Enter the Dragon - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Enter the Dragon



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Coming from a family of martial artists, and practicing several styles over the last 25 years, I have a special place in my heart for films of this genre. I was steeped in watching Shaw Brothers classics on VHS and TV, Jackie Chan, and even Jean Claude Van Damme flicks were watched at least weekly. So to say I have a special love for the art and mastery of both body AND film together is an understatement. Enter The Dragon has pretty much been a Kung-Fu cinema staple for as long as I can remember, and is one of those films that we use to introduce new converts into the chop socky fold even to this day. Sure, there are films that have better choreography (the 70s was a learning point, with the 80s perfecting the shift from highly stylized and Kata like fights to something more natural and fluid). Sure there are better acted films. Sure there are films where Bruce Lee himself fights better. But none of them can come close to the mystique and sheer global impact that Enter the Dragon has imparted upon the world.

Enter The Dragon is a mocked up 007 take on the man himself, where the Shaolin warrior is recruited by an American intelligence agency to infiltrate a martial arts tournament hosted by the reclusive billionaire Han (Shih Kien). Han is a former monk of the same order that he is a part of, having broken the code of spirituality and conduct to engage in criminal enterprise. The government wants Han for his crimes, but they can’t get close to him, meaning Lee (Bruce Lee) has to cooperate with the government stooges and also regain the honor of his order by wiping Han’s blight from the world.

Ala Mortal Kombat, Lee and two other American fighters board a small ship and sail across the sees to participate in a tournament that is supposed to host the world’s greatest fighters on an island far outside of any government’s jurisdictions. While Lee is investigating Han’s motivations for the tournament, he enlists the help of the two American fighters in hopes of widening his net. Roper (John Saxon) is a gambling addict hoping to clear his debt with the local mafia and figures making a few bucks and doing some good isn’t a horrible idea, and Williams (John Kelly) is your jive speaking ladies man (who got shot to stardom and subsequently went on to star in a dozen or so blaxploitation martial arts films) who doesn’t mind kicking some butt, and treating the ladies right while he’s doing so.

We can wax eloquent about how Bruce Lee revolutionized the martial arts genre as it was dying out from decades of Hong Kong Shaw Brothers films (which is not a knock against them, their time was up), and how his incredible skilled inspired an entire generation of martial artists (many to this day), but that’s not the point here. What I will say is that this was a transitional time for the martial arts film genre, and Lee single handedly brought it into the lime light. Gone was the wire work and Wuxia inspired films, and instead of Kata like choreography his Jeet Kun Do was fluid, snappy, and more akin to real movements rather than a form one would perform in front of a sensei. His trade mark charm and “hi-yaaaaaaaaaaaaa” is something of legend, and while some may find it a bit cheesy, in 1973 this man was mesmerizing. Even watching the other martial artists in the film itself, you can see that Lee was simply a cut above the rest. No one could take their eyes off him, and this movie shot the man to super stardom in the United States and Hong Kong.

It also doesn’t hurt that Lee died literally six days before the film opened in theaters, robbing him of the opportunity to see the paradigm shift that he hand inspired, as well as leaving an entire generation desperately trying to fill the cinematic void that was left (the 70s would mostly be known for the billion Bruce Li “knockoffs” that would come afterwards, as producers figured a knockoff of Bruce Lee was better than no Bruce Lee at all). The film itself isn’t perfect, but it IS a monument to one of the greatest Kung-Fu actors of our time, and singularly one of the most iconic films that any Martial Arts cinemaphile is pretty much forced to watch as a right of passage.




Rating:

Rated R by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

I’ve never seen the 40th anniversary edition that came out in 2013, but by all accounts it looked fantastic, especially compared to the rather mediocre VC-1 encode from the 2007 Blu-ray and HD-DVD that I still have. The old 2007 disc suffered from some grain issues, smearing, and some generally weak detail levels that were indicative of low bitrate VC-1 encodes that were meant to coincide with HD-DVD’s 30 gig limitations. According to Warner themselves, this release is not taken from the 2013 master, but rather a brand new 4K master that was struck fairly recently, and the results speak for themselves. The movie will never be brilliantly shiny and modern looking, but the grain is superb, and all of the smearing and vaseline like textures replaced with incredible amounts of detail on both faces and clothing alike. Close ups are incredibly detailed, and outside of some fish eye effects and other camera techniques of the 70s, looks better than I have ever seen it before. Costumes, skin textures and background nuances are all razor sharp and filmic.

The big boost here is the HDR application. The colors always looked rather dull and burnt out on the 2007 disc, but this is a like a completely new experience. Colors literally pop off the screen, with the 1970s yellow and amber shades complimenting quite nicely. I have quite literally never seen the bright reds of the shaolin monk garb look so well saturated, now the black robe that Williams wears when he picks his “lovely ladies” as entertainment for the night. Simply put, this is an incredible release that fixes a lot of problems. I am however a little surprised at the medium range bitrate that the film employs. The two cuts of the film are given their own encode on the disc instead of using seamless branching, which means bitrate had to be sacrificed SOMEWHERE to fit both encodes on the same 100 gig disc. There’s some mild compression artifacting as a result, and a lean towards black crush in some of the dimmer lit scenes that lead me to wondering if a better bitrate might have cleared up those minor issues.








Audio:

Probably the most surprising feature of the entire disc is the Atmos track that Warner has crafted for this release. It most likely stems from the 5.1 mix struck for the home theater market years ago, and then matrixed out in studio to get to Atmos capabilities. While part of me really wishes we had the old stereo mix on board, this new track fixes a lot of things from the old 5.1 lossy track ,as well as the lossless track on the 2013 disc (by all accounts, as I haven’t heard that one myself personally). The Atmos track isn’t going to wow with overhead sweeps, or modern day surround activity, but it is very clean, airy, and has a crispness to it that is very much welcomed. Also the beginning portion where Lee is dubbed has been fixed, and the crackle and hisses that were present are ironed out. The Atmos features are fairly minimal, but when used properly (such as hits in the background, the splashing of someone into acid, or the breaking of glass) do make a tactile difference.

Warner has also included the mono track as 2.0 mono DTS-HD MA, and it is about as nice as it’s going to get as well. It sounds like the Criterion 1.0 PCM track to my ears, and if any processing or source differential is going on, I certainly couldn’t pick it up. So Atmos or 2.0 Mono, Warner has you covered and bothh are very nice.







Extras:

• Introduction by Linda Lee Cadwell
• Audio Commentary

Final Score: ​

As I said above, Enter the Dragon needs no introduction. It is one of the biggest cult hits of the entire genre, and still a fantastic watch to this day. Lee’s speed, his style, and his charisma was unmatched for years, and watching him kick start Bolo Yeung’s career, as well as Jim Kelly is something else (ironically, John Saxon, who is most known for being a traditional actor, actually studied multiple forms of martial arts on his own. He wasn’t a professional like Kelly or Lee, but he was a black belt in a couple of different styles and his skills were decent enough that he actually worked for the film instead of using camera trickery like we do today for non stunt men fighters). The 4K UHD is quite simply stunning, with amazing picture and an Atmos track that is a real treat. HOWEVER, there is one glaring flaw. That is Warner has once again forgone the Blu-ray in this set and only put on two of the many hours of extras on the 4K UHD disc. This means we're missing a LOOOOT of extras that really should be on there. I love what Warner is doing with these catalog releases, but when most of the extras are still on the Blu-ray discs it should be mandatory to include the Blu-ray in there for those special features. Still, highly recommended.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly, Kien Shih, Bolo Yeung
Directed by: Robert Clouse
Written by: Michael Allin, Bruce Lee
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), Enlgish, French, Spanish DD 5.1, Englihs DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, English
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: R
Runtime: 102 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 8th, 2023

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Great movie to own.