Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

A major source for the film's screenplay, which was written by director Rob Cohen in cooperation with Edward Khmara and John Raffo, was Linda Lee Cadwell's biography Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew.[4] Other sources included Robert Clouse's book Bruce Lee: The Biography, and original research by Khmara and Cohen.[5][6] Cadwell provided resources for the film's production. Scenes showing hand-written notes and drawings from Bruce's book Tao of Jeet Kune Do are his original works.[7] She also provided access to Bruce's clothing so replicas could be created for the film.[8]

Cohen stated his first problem when writing the screenplay was to condense Bruce's life into under two hours of film. He decided to avoid making a standard biographical film and instead incorporate "mystical and legendary aspects" to dramatise Bruce's life,[6] telling his story "as if it were, in fact, a Bruce Lee movie".[9] Cohen learnt that for the first two years of Bruce's life, his parents had dressed and passed him off as a girl to protect him from a superstitious Chinese belief that demons target first-born sons. Influenced by this tale, Cohen decided to show Bruce being pursued by a supernatural demon, seeing it as a metaphor for an inner demon that may have motivated and influenced Bruce. When Cohen first met Cadwell after giving her the screenplay, she asked how Cohen had learnt about Bruce's demon. Cohen said he had dramatised the plot element after studying his life; Cadwell said Bruce told her he felt as though a demon was trying to drag him away when he collapsed 10 weeks before his death.[6] Cohen spent hours talking to both Cadwell and Brandon in preparation for the film.[10]

Actors were still being considered for the role of Bruce in April 1991, including Brandon Lee.[11] While Brandon was the right age and had appropriate martial arts training to portray his father, and was perceived by some as a likely choice for the role, producer Raffaella De Laurentiis said he did not look Chinese enough and that she would have refused to work on the project if they had to resort to making Brandon appear more Asian.[5] Brandon independently turned down the role, finding it too strange to play his father, especially when it came to the romantic life of his parents.[12] Jason Scott Lee, who had auditioned for a role in The Last of the Mohicans but was rejected because he did not appear Native American, was recommended for the role of Bruce early in pre-production.[5] The Last of the Mohicans's casting director was impressed with him and recommended him to Cohen.[10] Jason said at first he felt intimidated by his role portraying Bruce but he overcame his fear after speaking to Brandon.[10] Jason, who had no martial arts training prior to his role in the film, was a gymnast and athlete. Cohen cast Jason because he believed trying to teach a martial artist to act would be more difficult than training an actor in martial arts.[13] To prepare for their roles, Jason and Lauren Holly trained in Bruce's martial-arts style of Jeet Kune Do for months under Bruce's former student Jerry Poteet.[10] Poteet praised Jason's new martial arts abilities, as did John Cheung, the actor who portrayed Johnny Sun and served as the film's fight and stunt coordinator. Cheung worked as a stuntman on Enter the Dragon.[5] Cohen chose him because he believed it was important for the fight scenes to be choreographed in a Hong Kong style rather than a US one.[14]

Cohen cast Nancy Kwan as Gussie Yang, a restaurant owner and Bruce's employer. Like Bruce, Kwan played a pivotal role in the acceptance of actors of Asian ancestry in major Hollywood film roles and Cohen wanted audiences to be reminded of her achievement and the struggle of Asian actors in the US.[15] He cast Michael Learned as Vivian Emery because he loved her portrayal of Olivia in The Waltons and wished to see Bruce's confrontation with the person recognisable as that character.[16] Emery gave filmmakers permission to portray her as initially hostile and racist towards Bruce; Emery said she had treated him that way when they first met.[5][6]

Van Williams, who played The Green Hornet in the 1960s TV series of the same name, was given a cameo appearance as the director of The Green Hornet.[17] Bruce's daughter, Shannon, has a cameo as a singer in the party scene, at which Linda tells Bruce she is pregnant with Shannon.[18] Sven-Ole Thorsen was cast as the Demon due to his height and physique. Cohen states he did a "remarkable job" during the fight scenes considering he was unable to see out of the costume's headpiece.[16] Cohen gave himself a cameo as the director of Enter the Dragon.[19]

Lo Pan Temple was used for the film's opening scene. The ceramic figures at the top drew Cohen's attention when he was scouting locations.[6]

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was filmed primarily in Hong Kong, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The opening scene was filmed at an 18th-century temple in Hong Kong, which Cohen found while scouting locations. Cohen, who wanted the audience to understand from the beginning that the film would not be a traditional biography, incorporated the theme of a demon chasing Bruce. Cohen wanted to film in Seattle but found little cooperation from local authorities and was denied permission to film at the University of Washington, which Bruce had attended. It was subsequently decided to merge the events of Bruce's life that occurred in Seattle with those that occurred later when he moved to California, where much of the filming took place.[15]

Filming was delayed multiple times; Cohen had a heart attack on 6 February 1992, delaying production for a month;[20] another delay was caused when Jason became ill.[21] Filming was also affected by a monsoon during which Hong Kong experienced its heaviest rainfall in decades,[21] as well as an extortion attempt by a triad,[21] who threatened Cohen and other individuals because the crew were working on the gang's territory. Cohen sped up production so the cast and crew could vacate the area earlier than planned.[22] The setbacks used up the entirety of the film's $1.3 million contingency budget.[20]

The fight between Bruce and the chefs is set in San Francisco but was filmed on a set in Hong Kong,[23] and some of the scenes that take place in Hong Kong were filmed in California.[24] The outdoor scene in which Bruce teaches martial arts to a football team was filmed at a college in Los Angeles using exact replicas of the columns at the University of Washington, where Bruce used to teach.[25] The crowd scenes during the premiere of The Big Boss were shot in Macao, China, because the crew could not obtain permission to close roads and film scenes involving hundreds of extras in Hong Kong, where the scene is set.[26]

More than 1,600 shots were taken for the film, of which a thousand were for the eight fight scenes.[27] Cohen inserted several references to Bruce's films; the extended warm-up routine by Bruce and Johnny before their fight is a reference to the one performed by Bruce and Chuck Norris before their fight in The Way of the Dragon.[14]

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story's original budget had been about $14 million.[5] Despite exhausting the contingency budget, Universal agreed to spend a further $1 million on fight-scene sound effects and the soundtrack after viewing the film's rough cut, bringing the final cost to $16 million.[20] None of the custom-made sound effects in the fight scenes were used twice.[28]

Cohen decided to expand the theme of Bruce's father's belief that a demon was stalking his son, by showing the Demon chasing Brandon. Filming was completed and Dragon was less than two months away from opening when Brandon died in a shooting accident while filming The Crow in March 1993.[5] Cohen stated the scene is one of the "eeriest moments" in the film for him; after Brandon's death it "gave [him] great pause to think and still haunts [him]".[29] Following Brandon's death, Cohen asked Cadwell whether she wanted to postpone the release or modify the film; she declined and asked for it to be dedicated to his memory with an appropriate quotation. With Cadwell's approval, Cohen chose a quotation by Saint Augustine he originally had on the front of the script: "The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering", which he felt applied to both Bruce and Brandon.[10]

Marketing for Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story focused on the romance between Bruce and Cadwell; advertising campaigns targeted soft-rock radio stations. Universal chairman Tom Pollock said they were trying to appeal to women and to move beyond Bruce's core audience.[30] The marketing campaign was not modified following Brandon's death.[20]

The soundtrack for Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was composed by Randy Edelman, who used a 90-piece orchestra and traditional Chinese instruments. Cohen praised the soundtrack for acting as a kind of "emotional through line" for his film.[31] Ray Apello from Entertainment Weekly lauded its romantic tracks,[20] though Jason Ankeny from AllMusic gave the soundtrack two stars out of five, saying the "oddly patriotic, even stereotypically Americanized score" is too generic for the subject matter, adding "per usual, Edelman operates in broad, simple strokes, crafting saccharine melodies that are pure function and no form."[32] Edelman's soundtrack has been licensed for use in trailers for several other films.[33]

The film received positive reception, with reviewers typically finding it entertaining despite criticisms of its veneration of Bruce. Peter Rainer from the Los Angeles Times described the depiction as "hero-worshiping", though he gave a favorable review, saying, "you can forgive the way the film concocts and inflates incidents in Lee's life, because ... that's the way it is with larger-than-life actors: They prime you for larger-than-life stories."[34] Roger Ebert said the martial arts sequences defy "gravity and logic ... but what the heck: It's fun to watch,"[35] and Vincent Canby described it as "an enjoyably hokey, big-budget theatrical film with a lot of kicks and the soul of a television movie".[36] Richard Harrington of The Washington Post praised the film's ability to appeal to more people than just fans of Bruce and martial arts, saying it also explored issues such as love, interracial romance, marriage and parenthood.[37] Sheila Johnston from The Independent, however, argued the attempt to cater to multiple audiences with numerous themes convoluted the film.[38]

Jason's performance as Bruce was widely praised.[34][35][36][37] Both Donald Chase and Lawrence Christon of the Los Angeles Times commended him; Chase said he seemed to be Bruce's reincarnation and Christon said Jason "brings intelligence and charm to the role".[21][5] According to Rainer, the exciting aspect of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is that with Jason, it was creating a new star from the story of an old one.[34] Cadwell also praised the performance, saying "I almost feel it was worth waiting all this time for Jason to grow old enough to play Bruce."[39] Jason received a nomination for "Most Promising Actor" at the 1993 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards for his roles in both Dragon and Map of the Human Heart,[40] and a nomination for "Best Breakthrough Performance" for Dragon at the 1994 MTV Movie Awards.[41]

Bruce's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated on the day Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story premiered.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story premiered in Hollywood at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on 28 April 1993; Bruce's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated earlier that day, a few feet from the theatre. A post-screening after-party was held in a nearby parking lot under a 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m²) tent that was decorated with Chinese themes. More than 1,200 guests including Demi Moore, Wesley Snipes, Dolph Lundgren, Sheila E., Mike Myers, Cadwell and Shannon attended, together with the film's co-stars Lauren Holly, Robert Wagner, Nancy Kwan and Van Williams, and producer Raffaella De Laurentiis.[4][17] Many viewers found the screening to be bittersweet, due to Brandon's recent death. Cadwell stated she attended because the film "is a tribute to our family’s life and for that reason I thought I should be here. I feel the film is a tribute to Bruce as a father and to Brandon as a son."[4]

The film opened to the public in the US on May 7, and debuted at number one, grossing just over $10 million in its opening weekend.[42] The film's revenue outperformed expectations for a biography, which was largely attributed to the number of women who attended screenings; 45% of the film's audience for the opening weekend were women, whereas audiences for Bruce's actual films were overwhelmingly male. The success of the film and also the political satire Dave were credited with raising cinema audiences 65% from the same weekend period the previous year.[30] David Fox from The Los Angeles Times described the earnings as "impressive" for a debut in the historically-slow period of early May.[43] Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story had a gross of $35.1 million in the United States and Canada, and a gross of $28.4 million in other territories, making a total worldwide revenue of $63.5 million.[42]

A video game of the same name was created by Virgin Interactive and first released on Sega Mega Drive in Europe in June 1994;[44] it was later released in other continents and ported to other platforms. It is a fighting game in which players assume the role of Bruce and fight his opponents in the film, including one of the English sailors and the chefs; the final boss is the Demon. The game omits some of the film's plot elements, such as the romance between Bruce and Cadwell. The game was met with mixed reviews.[45][46] Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the Atari Jaguar version 4.4/10, calling it "more or less your run-of-the-mill action fighter game" and commenting it was released too long after the film to benefit from the license.[47]

• Cohen, Rob (1993). Director's Commentary (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, DVD). Universal Pictures.