Robert Clouse
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John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
Directed by Chad Stahelski
influenced by Enter the Dragon (1973)
Visuals
Director Stahelski pays fitting tribute to Bruce Lee and “Enter the Dragon” in one fight sequence.
In one well-executed scene, Wick navigates a hall of mirrors reminiscent of Bruce Lee’s final battle in “Enter the Dragon.”
Whether he’s driving a classic 1969 Mustang into the ground or moving stealthily through an “Enter the Dragon”-esque maze of mirrors, Reeves is, like the movie around him, a stunning object of contemplation.
Stahelski and his stunt team don’t hold back either, delivering one great set piece after the other with ultra-slick precision, whether it’s Wick going toe-to-toe with a fellow assassin in Rome or shooting his way through a gang of hired thugs in the “Enter the Dragon”-inspired climax.
Every set, every shot, has been carefully constructed and artfully illuminated as if fight-choreographer-turned-director Chad Stahelski had placed "Lethal Weapon," "Enter the Dragon," "Hardboiled" and the 1960s British TV series "The Prisoner" into a cinematic blender and concocted a motion picture of such visual mastery, every frame could be a postcard photograph.
There’s also a disorienting callback to the Room of Mirrors finalé from Enter the Dragon, which modernizes the locale to a trendy New York art museum.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)
Directed by Chad Stahelski
influenced by Enter the Dragon (1973), Game of Death (1978)
Visuals
Here, Kavanaugh tops himself with spectacular, anachronistic clashes (people use cellphones, but also old-fashioned switch boards and rotary dials) and a stunning, all-glass high-rise office building no doubt inspired by the iconic Hall of Mirrors climax from Bruce Lee's chop-sockey classic "Enter the Dragon."
Guns are standard, but this time Keanu Reeves gets to play with swords, books (in an hilariously violent opening), horses, belts, motorbikes, hatchets, some pretty cool attack dogs (alongside Halle Berry) and also appears in a homage to the hall of mirrors finale in Enter The Dragon .
The film regains its footing in the final battle in a glass-filled space, similar to the Hall of Mirrors in “Enter the Dragon” (1973).
A climactic duel takes place in a glassy hall-of-mirrors-like set that may be a shout-out to the climax of the Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon .
Brief respites for humor (villain Dacascos is irregular but amusing to see in a big-budget endeavor), some Jackie Chan-styled fighting, and vengeful dogs become the high points, while the protracted finale, overflowing with heavy-hitting yet underwhelming skirmishes, is a strangely disappointing lull (mixing “Enter the Dragon” with “The Man with the Golden Gun”).
That said, Stahelski’s addiction to cool imagery makes for some really interesting, if not always totally unique sequences; a climactic location built of reflective glass and floor-to-ceiling screens projecting undulating screensavers of grass and fire evokes the Shanghai skyscraper fight in Skyfall , for example, but the director’s focus on leveling up Wick’s adversaries transforms the influence into Bruce Lee’s Game of Death by way of TRON Legacy .
…battle with the title character that recalls, in its celebrity sports gimmickry, Bruce Lee's bout with basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in "Game of Death" (1972).
Tyson’s presence is akin to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar showing up in Bruce Lee’s “Game of Death” — less a matter of “Why?” than “Why not?”
There is precedent for this, as Lee fought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in his last, unfinished film, Game of Death (1972).
In Bruce Lee’s unfinished film “Game of Death,” there is a classic bout between Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
With his elaborate facial tattoo and sparse, half-English, half-Cantonese dialogue, Tyson doesn’t exactly disappear into his small but central role – nor does his presence in 1959 Hong Kong make much sense – but he justifies his distracting presence during an appropriately intense fight with Ip Man that favourably calls to mind the sparring between Bruce Lee and another iconic American athlete, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in Game of Death.
Both Ip Man’s fight scene with a prominent American sports legend and the film’s most melodramatic plot development conjure up memories of Lee’s “Game of Death”.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced by Game of Death (1978), Enter the Dragon (1973)
Visuals
Of the world cinema mixed-bag of references Q.T. manipulates, it's the yellow tracksuit from Bruce Lee's last movie "Game of Death" that makes the most broadly sweeping statement.
Armed with her samurai sword and dressed in the yellow jumpsuit that is a re-creation of Bruce Lee's in "Game of Death," the 6-foot actress slices and dices her way through a legion of limbs.
It's the cereals, the Pussy Wagon, the yellow and black motorcycle suit Bruce Lee wore in "Game of Death", the Japanese goons in Kato masks, the killer schoolgirl...
In the middle of a loooong, gruesome sword battle near the end, in which The Bride, dressed in Bruce Lee's "Game of Death" track suit, takes on Ishii's hordes of Kato-masked minions, there's a break: The fight is shown in silhouette against a deep blue background.
In the movie's climatic fight scene, for example, Uma's Bride wears a yellow track suit like the one Lee wore in "Game of Death.''
With the aid of choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping (best known in America for his work on "The Matrix") and the astonishing physical grace and presence of Uma Thurman (imagine Marlene Dietrich starring in "Enter the Dragon"), his fight scenes are as ferocious and freaky as those that inspired him in the first place.
Undercover Brother (2002)
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee
influenced by Black Belt Jones (1974), Enter the Dragon (1973)
It houses its smarts in a vehicle that borrows scenes and style from movies as diverse as Billy Dee's own Hit, Jack Hill's Coffy and Foxy Brown, Shaft (of course), Bare Knuckles, and Jim Kelly's kung fu sagas--especially Black Belt Jones and Enter the Dragon, from which a Kelly sequence appears on a television set at one point in Undercover Brother.
It houses its smarts in a vehicle that borrows scenes and style from movies as diverse as Billy Dee's own Hit, Jack Hill's Coffy and Foxy Brown, Shaft (of course), Bare Knuckles, and Jim Kelly's kung fu sagas--especially Black Belt Jones and Enter the Dragon, from which a Kelly sequence appears on a television set at one point in Undercover Brother.
The plot, which involves Triad members up to no good in Paris, is inconsequential and predictable (I knew Max von Sydow shouldn't be trusted the moment he showed up), but it rolls along at a nice enough clip (though, again, antiquely slow compared to "The Bourne Ultimatum") and it does work as an excuse for a free-for-all homage to Asian action cinema, from old kung fu flicks (look for a reversal of the Bruce Lee / Kareem Abdul-Jabbar fight in "Game of Death", as Tucker takes on the world's tallest Asian!) to John Woo's gangster movies (watch Tucker work twin handguns in a hospital, "Hard Boiled"-style!).
You can find more reflections of the Bond series in the music of Lalo Schifrin and in the villain's artificial, Dr. No-like hand and his Blofeld white cat; and you'll see literal reflections of Orson Welles's "The Lady from Shanghai" in the climactic mirror scene.
And that it borrows heavily from a half-dozen other round-eye action films, especially "The Lady from Shanghai" with its replicating mirror sequence, the borrowings coming damn close to plagiarism.
For this chop-socky farce � the title an obvious reference to the 1973 Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon � writer/director/star Steve Oedekerk (he penned the hammy script for Patch Adams) has taken a superfluous 1976 Hong Kong actioner (Tiger & Crane Fists), redubbed it with silly, droll dialogue, and spliced himself into the plot � as the protagonist, of all things.
Combining scenes from The Matrix , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Enter the Dragon, a whole variety of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies, as well as scenes from Twister with a heavy dose of Tom Green humour and fart and poop jokes, Kung Pow! Enter the Fist is 73-minutes too long.
The plot seems taken directly from any number of video games, with a healthy dash of Bruce Lee's "Enter the Dragon" thrown in.
The filmmakers offer obvious nods to everything from Ray Harryhausen ("The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad," "Jason and the Argonauts") to Bruce Lee ("Enter the Dragon") to George Lucas ("Star Wars").
This "mysterious stranger with a deadly agenda" plot springboards into a madcap mix of crazy Vietnam War vet dramas, 1980s mad slasher thrillers (with a "Halloween"-like score), and an homage to Bruce Lee's last movie, "Enter the Dragon" with its climatic hall-of-mirrors smackdown.
KFP, from a clever screenplay by ex-King of the Hill writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, is a tribute to the literally hundreds of '70s Hong Kong martial arts dramas that flooded Saturday-morning U.S. TV in the wake of Bruce Lee's success with Enter the Dragon.
This time, though, even with a surfeit of battle sequences riffing on live-action martial arts iconography dating back to "Enter the Dragon," the energy captivates.
Moreover, The LEGO Batman Movie references the 1985 classic Gymkata and makes the Joker cry.
This is where the series makes the most of its ’70s-era setting, as there are multiple references to martial arts films including Game of Death , with the Minions donning versions of Bruce Lee’s signature yellow jumpsuit.
Notable highlights include a freewheeling and visceral 30 to 40-person prison-yard brawl, a thrillingly crafted, bone-crunchingly destructive car chase, a wryly funny trio of gangland assassinations, and a tense, violently balletic kitchen-based finale that echoes Bruce Lee’s unfinished masterpiece Game Of Death (by way of a particularly narked-off Gordon Ramsay).
Funny, then, that a movie bent on ripping off the basics of the show -- as well as the Bruce Lee movie "Game of Death" and other bits of inspiration for the Tarantino set -- can't be bothered.
The Protector (2005)
Directed by Prachya Pinkaew
influenced by Game of Death (1978), Enter the Dragon (1973)
The sequence, an eye-popping homage to Bruce Lee's "Game of Death," is done, incredibly, in one shot.
The Protector actually seems a bit nostalgic for the days of such Bruce Lee classics as Enter the Dragon and Fist of Fury .
They also enthusiastically discuss the 1973 Bruce Lee action film “Enter the Dragon,” which is “The Black Phone” filmmakers’ nod to how popular Lee was with teenage boys in that era.
Keanu Reeves directs a kung fu movie that plays like Bruce Lee’s original vision for Game of Death.
The orchestral score gives way to traditional Chinese music (original music by Raymond Wong, non-original music by Pablo de Sarasate from various works) and the three sided tenement known as Pig Sty Alley, run by a sleazy, aluminum hair-clipped Landlord (Yuen Wah, "Enter the Dragon") and his battle axe of a wife, the indomitable Landlady (Yuen Qiu, "The Man With the Golden Gun").
Mortal Kombat should be an inspired version of Bloodsport meets Enter the Dragon .
Director Simon McQuoid makes a surprisingly adept directorial debut with a big budget remounting, which basically serves as a remake of the 1995 film (itself aping the plot of Enter the Dragon ), although with various notable shifts in character focus in the script from Greg Russo and David Callaham.