I agree 100%. I loved it. I have it on DVD. People bash it for how fictionalized it is but I see it as an inspirational movie with great entertainment value. The director freely admits he made stuff up. Bruce Lee didn't injure his back in a fight. Why did he put that in there? It looks better than saying he injured his back lifting weights. Fight scenes were added to give the movie a decent pace and to entertain. The producers demanded it.
Obviously the fight scenarios are exaggerated. Johnny Sun is portrayed as a killer who beat up two robbers two death sending one to the hospital and one to the funeral home. The real Martial Artist Bruce Lee fought, Wong Jack Man, did no such thing but when you see that scene that is so intense. Bruce Lee is fighting an actual killer, he's a 20-1 underdog, he's fighting in an underground Martial Arts challenge match in front of Chinese masters for the right to teach Westerners Kung Fu and his student is so worried for him he tries to talk him out of it. Good stuff. Is it historically accurate? Fuck no! But for a Martial Arts movie it is good stuff as is Bruce Lee defending the efficiency of Jeet Kune Do by making good on his promise to beat up any man in 60 seconds or fighting his brother in a fight to the death on the set of a movie (a nod to testimonies of Bruce Lee fighting extras who challenged him).
The demon was pretty cool. The way it is portrayed is that Bruce Lee really had supernatural experiences. From what I understand Bruce Lee fainted on the set of Enter the Dragon and he described it as feeling something was sucking the life force out of him. That is what I've heard that Linda wrote in her book and the director wrote in the script as Bruce Lee experiences real demonic visitations. Plus apparently there are a lot of Chinese superstitions and there was believed to be a curse on Bruce Lee's family lineage which is why they gave him a girl's name to fool spirits who like to steal the souls newborn boys. How eerie is it that this is a theme in the movie and Bruce Lee's son Brandon Lee who the demon comes after in the movie dies for real on the set of the crow? What the fuck?! The irony of that situation is Brandon was asked to play the part of Bruce Lee for Dragon but didn't want to because he thought it would be weird to play his father (e.g. having sex with your mom on screen, conceiving yourself etc. poor guy who can blame him?).
The way the portrayed racism in the movie was great. I loved the scene where he beats up the college bullies and I really wanted to punch that waiter in the face for refusing to seat them in the restaurant. According to Linda her mom really did ask her if she wanted to have "yellow babies." It is sad that people thought like that back then. I found the scene where the Chinese masters are telling Bruce Lee not to teach Blacks and Whites their secrets to be interesting. I hear this isn't historically accurate but watch this scene. The leader of the masters speaks so politely to Bruce trying to reason with him. They don't want Westerners to learn the secrets of Kung Fu because they will use it against them. I mean they are being racist but their racism is somewhat reasonable. The director describes this as benign racism. Racism without malicious intent. But it still hurts! Bruce Lee fights for the right to run his school and teaches who he wants. He gets injured for his effort. Elsewhere while the racism is still benign it is highly offensive e.g. Linda's mother telling him he's an American citizen but not really American or the producers wanting him to keep on his mask because he looks to Oriental or them stealing his idea for the TV series Kung Fu and giving his part to David Carradine.
The move is deep.
The fight scenes were good too. Jason Scott Lee did excellent work portraying Bruce Lee. Honestly while as a biopic it isn't historically accurate as a movie I consider it to be a masterpiece. The story is well-written and the movie is overall inspiring. One of the best Martial Arts movies ever.
