Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Admirable film.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This film is a masterpiece, directed, written, produced by and starring Bruce Lee. Lee cleverly uses the camera in the sense that he knows to shoot from the perspective of a character. So you will notice the scenes that one actor is kicking towards the camera. The action sequences are well-choreographed, as always shown in Lee's films. Moreover, apart from the brilliant physical performances, there are more emotional performances, especially at the end of the final fight scene between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris.

I've seen many martial arts movies and honestly I wasn't that impressed with 'Way of the Dragon' the first time I saw it. I was more into Jackie Chan movies (I still love Jackie Chan's movies from the 80's. A lot.), so I thought Bruce Lee was wooden and I didn't think he was as skilled as Jackie Chan. But the older I got, the more I got fond of Bruce Lee movies and Bruce Lee himself. What I realized was what Bruce did in his movies were something that only a very few could match. He had charisma, great martial arts skills, great acting skills and one of the few actors who had an "in your face" performance. Many actors have tried to match him but they often got comical instead of intense as Bruce did. This movie is a real gem and it is underrated compared to 'Enter the Dragon' and I like 'Way of the Dragon' more since I feel you could feel more of Bruce and his philosophy here. I feel what he tried to communicate in this movie was more important than his previous and later martial arts movies.Now the movie itself: it is made with a low budget so don't expect great production value. The script is good and actually well thought out, the fight scenes are still among the best I've seen and it has a bit of Bruce's humor here. It is not as big as 'Fist of Fury', meaning it is a bit more (if not a lot) realistic. Tang Lung (the main character) didn't fight 20+ martial artists at once, which in my opinion made the movie great since it wasn't exaggerated. It was humble in that sense. The fight scenes are much more realistic than most movies and more simpler so it is more down to earth than the other martial arts movies he's been in, less fantastic. Which in my opinion makes the movie better than most action movies. The acting in the movie was sufficient for me, but it is mostly due to the bad English dubbing the acting seemed unnatural. I am sure the acting makes a lot more sense in the Cantonese version. Nora Miao was especially quite good, she had the biggest emotional span in her acting and as usual, Bruce Lee was phenomenal.The plot is like taken from Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, even some of the camera angles that Sergio used are used here. They were magnificently used to create atmosphere and tension in the fight scenes. Tang Lung also has some resemblance to Clint Eastwood's 'The Man with No Name' character. Few words and more action. It is also a personal movie of Bruce Lee's where his character Tang Lung arrive at a foreign country and try to integrate, which he surely experienced when he moved to the US. It is also personal in that sense we get to see a lot more of his philosophy here, like shown in the scene where Tang meets the waiters of the restaurant for the first time. In that scene he said: "Foreign or not, if it works you should learn to use it", he wasn't degrading Karate he merely pointed out there is no need to be so narrow minded and only do it in one way. He really meant that use what works, use what is useful it has nothing to do with nationality. You don't need a uniform or a black belt to be a great martial artist, what you need is an open mind. The script is full of messages like that. So the script is full of philosophy and wit. Some humor too.Anyway, the final fight is one of the best. One of the movies that are on par with it is 'Wheels on Meals'. Great movie.

Watching Bruce Lee go up ageist Chuck Norris is the only reason to see this movie. I'm always surprised by how many movies Bruce Lee made in his short time span as a movie star. This is one of the movies I always thought I saw but I realize I only saw the big battle. I just became aware that the English dub did a disservice to the comedic styles of Mr. Bruce Lee. Some of the jokes are lost in translation. I understood that everyone in the film is speaking a different language but conflicts caused by miscommunication still made no sense when their done all in English, so the movie suffered greatly for that. The epic battle was pretty basic and it didn't last long in comparison to what you would see today, but it stands the test of time as one of the greatest marshal arts battles on screen. From the part where the two Titans are preparing for battle to the point where Chuck smartly adjust his style in order to try to beat Bruce. Even the cat who gets bored while watching the toughest men to step foot on the face of the earth added to the enjoyment. I hope to one day see a English sub titled version. Maybe then I will enjoy it more, but is still gets a high grade for the battle of the century.

Actually , my personal favorite was Fist of Fury (Chinese Connection in the US) but this is also a very good movie and it seems that it was the favorite of his wife Linda Coldwell. Way of the Dragon was known as Return of the Dragon in the US and Chuck Norris must have had fond memories of this one. The illegal filming in the Colosseum in Rome must have been a very daring thing to do. The scene with the dart in a man's backside was quite funny. This was to my knowledge the only Bruce Lee film with some humour in it. The question "Is hore name Tang Lung?" (no spelling error by the way, just the accent the man was speaking) by the Korean guy is the line I think I remember best. It was Bruce's first attempt at directing and he did a very good job too.