Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is as much Hollywood romantic drama as action movie
- Chinese-Hawaiian actor Jason Scott Lee plays Lee in the film by Rob Cohen, inspired by his widow Linda Lee Cadwell’s book Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew
- At the heart of the film is Lee’s relationship with Cadwell. Much of it focuses on their life together and how she encouraged him to achieve success
Although it plays fast and loose with the facts, the 1993 Hollywood biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is an enjoyable watch.
Directed by Rob Cohen, an established mainstream filmmaker who was neither an action specialist nor particularly familiar with martial arts films, Dragon takes the spirit of Linda Lee Cadwell’s 1989 update of her book Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, and recasts Lee’s story as a typical 1990s Hollywood romantic drama.
The Lee of Dragon, played by Chinese-Hawaiian actor Jason Scott Lee, is a cheerfully optimistic outsider who battles against the odds to establish himself in the United States with the unfaltering help of his loyal American wife (played by Lauren Holly).
The martial arts scenes, choreographed by Hongkonger John Cheung Ng-long, are edited in the choppier American style, but are still exciting. The film’s unswerving depiction of racism, often shown in the treatment Lee receives from Cadwell’s mother, Vivian Emery – who said the portrayal of her in the film was relatively accurate – is unusually brutal, and still relevant today.