Review by Adam Stephen Kelly
Featuring Bruce Lee, Brandon Lee, Miguel Ferrer, Shannon Lee,
Linda Lee Cadwell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Raymond Chow, Van Williams, James Coburn
UK Certification 12 | UK RRP £9.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 90 minutes | Directed by Jude Gerard Prest
Produced by the A&E network in the States as part of their Biography series back in 1997, Bruce Lee: The Immortal Dragon is widely considered the best of many documentaries made about the martial artist, who tragically died at such a young age and only made a few movies, but enough to grant him the legacy his memory bares today as a legendary figure in the history of cinema.
The film itself, narrated by Miguel Ferrer, is just over 40 minutes in length as it was originally shown on television, but in the slim running time it provides a comprehensive look at the man's life right from birth until that dark day in 1973. It really is amazing how much Lee accomplished in his short stay on Earth when you see this documentary. He paved the way for martial arts movies in the mainstream, he made that connection between East and West that has been so successful. Hell, he created an entire genre. Without Lee, Hollywood would be without Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Jean-Claude Van Damme, to name a few. They owe their fruitful careers to that man and I hope they all know it.
The film uses rare footage to tell Bruce's story, such as snippets of movies from the '40s which his dad starred in, where Bruce had bit parts as a kid, and even his first ever screen test in the United States for a film that he never got the role in. As someone who has never seen a documentary on Lee before, I found this to be an extremely insightful, fascinating look at the man they called the Dragon, born in the year and the hour of the mythical creature on November 27, 1940. It also features many interviews with his family, friends and colleagues, such as his wife Linda and daughter Shannon.
There are some interesting extras as you can see below that pad out this one-disc re-release, put out this year on the 70th anniversary of Lee's birth, but when there are so many written histories on the disc, it makes me wonder why they couldn't have made this a more complete edition by including a booklet, because after all, we don't buy DVDs to read, and at the end of the day it would have made a nice addition to the package for collectors, who I'm guessing are going to be the ones who mainly buy this release.
There is a second documentary on the disc from a 1999 episode of the self-explanatory show Famous Families. It runs around the same length as The Immortal Dragon, but it really is just the same doc. They lifted all their material from the feature on this DVD, so why it's on there I do not know.
EXTRAS ★★★ A written history of Bruce Lee documentaries, the Famous Families doc, the script for the Batman episode which had a The Green Hornet crossover, two screen tests for The Green Hornet and one for No. 1 Son, complete with a history of the tests, outtakes of the show with an article on them, seven trailers for The Green Hornet, the ABC trailer and William Dozier promotional film, plus a written history of the promos, profiles of Bruce's friends and family, a history of Lee's martial arts, an explanation of Jeet Kune Do, an essay on where to study the martial art, and a text on the Bruce and Brandon Lee Association. This batch of extras may have gotten a fourth star if it came with a booklet. Reading pages of text on DVDs is not for me. Sorry.