Last Friday I was able to go see "Enter the
Dragon" at BAM on the big screen. This is
one of my favorite movies of all time and
having the opportunity to watch it on the big screen made me see things within
the movie that I have never noticed before.
I think it’s very important for martial arts
enthusiasts and MMA fans to understand the traditional roots of the sport. As 70s and as corny as some of the movie may
be, it’s still important to understand where the popular interest in MMA comes
from. So I decided to take my young friend Mia with me,
who has a serious interest in martial arts, but has never seen Enter the
Dragon! So in addition to my Sh*t I
Learned this Week, we also have Sh*t She Learned This Week. (which is shit I
already knew, and thought everyone knew already!)
(Thanks to AMC.com for the facts!)
Sh*t I Learned This Week:
Bruce Lee was born in
the year of the dragon. He was born between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., which is
the hour of the dragon. (To be fair, I already knew he was born the year of the
Dragon but I didn’t know about that whole on the hour business)
Han is played by Shih. Shih was a veteran of
some 800 martial-arts films. He would regularly play the villain in the
martial-arts movies Lee watched as a boy. (He must have inspired both Doctor Evil
and the bad dude from inspector gadget.)
Braithwaite is played by Geoffrey Weeks. Enter
the Dragon was his only film credit.
(It’s kind of mean they came up with the name Braithwaite when they knew
that Lee had a Cantonese accent. I mean
have you ever met anyone actually named Braithwaite??)
In China, it was considered taboo for women to
portray prostitutes or wear face paint. Producers had to hire escorts for $150
per day to fill the roles. (Their faces were painted like the De La Soul album.)
The Shaolin Temple was founded in the fifth
century and is famous for its martial-arts teachings. (“You have disgraced the
shaolin temple!” I cannot tell you how
many times I have wanted to use that line when I am mad at somebody.)
Jim Kelly speaks the famous line “Ghetto’s are
the same everywhere man, they stink!” During the Cultural Revolution
(1966-1976), thousands of Chinese fled the mainland for Hong Kong. The
migration created a large pool of cheap labor, and most lived in appalling
conditions. (Word up Jim Kelly!)
Sh*t Mia Learned This Week
Critics
call Enter the Dragon the granddaddy of martial-arts movies. It made Lee
an international phenomenon.
One of
Lee’s attackers is Jackie Chan.
(At least she knows who Jackie Chan is.)
Robert
Wall plays Oharra. He was a karate world champion and trained with Chuck Norris. (I think she only knows Chuck Norris jokes,
I don’t think she knows who he actually is)
Lee’s technique
of redirecting an attacker’s motion is a foundation of MMA fighting today. This was the first time an arm bar was
featured on screen. (She knows what an arm bar is. Thanks Ronda Rousey.)
Enter
the Dragon was the
first English-language martial-arts film. (Phil Nurse didn’t even know this, so I guess
I can’t be too upset about that.)
The
South China Sea, at 200 feet deep, is relatively shallow. (We don’t think there are crocodiles in that
sea. We checked)
Stay tuned for next week’s posting! (also, check out the video I made about this topic last Saturday before the fights! Enter the Dragon)
