龙争虎斗

Released posthumously after Bruce Lee’s untimely death at 32, ENTER THE DRAGON is an American and Hong Kong co-production that canonizes Lee’s screen immortality, patterning after the au courant James Bond template, it whisks Lee, a Shaolin martial artist, under the aegis of British Intelligence Service to an offshore island in Hong Kong, where supervillain Han (Shih), a former Shaolin practitioner, governs as a one-man empire, ostensibly for martial art training, a cover for his backdoor operation of drug trafficking and a prostitution ring.

Han arranges a martial art tournament every three years (an activity seemingly nonsensical as it only courts unwanted extraneous attention, whose justification Michael Allin’s vapid script half-asses), so here are some prominent participants, besides Lee, there is Roper (Saxon), a hardened gambler, who functions as a Caucasian moral yardstick (whose libidinous proclivity is also strictly Caucasian) and the Afro-sporting Williams (Kelly), who is bumptious, debauched and has to get his lumps in a hard way, together they will face Hen’s trained henchmen, lead by O’Hara (Wall), who happens to be answerable for the death of Lee’s sister Su Lin (Mao), and a burly goon Bolo (Yeung).

After a prologue in Shaolin Temple where Lee elucidates his tenet of “emotional content” in martial arts, and the panoply of Hong Kong’s erstwhile ghettos-on-the-sea, the rest of the film sticks to the derivative plot-line slavishly, festooned by an oriental menagerie that has no aesthetic moderation, but when Lee finally acts up, the movie whirls towards a rapturous experience, his “fight without fight” movements, so fiercely accurate, physically engaged, that their dramatic impact is never authenticated by the battered opponents, but Lee himself, straining his wiry, flexed body and uttering his trademark screech, all condensed in a severity that is awe-inspiring, there is no room for hesitation or weakness, Lee is the real deal, he means business, although he hardly takes a hit (a major contrast to Jackie Chan’s comic-inflected choreography, who appears several times as bit players, can you spot him?), crimson gushes across his torso only stir his mettle during the climatic smackdown, where a hall of mirrors becomes the time-honored, visual shorthand of breaking the illusory distractions and going for the jugular, yes, it is all kitschy (Schifrin’s jazz-fusion score included), but Lee is sui generis, indomitable, indelible and the last person on earth one wants to mess with.

referential entries: Terence Young’s DR. NO (1962, 6.4/10); King Hu’s DRAGON INN (1967, 7.6/10).

想要做好一件事，需要具备几个必要的条件，其中首要的条件是做到能理解事物的本质。

如何做到准确的理解事物的本质呢？李小龙的方法是emotional content，我觉得这句应该翻译成内心的平静。接下来李小龙说：Like a finger pointing a way to the moon, do not concentrate on the finger or u will miss all that heavenly glory.

只有去除杂念，才能获得沉静的内心。如此，你将看到的不再是作为表象的手指，而是照亮内心的明月。

《龙争虎斗》是李小龙进军国际大银幕的作品，也是他全球最高票房的一部作品，由于好莱坞资本注入，得以在美国等地区正式上映，最终斩获了2.3亿票房。该片投资方换成华纳后，导演也换成了老外，当时好莱坞还不够信任李小龙，为此还请来了另外两位美国影星搭戏以保证票房，反正我是没看出这两b有多能打，不仅稀释了李小龙的戏分，武打档次也远不及《猛龙过江》（纯属个人看法）。彼时演大boss的石坚已60岁，即便有着武术功底，也已心有余而力不足，套上神装金刚爪依旧斗不过裸装李小龙，也不知当初金刚狼的创意有没有窃取他的造型。

影片虽用了大量对白阐述了截拳道的武学哲思，比如台词“木头是不会还手的”“武术的最好境界就是将技巧隐于无形”“以进为退、以退为进”等等，然而通篇操着英文说佛学还是让我有那么点出戏，中美文化差异也导致了许多气质上的水土不服。

另外大家对于这部电影的最大乐趣就是找成龙了，洪金宝这个灵活的胖子还是很好认，开头翻了几个跟斗后被揍了一顿，而成龙是真的挺不好找，记得石坚饰演的boss有用粤语喊到他的名字，两个功夫巨星、两个时代的交手还是大家最想看的啊。