Golden Harvest | Through the Shattered Lens

From Golden Harvest comes this tribute to their biggest star, Bruce Lee.

Starting with Lee’s birth and early film career and ending with Lee’s mysterious death and posthumous fame, Bruce Lee, The Legend is a breezy documentary about the world’s greatest martial arts star. Since it was made by Golden Harvest and designed to serve as a tribute to both Bruce’s life and his continuing fame, do not expect to hear a negative word about Bruce in Bruce Lee, The Legend. Then again, I don’t think I have ever come across anything negative about Bruce Lee. While Bruce Lee probably was not as saintly as he’s portrayed in this documentary, every thing that I’ve read about Lee indicates that there was little difference between who Lee was in real life and who Lee was in the movies.

For fans of Bruce Lee, the most interesting part of this documentary will be the clips of Bruce as a young actor, often playing juvenile delinquents in films that were never widely released in the United States or Europe. Judging from the clips shown, Lee’s movie star charisma was present even when he was a teenager. The documentary also provides details about Bruce’s father, a stage actor who was well-known for his work in what the documentary describes as being Hong Kong’s “version of vaudeville.” Of course, this documentary also contains clips from Lee’s better-known films, like Enter the Dragon, Way of the Dragon, and The Big Boss. Even in brief and out-of-context clips, Lee is always exciting to watch.

I finally got around to checking out Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky over on Netflix Instant and It’s as great as the first time I saw it on VHS almost 15 years ago. It’s during the second fight Ricky finds himself in that I’ve picked the latest entry in the “Scenes I Love” feature.

This scene has Ricky in just his second day in prison (for a crime he did commit) and already gaining the attention of the prison gang leaders who control the different cell blocks. This scene has him fighting it out with Oscar who happens to be the leader of the gang that runs the North Cell. It’s a fight that has Ricky fighting unarmed against Oscar who wields a custom machete/saw-toothed sword. One would think that Ricky would be at a major disadvantage, but one would be oh so mistaken.

Ricky is not just a master of kung fu, but he’s got powers that Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon would kill babies and cook kittens to acquire. The scene best explains it all and having it dubbed in classic martial arts style makes it even better: “Alright! you got a lot of guts Oscar!”