Way of the Dragon | Through the Shattered Lens

Chuck Norris is 81 years old today! Below are ten essential Chuck Norris films. These are the movies to watch if you want to understand how and why Chuck Norris, despite being an actor with an admittedly limited range, became not only an action hero but an enduring pop cultural icon.

The Delta Force (1986, directed by Menahem Golan) — The Delta Force, a.k.a. The Greatest Movie Ever Made, is the obvious pick for the top spot on our list of Chuck Norris essentials. Not only does it feature, along with Chuck, Lee Marvin, Robert Vaughn, George Kennedy, Bo Svenson, and Robert Forster chewing up all the scenery but this is the film where Chuck rides a missile-equipped motorcycle. Not only does this film feature Chuck Norris at his stoic-but-determined best but it also features one the greatest lines in film history when a recently released hostage is handed a Budweiser and responds by shouting, “Beer! America!”
Code of Silence (1985, directed by Andrew Davis) — For a film that features Chuck Norris and a crime-fighting robot called THE PROWLER, Code of Silence is actually a tough, gritty, and realistic Chicago-based crime drama. Giving the best performance of his career, Chuck plays an honest cop who finds himself in the middle of a drug war. Henry Silva plays the main bad guy. Director Andrew Davis later went on to direct The Fugitive.
Way of the Dragon (1972, directed by Bruce Lee) — Chuck plays a rare bad guy here. He’s a mercenary named Colt and the film climaxes with a brutal fight between him and Bruce Lee. The fight is a classic, with a good deal of emphasis put on the shared respect between not only the characters played by Norris and Lee but also between Lee and Norris themselves, two masters at the top of their game.
Silent Rage (1982, directed by Michael Miller) — In this slasher/kung fu hybrid, Chuck is a sheriff who must stop a madman who, as the result of a poorly conceived medical experiment, is basically immortal. For once, Chuck faces an opponent who is just as strong and relentless as he is.
Invasion U.S.A. (1985, directed by Joseph Zito) — Chuck vs. Richard Lynch! This is one of Chuck’s best Cannon films. Chuck is as good a hero as ever but what makes the film work is the diabolically evil performance of Richard Lynch. They are ideal opponents, with Norris stepping up to not only defeat the bad guys but also to save America itself!
Lone Wolf McQuade (1983, directed by Steve Carver) — This is the first film to feature Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger and, as we all know, it turned out to be the perfect role for him. This was the first of Chuck’s neo-westerns. Cast as the bad guy, David Carradine proved to be one of Chuck’s best opponents.
A Force of One (1979, directed by Paul Aaron) — A serial killer is targeting cops. Chuck essentially plays himself, a karate instructor who is brought in to teach the detective self-defense. This serial killer plot is actually interesting and the film features some of Chuck’s best fight scenes.
Missing In Action (1984, directed by Joseph Zito) — Chuck plays a vet and a former POW who returns to Vietnam in the 80s to rescue the men who were left behind. This is hardly my favorite Norris film and it owes too much to Rambo: First Blood II to truly be successful but this is also one of Chuck Norris’s biggest hits and it’s an essential film is you want to understand the man’s film career. It’s a cheap production but Chuck’s sincerity and his convincing skills as an action hero almost save the day. It’s also hard to overlook that, as far as I know, this is the only Chuck Norris film that features Chuck watching an episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
An Eye From An Eye (1981, directed by Steve Carver) — Chuck Norris plays an undercover cop who quits the force and tries to bring Christopher Lee to justice. This one is worth seeing just because it brings together two pop culture icons, Chuck Norris and Christopher Lee.
Breaker! Breaker! (1977, directed by Don Hulette) — This was Chuck Norris’s first starring role. He’s actually miscast as a trucker but this film is still worth seeing just for the final scene, in which Chuck and his friends use their trucks to destroy an entire town.

Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris in a battle to the death!

That alone makes The Way of The Dragon worth seeing. This was Bruce Lee’s only completed directorial effort and it was the last of his films to be released during his lifetime. (Lee’s best known film, Enter the Dragon, was released 6 days after Lee’s death. When Lee died, he was directing Game of Death.) In Way of the Dragon, Lee plays Tang Lung, a martial artist who travels from Hong Kong to Rome to help protect the owners of a restaurant from the Mafia. At first, everyone dismisses Tang Lung as being an unsophisticated bumpkin and he does little to convince them otherwise. But when the Mafia tries to intimidate him, Tang reveals how dangerous it is to underestimate him.

The only version of Way of the Dragon that I have seen is the badly dubbed version that was released in the United States so it’s hard for me to judge either the script or the acting, through Bruce Lee was a natural-born movie star and, even when dubbed, as charismatic as ever. During the first half of the film, there is so much humor that it almost seems like a comedy but, unless you find Bruce Lee begging someone to tell him where the bathroom is, a lot of that humor falls flat. Far more interesting is the scene where Tang and a waiter debate the merits of Japanese vs Chinese martial arts. This scene reveals that Lee was just as serious about the philosophy behind the martial arts as he was about the actual fighting.

Most people who watch The Way of the Dragon will do so for the fighting and the film does not disappoint. The Way of the Dragon features some of the best martial arts action ever captured on film. The Mafia hires three martial artists to take on Tang, which means that, along with the usual collection of Mafia thugs, Bruce Lee also fights Bob Wall, Hwang In-shik, and Chuck Norris.

Bruce Lee’s final battle with Chuck Norris is The Way of the Dragon’s most famous scene and perhaps one of the greatest scenes in the history of world cinema. Both Norris and Lee are in top physical form and the two real-life friends held nothing back. The fight was filmed in the Roman Colosseum, confirming that Norris and Lee are meant to be modern-day gladiators, battling to the death but never viewing each other with anything less than respect. Neither Norris nor Lee say a word during their climatic face-off. They let their fists and their feet do the talking. It’s a brutal battle between not just two men but also two different philosophies of fighting.

The Way of the Dragon was Lee’s biggest hit during his lifetime. A modest success when first released in the west, it was re-released following Lee’s death and was retitled The Return of the Dragon. While the American co-production Enter The Dragon is a bigger and slicker production, The Way of the Dragon is the best of Lee’s Hong Kong films and his final battle with Chuck Norris remains the perfect showcase for his skill as a fighter.