Enter The Dragon/Fun Facts

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< Enter The Dragon

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  • Cameo: [Jackie Chan] Briefly towards the end of the film in the big fight scene in the cave. Lee grabs his hair for a while before breaking his neck.
  • Production was halted briefly when the corpse of a young woman was found near the set.
  • Cameo: [Sammo Hung Kam-Bo] Bruce Lee's sparring partner during the fight before the opening credits.
  • The movie runs for 8:30 before the opening credits.
  • Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong three weeks before the film's premiere in 1973.
  • Production was halted when Bruce Lee cut his hand badly when Robert Wall mistimed thrusting the bottles (they didn't use sugar glass).
  • In their one scene together, Lee actually struck Jackie Chan in the face with one of the fighting sticks he used. He immediately apologized and insisted that Chan would work on all of his movies after that, but he died before he could keep the promise.
  • The part of Williams was originally intended to be played by Rockne Tarkington.
  • When all hell breaks loose in the final fight in the courtyard, if you watch the right-hand side of the screen you can catch a glimpse of Bruce Lee running around frantically choreographing the fight.
  • Kien Shih, who played Han, did not speak English, he just simply mouthed the lines as best as he could. Chinese-American actor Keye Luke overdubbed his dialogue.
  • Biker movie legend William Smith was supposed to play Roper but was unavailable at the time of the shoot.
  • Over 8,000 mirrors were used to setup the "Hall of Mirrors" where the climax duel takes place.
  • One of only two movies Bruce Lee did in which he speaks with his natural voice in the States. The other is Marlowe (1969).
  • The courtyards where Han's martial arts students are trained were actually modified tennis courts.
  • Bruce Lee had a few injuries on the set. One was when shooting O'Hara's death scene, Bob Wall mistimed his thrust of the broken bottle towards Lee and severely cut Lee's hand (fake glass was not available). Another was when handling the poisonous snake that guards the secret entrance to Han's drug lab, Bruce was in fact bitten. Thankfully the snake's venom gland had been removed.
  • Warner Brothers wanted to release the film under the title 'Han's Island' as they thought international audiences would be confused by an action film titled 'Enter The Dragon'. ' The Deadly Three', a title referring to the Bruce Lee, John Saxon and Jim Kelly characters, was also considered as an alternate title for the film
  • The opening fight sequence between Bruce Lee and Sammo Hung was shot after filming was completed at Lee's request.
  • The scene where Han takes Roper down to his underground opium factory via his 'guillotine - lift' was the last scene John Saxon shot for the film
  • The movie was originally filmed without sound. All of the dialogue and effects were dubbed in later during post-production.
  • One of the other names considered for Enter the Dragon was "Blood and Steel"
  • Added to the National Film Registry in 2004.
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