It has been a long time since we’ve had a big mainstream Kung Fu movie. Sure, sometimes we have hyperviolent Indonesian martial arts films (which I love), or balletic Ang Lee type films (which I also love), or movies where one character does martial arts, but he’s the only one. But i’m talking about old school action-adventure, bad guys come at you in a circle, boss-level, master vs. student shit. Well the wait is over my friends, the glory days of Kung Fu are back with BIRTH OF THE DRAGON.
In the early 70s, Bruce Lee was everywhere. There were movies, posters, T-shirts, TV shows, and even ripoff movies and TV shows. This one guy was massively influential in bringing Kung Fu to mainstream US culture. It is hard to overestimate what a phenomenon this was — while Kung Fu films had previously existed, Bruce Lee brought about an explosion of them into the US. Much of that happened before I was around, but I’ve been lucky enough have lived in Austin with the Alamo Drafthouse and Quentin Tarantino Fests to further my education. Quentin showed plenty of material from the period, even episodes of the show Kung Fu with David Carradine (an idea ripped off from Bruce Lee himself). Echoes of the influence of Bruce Lee have reverberated through culture ever since, whether it is Jackie Chan films, video games like Mortal Kombat, the mythology of the Wu Tang Clan, modern martial arts films like THE RAID, or even some of the action and characters in Tarantino’s own films.
BIRTH OF THE DRAGON tells the story from before all that — before Bruce Lee was famous. This is a movie set in 1964 San Francisco, when Bruce Lee was an inspired but cocky Kung Fu instructor just starting to wow people at exhibitions and dipping his toes into film and TV. The basis is a legendary fight between him and Shaolin master Wong Jack Man. In fact, Bruce Lee isn’t even the central character of the story, even though he’s an important one.
The movie is based on a magazine article: “Bruce Lee’s Toughest Fight.” The fact that Wong Jack Man and Bruce Lee met and had a mostly private throwdown is true. They then trash talked and disputed the outcome for years after. The movie takes this as a jumping off point, but then does some mythmaking around it. After the screening, the director, George Nolfi, described the film as more like a fable than reality. Or maybe it was something like a superhero movie, only where the heroes are of Chinese descent and don’t really have superpowers. I think those are fair descriptions — the movie takes reality as a starting point, but then goes on to imagine, “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” and just goes for it. From me, this gets a hearty, “Hell yes!”
The sort-of central character here is actually a fictional white guy named Steve “Mac” McKee (Billy Magnussen) who through a drunken accident starts studying with Bruce Lee. He finds his place in Chinatown, but soon starts running afoul of the gangsters there. He falls for Xiulan (Jingjing Qu), a waitress at a local restaurant who is an indentured servant controlled by the Chinese mafia. When Wong Jack Man comes to town, Mr. McKee befriends him, and suddenly becomes the go-between for two giants of Kung Fu.
All this sounds pretty straightforward, but there’s a hint of BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA in here too. This is too is a comedy set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, has a white guy as a protagonist who wants to rescue a woman from the shady creatures of the underworld there. BIRTH OF THE DRAGON is a bit more grounded in reality, and the lead may not have the charisma of Kurt Russell, but on the other hand it has Bruce Friggin’ Lee as a character.
In fact, the best part of BIRTH OF THE DRAGON is the performance of Phillip Ng as Bruce Lee. He looks enough like him, nails the speech patterns and charisma, and pulls off the fighting style too. It is pretty damn incredible. You just can’t help but love this guy. He’s really compelling to watch. I’d watch a whole series of movies with him as Bruce Lee.
Xia Yu is also great as Wong Jack Man — he brings a certain gravitas that is the perfect counterpoint to Lee’s insouciant brashness. He plays Wong Jack Man was about 24, I think, when he fought Lee. He’s seemingly played older here, but it works for the script. Part of the drama is the “old world” of Kung Fu vs. the new American school being created by Lee.
The film isn’t perfect. I wasn’t too happy about the idea of throwing in a made up white man as the main character. But it is defensible, since one of the central conceits is that Bruce Lee was bringing Kung Fu to Americans, and Wong Jack Man may or may not have been against that. Plus, having an outsider allows for easy exposition to give us a way into the relatively closed environment of early 60s Chinatown. I also am not a huge fan of the damsel in distress plot device, but then again forced servitude after someone is smuggled into a country is a real thing.
And yes, many aspects of the plot are one Kung Fu or buddy movie trope layered on top of another. But that’s ok, I like those tropes, and when they are done in such a spirit of fun, it pays off. All in all, the movie’s strengths outweigh its weaknesses. The bottom line is that this movie is pure fun. After it was over, I had a huge grin on my face. What more can you want?
