‘Birth of the Dragon’ edited to focus on Asian lead actors
BIRTH of the Dragon, the biopic on a youthful Bruce Lee, has been edited to focus on the Asian leads.
During last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, the movie drew brickbats for its emphasis on a Caucasian character.
George Nolfi’s fictionalised account of an infamous 1964 bout between Lee and Shaolin master Wong Jack Man is an inferior effort that fails to do justice to both its central character and provocative premise. Birth of the Dragon only serves to disprove the cinematic saying, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
While the current version thankfully makes it more of a supporting role for the Caucasian actor, there’s still too much of him. And the melodramatic subplot in which he prominently figures has the dated feel of a 1930s- era Warner Bros. gangster film.
The character, Steve ( Billy Magnussen), is one of the students of the young, cocky Lee ( Philip Ng), who’s teaching his unique style of kung fu in San Francisco. Steve becomes intrigued when he hears of the imminent arrival in the city of Wong, who apparently resents Lee introducing the Chinese martial art to Westerners.
Taking a menial job as a dishwasher in a Chinatown restaurant, the reserved, dignified Wong bides his time until Lee, well aware of his rival’s presence, challenges him to a fight. Wong agrees, but on the stipulation that it not be held publicly and only in the presence of a dozen or so witnesses. That doesn’t stop the upcoming bout from becoming a local sensation, with Chinese gangsters betting heavily on the outcome.
Meanwhile, Steve becomes romantically involved with a beautiful waitress (Jingjing Qu) who’s being held as an indentured servant by Auntie Blossom (Jin Xing), the female crime figure who arranged for her passage to America. When the menacing Auntie gets wind of Steve snooping around her prized employee, she threatens to send her to work in one of her “houses.”
The infamous bout between Lee and Wong has become shrouded in mystery, although it supposedly led to the former radically readjusting his fighting style, an idea at which the film nods. But the pedestrian screenplay by Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele doesn’t do much to make the confrontation particularly interesting in narrative terms. As depicted here, the epic battle held in an abandoned warehouse is at least visually arresting with its dramatic contrast between the bare- chested Lee and the orange-robed Wong who, in true Shaolin style, seems to be dancing as much as fighting.