Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) on Netflix
PG-1319932hActionBiographyDrama
Trained in kung fu in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee moves to the United States, marries Linda, and opens a martial arts school. His Chinese peers object to him teaching non-Chinese students.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.0/1034,124 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes74%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Hong Kong, Bruce Lee's father has a nightmare in which a phantom pursues his young son, and he enrolls the boy in martial arts classes under Yip Man. As a young man, Bruce fights British sailors harassing a Chinese woman and is sent to the United States. He washes dishes in a Chinese restaurant until a brawl with the cooks costs him the job; Gussie Yang, the restaurant's owner, lends him money and urges him toward college. He studies philosophy and begins teaching martial arts; among his students he meets Linda, a white American. They marry despite the opposition of her mother, Vivian. When Bruce refuses his Chinese peers' demand to train only Chinese students, the dispute is to be settled in a fight.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Brandon Lee was the right age and had the martial arts training to play his father, but producer Raffaella De Laurentiis said he did not look Chinese enough, and Brandon himself turned the role down, finding it too strange to play his father, especially his parents' romantic life.
- Cohen learnt that for the first two years of Bruce's life his parents had dressed and passed him off as a girl, to protect him from a superstitious Chinese belief that demons target first-born sons, and he built the film's supernatural demon from that tale.
- Filming was delayed repeatedly: Cohen had a heart attack on 6 February 1992, costing a month, Jason became ill, Hong Kong had its heaviest rainfall in decades during a monsoon, and a triad threatened Cohen and others because the crew were working on the gang's territory.
- Cohen expanded the theme of Bruce's father believing a demon was stalking his son by showing the Demon chasing Brandon; filming was completed and Dragon was less than two months from opening when Brandon died in a shooting accident while filming The Crow in March 1993.
- Jason Scott Lee had auditioned for a role in The Last of the Mohicans and was rejected because he did not appear Native American, but that film's casting director was impressed with him and recommended him to Cohen for the role of Bruce early in pre-production.
- Bruce Lee's real-life opponent Wong Jack-man contests Bruce's version of events, saying the challenge note he issued to him had nothing to do with his teaching of non-Chinese people.
