This is my first Bruce Lee movie I've ever seen, I've just finished watching it, 20 years after its production. It's a bad movie, really bad: the story is stupid, the dialogues are surreal, the gags are not amusing, the direction and the the narration even worse. I must confess that I am not particularly interested in watching kung-fu movies, because beyond the fight scenes - that can be amusing sometimes - rarely there is a worth watching movie. However I HAD to see this movie because of the Lee legend and I don't regret my choice because I think there is some sociological reason to see it.
As citizen of Rome I am not particularly proud of the use of Rome in this movie. In the initial scenes the movie shows some of the well-known Rome monuments while the car of the protagonists pass through the city center. The girl drives her car even through the michelangiolesque square at the Campidoglio, where cars are not allowed to pass...
All these scenes are just mediocre post-cards that could be avoided. Better would had been to show these monuments in the narration of the movie, as in the final scene inside the Colosseum. But even in this scene a good director would have done better: the entire fight is among brick walls, barely you can recognise they are inside the Colosseum! Would had been enough to build a little stage inside the arena and have the fight where the real gladiators fought and died. The spectacularity of the scene would have gained a lot I think.
Apart from this, the movie could have been filmed in China. Most of the scenes are inside the restaurant (that really doesn't seem a chinese restaurant as we have in Rome) and in apartments (with post-modern furnitures, never seen in Rome).
The bad boys are all but romans: blacks, indians, americans, even a japanese. Maybe the stupid fat man that yells "Mamma mia!" is italian.
This international team seems to act as Rome was its headquarter, police is a ghost (excepting the conclusion). If you are eating at a chinese restaurant and a team of armed bad boys invites you to go out what do you think you'll do? will you just go out looking for another restaurant, without bad boys if possible? If you are a character of a kung-fu movie probably yes.
"Ok ok, but the audience doesn't care of this, the audience wants kung-fu" that's the answer that probably the producers would say. I agree but this movie seems to lack even real kung-fu scenes! I mean, half of the movie doesn't show any fight, and in the rest the fight scenes are slow, short and without special tricks or effects. I appreciate more fight scenes of Jackie Chan or Matrix or even Bud Spencer!!
The american fighter is beated in one minute, and so the japanese one. The chinese waiters, without honour I would say, after Bruce Lee slayered the japanese fighter, continued to beat him without mercy even if he could not react. Is that the chinese philosophy of fight? I'm sure not. In this scene I think the movie shows the hate that chinese people feel against japanese people. Probably chinese people have their good reasons: during the last world war Japan committed huge massacres in China and never apologised for this. But this scene has not a good message for humankind I think.
In conclusion if this wasn't a Bruce Lee movie I would say: "don't waste your time watching it". However this IS a Lee movie and if Lee is a legend for so many people we are forced to see his movies just to understand why he is a legend.
As I said this is my first Lee movie. I probably have to watch the other movies because so far I can't understand why.
As citizen of Rome I am not particularly proud of the use of Rome in this movie. In the initial scenes the movie shows some of the well-known Rome monuments while the car of the protagonists pass through the city center. The girl drives her car even through the michelangiolesque square at the Campidoglio, where cars are not allowed to pass...
All these scenes are just mediocre post-cards that could be avoided. Better would had been to show these monuments in the narration of the movie, as in the final scene inside the Colosseum. But even in this scene a good director would have done better: the entire fight is among brick walls, barely you can recognise they are inside the Colosseum! Would had been enough to build a little stage inside the arena and have the fight where the real gladiators fought and died. The spectacularity of the scene would have gained a lot I think.
Apart from this, the movie could have been filmed in China. Most of the scenes are inside the restaurant (that really doesn't seem a chinese restaurant as we have in Rome) and in apartments (with post-modern furnitures, never seen in Rome).
The bad boys are all but romans: blacks, indians, americans, even a japanese. Maybe the stupid fat man that yells "Mamma mia!" is italian.
This international team seems to act as Rome was its headquarter, police is a ghost (excepting the conclusion). If you are eating at a chinese restaurant and a team of armed bad boys invites you to go out what do you think you'll do? will you just go out looking for another restaurant, without bad boys if possible? If you are a character of a kung-fu movie probably yes.
"Ok ok, but the audience doesn't care of this, the audience wants kung-fu" that's the answer that probably the producers would say. I agree but this movie seems to lack even real kung-fu scenes! I mean, half of the movie doesn't show any fight, and in the rest the fight scenes are slow, short and without special tricks or effects. I appreciate more fight scenes of Jackie Chan or Matrix or even Bud Spencer!!
The american fighter is beated in one minute, and so the japanese one. The chinese waiters, without honour I would say, after Bruce Lee slayered the japanese fighter, continued to beat him without mercy even if he could not react. Is that the chinese philosophy of fight? I'm sure not. In this scene I think the movie shows the hate that chinese people feel against japanese people. Probably chinese people have their good reasons: during the last world war Japan committed huge massacres in China and never apologised for this. But this scene has not a good message for humankind I think.
In conclusion if this wasn't a Bruce Lee movie I would say: "don't waste your time watching it". However this IS a Lee movie and if Lee is a legend for so many people we are forced to see his movies just to understand why he is a legend.
As I said this is my first Lee movie. I probably have to watch the other movies because so far I can't understand why.