Review of Birth of the Dragon (2017) by Daniel M — 28 Aug 2017

I was really, really excited to see a movie about the iconic fight involving Bruce Lee and Grandmaster Wong Jack Man. Seeing the previews, I really thought both actors portrayed their respective parts sensationally but I was unpleasantly surprised by the "Hollywood makeover" involved in this film when I actually watched it in It's entirety.

I'll start with the good. Both Philip Ng(Bruce Lee) and Xia Yu(Wong) played their characters extremely well. The choreographed fight scenes throughout the film from start to finish were very well done and kept me anticipating the next moment limbs would fly.

Their portrayal of the icons persona and movements were spot on. The scenery and clothing chosen for the film (to date back to the 60's) was also spot on. The storyline is loosely based off Wong Jack Man's description of the fight.

(Bruce Lee and his wife claimed the fight lasted less than 3 minutes with Bruce beating Wong into a pulp). Some of the information in the movie is accurate to what was probably real but the worst part about this movie is that the writer(s) and director used a student and his illegal immigrant love interest as the focal point of the film, while almost making the actual fight symbolically and literally irrelevant.

I was extremely disappointed with the turn out and it is a waste of stellar acting by both Ng and Yu. Because of how well the fight scenes were and the fact that both actors playing Wong and Lee did so well, I have to give this film 3 stars.

It's worth the watch, but not at 12-15 dollars per seat. I'd wait for Red Box and/or Netflix.