was close to death, and if there had not been improvements in their condition, they would have been forced to undergo brain surgery ^[8] .

After that, Bruce Lee worked on the movie " The Game of Death ", which was never completed: Bruce died on July 20, 1973 from cerebral edema, which came from a still unknown reason. The tragedy occurred even before the "Exit of the Dragon" was released.

The soundtrack for the film was written by the famous jazz pianist and composer of Argentinean origin Lalo Shifrin . The music was mainly written with the help of wind instruments, usually used by jazz ensembles, in addition, traditional Chinese instruments were used to give the soundtrack a national touch in the performance of some melodies. When mixing soundtracks, the composer often used a sampling technique, for example, fragments of Bruce Lee's battle cry were included in the title topic ^[13] .

In Asia and Japan, the title topic of the film was published as a separate single, which subsequently received the status of gold ^[13] .

Immediately after the start of the rental, “Dragon Exit” became very popular. The budget of the film was quite modest - $ 850 thousand ^[14] , but despite this, the profit in North America amounted to $ 25 million. Worldwide, this amount totaled $ 90 million ^[15] .

In Hong Kong, the film gave an income of $ 3.3 million (in local HKD dollars) - a huge amount for its time. ^[15] .

The Allmovie website ranks Dragon's Exit at four and a half stars out of five. Commentator Judd Blaze writes that the film is one of the most popular kung fu paintings of all time. He believes that “Dragon's Exit” was successful thanks to well-set battle scenes ^[16] . On the Rotten Tomatoes website , the film received a rating of 97% (36 fresh tomatoes were thrown into it and only one rotten), and the average score on a ten-point scale was 7.8. The site Filmcritic.com estimates the film at four out of five stars and calls it a classic of the genre, which every self-respecting viewer should see ^[17] . Lang Thompson, in a review of the movie on Turner Classic Movies, writes that Bruce Lee’s first work with an American studio brought together the entire drive of Hong Kong films with his participation, and that the film is called the best in its genre, because it is not only martial artists ^{[ 18]} .

Rolling Stone Magazine rates Dragon's Exit as three out of four stars. The review, written by David Libsky, reports that if kung fu is the new badass language, then Dragon Exit with the angry expression of Bruce Lee's eyes is the first grammar lesson ^[19] . Time magazine writes that all battle scenes are made very smooth, and that they are represented in large numbers, leaving little space for the plot itself. The article also says that the film is a kung fu festival that can turn even a sophisticated audience into young children ^[20] . “Dragon Way Out” is on the list of five hundred best films of all time according to the version of the British Empire magazine and takes 474th place in it ^[21] .

Some critics have called Dragon Coming out a cheap James Bond movie ^[22] , a remake of Doctor No with elements from Fu Manchu ^[23] . Dr. Craig D. Reid, in his article, “The Little Dragon Comes Out” (A View from Behind the Scenes of Filming Bruce Lee Films), writes that “most martial artists agree on one point - it was a great movie, but the fighting scenes in it are really Hollywood ":" It’s hard to imagine what the producers hoped for, coming up with a fight between Bolo Young and John Saxon , who was significantly inferior in combat skill. " He also believes that the film has problems with the production of battle scenes ^[24] .

“Dragon exit” is one of the first manifestations of kung fu in American cinema ^[25] , so the martial artist, who appeared before the Western world in the person of Bruce Lee , had a huge impact on the popularization and further development of martial arts films ^[26] . For example, another famous film actor-karate Jean-Claude Van Damme was involved in contact sports impressed by this film, considered Bruce Lee his idol and tried his best to imitate him ^[27] .

In addition, the gaming industry was also affected to a large extent - almost all computer games in the fighting genre have a character that somehow imitates the style of jitkundo developed by Bruce and actively used in the film ^[28] . The plot of the foundational series of the Mortal Kombat game series is absolutely identical to “Dragon's Exit” - the best fighters from around the world gather in the same way on the island to participate in the tournament, and the main character, Liu Kang , is also a pupil of the Shaolin Monastery . Many of the movements that Bruce Lee performed in the film are used by Marshall and Forest Law - characters in the Tekken series of games ^[29] . In the fifth part, Marshall Law even wears the same clothes that were on Bruce during one of the battles, and the same wounds are visible on his chest as were inflicted on Bruce with the claws of Khan's steel arm in the final duel. In Street Fighter games, Bruce Lee is often associated with a character named Faye Lun, who first appeared in Super Street Fighter II (he also wears black pants, wushu slippers and claw scars on his chest). In the Dead or Alive series, Jit Lee uses Jitkundo techniques, and Jackie Bryant uses Virtua Fighter games. In the Eternal Champions game, released in 1993 by Sega Genesis, it is used by the character Mitchell "Midnight" Middleton, which is directly indicated in his game biography. The nunchaku moves demonstrated by Bruce Lee in the film became the basis for a character named Maxi, one of the fighters of the Soulcalibur game ^[30] . The creators of the famous Double Dragon family of militant games have shown a peculiar tribute to the “Exit of the Dragon”, naming some characters in honor of the heroes of the film: Williams, Roper, O'Hara and Bolo.

References to Dragon's Exit can be seen in many other film industry products. The final scene with breaking mirrors, for example, was borrowed by the creators of the films Conan the Destroyer and Shadow . In the episode " No Chris Left Behind " of the animated series Griffins, there is a fight scene in which Ernie chick breaks a window and sees a wound on his stomach, wipes the blood with his finger and tastes it - exactly the same actions were done by Lee during the final battle with Khan. The plot of the episode “Re-Enter the J-Team” of Jackie Chan's Adventures is entirely based on “The Exit of the Dragon”. There are references to the film in the episode " Grandfather Fight " of the cartoon sitcom Ghetto . For example, Huey quotes Bruce Lee during a conversation with his grandfather: “What was that? Window dressing? Need emotion, rage ”( Eng. What was that? An exhibition? You need emotional content ) ^{[~ 2]} . Huey also wears clothing that matches what Lee wore during the training scene. Kensiro's character, the protagonist of the animated film Fist of the North Star , is largely based on the image of Lee. The protagonist of the action movie “ The Last Dragon ” identified himself with the hero of Bruce Lee. The famous Japanese anime director Shinichiro Watanabe considers “Dragon's Exit” to be his favorite film, in one of the interviews he also noted that this picture had a great influence on the shooting of the Cowboy Bebop television series ^[31] . Parodies of “The Exit of the Dragon” are the films “ Balls of Fury ” and “ Kentucky Solyanka ”.

Some trace was left by the film in the music industry. The British band Jamiroquai used soundtracks from the soundtrack as intros to the songs of the Dynamite album. The Inner Terrestrials band, playing in the style of ska punk , made a cover version of the soundtrack for “Dragon's Exit,” adding its own text to the original music. The title theme of the film sounded as a musical accompaniment to the test "Cell Maze" of the popular Japanese game show " Takeshi Castle ." In addition, the leading composition of the film is present in the Korean jukeboxes of the Pump It Up series, where it is presented in a mixed version performed by the South Korean group jtL . Several tracks in rapper Andre Nikatin 's album “Raven in My Eyes” begin and end with tunes from “Dragon's Exit,” and the rapper Kool G Rap’s repertoire includes the song “Enter the Dragon”. The film influenced the recording of the album “ Radio Africa ” by the Leningrad group Aquarium , after watching the action movie several times, Boris Grebenshchikov decided to play the choir of Shaolin monks in the final of the song “Another Fallen Down”: “A-mito-bo, a-mito-bo ... " ^[32] . Under the title “ Dragon 's Exit, ” a tribute album was issued to the Soviet-Russian rocker Ricochet .

In the famous film “The Needle” with Victor Tsoi in the title role, the fighting scenes with his participation are based on scenes from “The Exit of the Dragon”. The hero of Viktor Tsoi (Moro) receives wounds on his face similar to the wounds of the hero of Bruce Lee - several scratches on his cheek. It is known that Viktor Tsoi was a fan of Bruce Lee, and, impressed by his films, he was engaged in martial arts. This is reflected in the songs of Tsoi - in particular, in the song "Legend".

In 2007, Warner Independent Pictures announced that it would be filming a remake of Dragon's Exit. ^[33] A film called Awaken the Dragon is directed by Kurt Sutter, producer of the American television series Shield . He is the author of the scenario in which the protagonist (a lone FBI agent ) chases a Shaolin monk in clandestine fighting clubs. By genre, the film will have to belong to noir ^[33] . Kurt Sutter said that he wants to show real cruelty in his film: “It will be more like“ Raging Bull ”than“ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ”” ^[33] .

• Enter the Dragon at HKMDB
• Dragon Exit on allmovie  
• Dragon's Way Out ( Rotten Tomatoes)
• Enter the Dragon on Box Office Mojo