The modern take on the classic movies with Bruce Lee starring is called Birth of The Dragon and it is set against the backside of 1960s San Francisco. It's been inspired by the legend born in an epic and still argumentative showdown between kung fu master Wong Jack Man and promising Bruce Lee of those days.
Zippy, B-movie entertainment. It proves that zeroing in on a small but significant part of a famous person's story, and how it reflects on their life at large, can often make for a sturdier entertainment than the usual long-skim approach to the biopic.
The lead actors are basically unknown to American audiences and so are easily accepted in their roles. This adds to the overall believability of the film.
It wants to be a character study, an explication of martial arts philosophy and an action picture ... But the film never really gets fully juiced until the climax ...
Ng does a fine job as Lee, but ... he doesn't capture the charisma and magnetism of Lee - understandable, since he was among the most charismatic and magnetic people on the planet.
How, this far into the 21st century, does a film like this get made? One that shunts Bruce Lee to the status of secondary character in a lazy and boringly familiar star-crossed romance?
There's no reason a movie in which Bruce Lee and Steve McQueen (er, "Steve McKee") duke it out with Chinatown gangsters in mid-1960s San Francisco has any business being this joyless and dull.
