Today You Learned
Seeing as how today would have been Brandon Lee’s 58th birthday, the timing is fitting for me to write this article about his father’s first and final Hollywood star project. If producer Fred Weintraub’s memoir is anything to go by, Bruce was still missing from the set of Enter the Dragon by the time that it was February 8, 1973. When you look at photos of Brandon on the sets of Bruce’s Hong Kong movies after the success of The Big Boss, Enter the Dragon was the only other H.K. movie where he wasn’t present. This year, there are bound to be articles commemorating the 50th anniversary of the film’s making and release, but mine will stand head and shoulders above the rest because there is a rare book about the film which was only available to 2000 people. Observe the fifty crowning jewels from photographer Dave Friedman’s book…
1) In a December 18, 1972 letter from Eric Weissman to the copyright department of Warner Brothers, it was revealed that Bruce’s character was supposed to be named Lee Siu-Lung i.e. Little Dragon Lee. Because Bruce wanted the film to be called Enter the Dragon, the character was supposed to be referred to in English as the Little Dragon. The excuse was that it would allow for sequels to be titled The Dragon Returns or Return of the Dragon (which ended up being the U.S. title for an earlier Bruce Lee movie called The Way of the Dragon).
2) On January 8, 1973, the head of Warner Brothers - Ted Ashley - sent a memo to executive Richard Lederer where he told him that he would like to be informed about the title after he gets back from Europe. Ted thought that Enter the Dragon was an inactive title but he was open-minded to the idea of the film’s final title having “Dragon” in it as long as it was obvious that the title referred to a man and not a monster. This means that we almost had a film that could have been titled They Call Him Dragon.
3) According to Fred Weintraub, Bruce didn’t participate in filming his scenes for over two weeks. This suggests that he was waiting for Richard’s response after further feedback from Ted. This would explain why Bruce made use of the delay by filming Angela Mao’s scenes instead. Because of Bruce’s delay, Fred had to exaggerate how much was filmed. One telegram suggested that 20% of the film was in the can by the first day of February. To turn the lie into a white lie where lexical ambiguity allows you to save face further down the line when you get exposed, the telegram revealed that Angela’s action scenes were very good. At this point, she was referred to as Mao Ying. In the H.K. version, she is credited as Angela Mao whereas she is credited everywhere else as Angela Mao Ying.
4) Golden Harvest producer Andre Morgan claimed that Fred wanted to fire Bruce on the second day of the shoot. The reason for this was that Bruce walked off set during the first day because his face was twitching badly from anxiety. Fred asked Andre what would happen if he went to Warner to inform them about replacing Bruce. Andre remarked that Raymond Chow, the founder of Golden Harvest, would walk off the production. Seeing as how Bruce had so little dialogue and wasn’t a household name in America, Enter the Dragon could easily have been rewritten so that Golden Harvest’s Carter Wong could be the star. He was more handsome than Bruce. It certainly didn’t go in Bruce’s favour that he had an acne problem, and often looks under the weather in some scenes.
5) Differing recollections notwithstanding, Fred claimed that Andre was enormously helpful at getting the movie done because he spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese, and (as a result) saved their behinds several times during filming. Bearing in mind that most of the Chinese people working on the movie spoke Cantonese. Ironically, Andre has not said anything about the fact that there are outtakes where Bruce can be clearly seen speaking Chinese. For whatever reason, an attempt to do a Chinese version of Enter the Dragon was scrapped. For Andre, the main problem of the production was this: “The Chinese always wanted to do it cheaper, and the Americans wanted to spend the money if it was there.”
6) I think that there may have been something to what Fred said about Bruce not being around much during the early stages of filming. Bruce was usually seen in production photos for scenes that didn’t require his presence whether it be as an actor or even fight choreographer. This is because he took upon himself to be the co-director, especially with director Robert Clouse almost being deaf. At the same time, Bruce was so nervous that he needed an excuse to delay his own participation. As such, he can’t be seen behind the scenes of the travelogue montage that was used for the film’s opening credit sequence. For example, John Saxon’s rickshaw ride. Speaking of which, photographer Dave Friedman said: “I loved traveling in a rickshaw, as it was a cheap and exciting way to see and smell old Hong Kong.”
7) Cinematographer Gilbert Hubbs revealed that it was only halfway through the film that they all began to realize that something exceptional was happening. This is because, in Gil’s words, Bruce was: “Just magic.”
8) Dave Friedman cleared up a misunderstanding about Bruce being photographed holding a camera i.e. it wasn’t Bruce’s camera; it was one of Dave’s cameras. Dave said: “That camera was an early Nikon F2 with the old Nikkor 50–30mm lens. I hated that lens which looked good on paper, but was a pain in the ass to use because it was very heavy and you needed three hands to properly use it.”
9) To sell the film, a kite was created as a promotional giveaway for theater customers. This might explain the hang-gliding plot device that would later be used as the central marketing hook for Golden Harvest’s international feature, Jimmy Wang Yu’s The Man from Hong Kong.
10) According to Andre Morgan (who worked as Raymond Chow’s assistant), Sammo Hung’s scene was shot as a “second unit day” towards the end of production. Sammo, the fat sparring partner that we see in the beginning, said: “I enjoyed working on the film although I didn’t really think it would be a hit at that time. The film didn’t really help my career and the thing I remember best was the argument I had with Bruce over fight choreography.”
11) Dave Friedman’s copy of the script, dated January 22 1973, was titled Enter the Dragon. However, the film was known to the American cast as Blood and Steel. This was to appease John Saxon who was deceived by Fred Weintraub into thinking that he was the star of the film because the character of Roper was an audience surrogate. Another example of the script not being set in stone is provided by Andre’s comment: “So much of what we did was not in the script. We just improvised as we went along.”
12) Dave was only informed about his involvement in the film in the middle of January. The man who invited him was Mort Lickter - the head of the Warner Brothers still department. Dave had already worked with Bruce in 1966 during the making of a TV series called The Green Hornet. Because Dave was not part of the original budget for Enter the Dragon, he was put on a special deal with the publicity department and their budget. Ironically, he was the highest paid crew member at a rate of $750 per week (a very good overseas flat rate for that time) which doesn’t even include the per diem, hotel room, and a first class round trip ticket between LAX and Hong Kong.
13) Despite the communication problems between the Americans and the Chinese along with director Robert Clouse hard of hearing, assistant director Chaplin Chang personally found him to be easy to work with. Chaplin went on to say: “I was manager of King Hu Film Productions when Raymond Chow gave me a script to read and help break down and make a below-the-line budget. The script was then called Blood and Steel. Weeks after that, he borrowed me again, this time to work on Enter the Dragon as assistant director.”
14) Line producer Fred Weintraub said: “The equipment there was old and noisy, so it was decided to bring in Panavision equipment to make the film.”
15) Speaking of old, first-time actor Geoffrey Weeks (the man who played Braithwaite) died “several months” after filming was completed. Dave Friedman’s official report was that Geoffrey went home for lunch and was later found dead of natural causes. Given that the Englishman was Head of Programming for Hong Kong Radio Three, it’s rather all too convenient because he was in a position where he could have been interviewed about Bruce. I did a newspaper search online, and I found out that Geoffrey died on September 3, 1974. He was 52 years old.
16) Raymond Chow had this to say about Angela Mao: “Angela was a contract player with us, and was known as one of the Five Golden Flowers of Golden Harvest.”
17) Andre Morgan provided geographical insight pertaining to a scene in her first and final international film: “The alley where that fight took place was the view from my office window.”
18) Talking about her character, Andre said: “The place where she killed herself was the studio canteen where we all went to eat breakfast.”
19) Cinematographer Gil Hubbs remembers: “My best memory of Enter the Dragon is shooting the scene of Bruce in the harbour, sitting serenely on a small stool while I was sitting on another, filming him. There were scores of junks all around and hundreds of people yelling at us.”
20) On Thursday, February 1, a telegram from Hong Kong was sent to a little-known member of the Warner Brothers production committee and head of Warner’s Asian distribution. The recipient was Richard Ma, and he was told by a man named Chen that Fred Weintraub would meet Richard on Friday with some dailies which were developed so far. It was only a week after filming began that the owner of the Golden Harvest film company had signed Shih Kien to play the villain. Raymond Chow secured his services for 15,000 dollars in H.K. currency.
21) Going by Andre Morgan’s testimony, the mirror room finale was completed on his 21st birthday. This was Sunday, March 4. Symbolically, the Hong Kong crew kept on filming more shots for the scene for four days straight after the Americans had moved on to other things. The shots filmed were not fighting shots but stalking shots which emphasized the cat versus mouse chase between Lee and Han.
22) 12,500 dollars in U.S. currency was already allocated to Hong Kong by the time that it was February 1. The Hong Kong team needed 117,000 U.S. dollars to complete the movie. As such, it was requested that (starting from Tuesday, February 6) there would be a weekly transfer of 20,000 dollars for five weeks, but only 17,000 dollars for the sixth and final week. This means that the deadline for principal photography was to be Monday, March 19. The sender of the telegram complained that the morning of February 1 was unfruitful due to the unavailability of production manager Louis Sit.
23) Pertaining to the banquet scene, Dave Friedman said: “This was our biggest and most costly set due to many artistic challenges and the over 200 extras who consumed much of the prop food on the various tables.”
Get Joseph Kuby’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
24) The fight between Han and Williams was finished the day before Bruce began filming the fight sequence in the cavern where Lee takes on dozens of Han’s henchmen. This is according to a telegram sent from producer Paul Heller to Warner for the attention of Fred Weintraub, who was taking a break from Hong Kong after getting tired of Bruce’s antics and the overall stress of making the film. Paul intended co-star Jim Kelly to hand carry some selected bits of negative footage for Fred to see. Raymond Chow was already counting his profits before Bruce filmed any of his fight scenes. The mirror finale had yet to be filmed. The deadline had been extended to March 24. That was the same day when Bruce’s physician (Donald Langford) had removed stitches from his right hand seven days after Bruce was cut during filming.
25) Relating to the infamous glass bottle incident, Fred denied that it happened due to lack of money: “If we had the time, we would have ordered a couple of candy glass bottles from Hollywood and had them flown over. Some people made a big deal out of that incident but it was all bullsh!t publicity. Bob Clouse really made a big deal out of it in his book but that was the ghostwriter’s fault for trying to sensationalize the situation.”
26) For reasons unbeknownst to anyone except the author, Dave Friedman purchased the opium weights that were used in the opium den part of the fight between Han and Williams. Although they call it movie magic, it was real opium that was being smoked by the harem in that scene. Dave wanted to buy the opium dealer’s scale but that was a no-go.
27) Dave has some obscure trivia: “None of my film was processed in Hong Kong. I kept the exposed film in film cans and either sent it back to the Warner Brothers lab in the company pouch or brought it home with me at the end.”
28) Dave’s impression of Bruce: “The most impassioned person I ever knew or worked with. I can never forget his eyes. When he looked at you, you knew it.”
29) About the publicity photos of Bruce in a dark suit doing Kung Fu towards Dave’s camera, Dave said: “Bruce and I came up with these shots one day between set-ups by the tennis court. These images were shot with a 20mm lens to make the hands and feet look much larger than normal.”
30) Dave talks about Bruce’s personal assistant and Shih Kien’s dialogue coach - Madalena Chan: “We all used to call Madalena the Dragon Lady but I can’t remember why because she was always very nice, at least to me.”
31) Dave laments: “Daily morning production meetings were the norm on this film due to the numerous script changes, dealing with set construction, location logistics and casting of actors.”
32) A cultural difference observed by Dave: “The Golden Harvest hair and make-up people were very efficient and very professional. They worked differently from the Hollywood people, working directly on the set rather than in a make-up trailer. But in the end, the result was the same.”
33) Dave’s anecdote about a challenger: “One day as Bruce and I headed to the van taking the American crew to the Repulse Bay Hotel for lunch, the extra pictured being kicked challenged Bruce to a fight. I had seen Bruce challenged many times but he always declined. This was the first and only time that I saw him accept. I don’t know what was said because the conversation was in Chinese, but I do know he was really p!ssed off. One quick kick to the mouth, and no teeth later, the fight was over. Bruce then told the guys on the wall to come down but they ran off. As we resumed our walk to the van, I asked Bruce what happened. He only said that he could have killed the guy ten different ways before he hit the ground, and I believed him.”
34) In the original script, there was a note for the final fight which stated: “The fight begins and this is to be the smashingest, f#ckingest fight ever put on Eastman Kodak #5254 color film stock.”
35) Andre Morgan talks about the location of the finale: “The thing I most remember about the mirrored room was the oppressive heat and trying to keep all of the damn mirrors clean from dirt and grease.”
36) Producer Paul Heller’s recollection: “We needed Bruce to get the crew to put exhaust fans on top of the set, but because it had never been done before, no one wanted to do it in case it was someone else’s “rice bowl,” meaning a possible job.”
37) Paul admits the full extent of his contributions: “I was on the set every day while I was in Hong Kong, and was there in Hong Kong for at least 3/4 of the shoot and prep.”
38) Paul confirmed a myth about Bruce’s desire for glamour: “We all knew Enter the Dragon was going to be a successful film when we saw the dailies and even more so when we had the sneak previews. So much so that Bruce even ordered his Rolls Royce.”
39) Andre Morgan shared a similar sentiment: “When we watched the dailies, we all knew we had something very special. When you see great footage, it perks you up to do even a better job, and we were seeing great footage. We all knew by the end of the second week that this was a real money-maker.”
40) Chaplin Chang proves to be ever so much a contrarian: “Did I think Enter the Dragon would be a huge money-maker? NO. But at one point, we (myself, Bob Clouse, Raymond Chow and others) were eating and they were talking and hoping that the film would gross 150M USD.”
41) One of Dave’s woes: “Unfortunately none of my shots of Han impaled on the spear exist today, and I took lots of them.”
42) The tennis courts used for Han’s tournament actually belonged to a friend of Raymond Chow. According to Raymond, one of the stuntmen who challenged Bruce had picked up a chunk of granite from the ground and took bites out of it to intimidate Bruce. Raymond wanted to call security, but Bruce wanted to call the stuntman’s bluff. Raymond feared for Bruce’s safety so much that he called security to have the man removed.
43) In an April 3 memo to Eric Weissman from Paul Heller, the latter informed the former that Bruce would be finishing “elements” on pages 7 and 22 of the final script. In addition to those elements, there would be a “short action sequence” in the final fight. These elements were thoroughly discussed with Bruce, Clouse, Paul and the cameraman who would be filming them. They were previously unable to complete these “few items” due to a groin injury that afflicted Bruce. These missing elements were “not substantive” to the completion of the film, but Bruce was so much of a perfectionist that he wanted to do them. Paul expected to receive them from Bruce by April 20.
44) The groin injury meant that Bruce had to initially compromise the finale. His left leg was to be slashed by Han’s claw, as seen in a rare still of the original ending where Lee was to be seen interacting with Roper as he makes his way through the battlefield after killing Han. Since Bruce’s groin healed, the ending was reshot so as to focus on Han’s other claw.
45) In an April 9 memo to Warner Brothers president Ted Ashley, Fred Weintraub needed confirmation on Enter the Dragon being the final title. According to what was relayed to Fred by Raymond Chow, Bruce was already “moving ahead” - presumably referring to the pick-up shots and reshoots. Raymond Chow was so eager to cash in on the impending success of Enter the Dragon that he had already booked cinemas in Taiwan and Hong Kong for a summer release. Now, you compare this to The Way of the Dragon finishing filming in mid-July 1972 to being released in late December 1972.
46) The aforementioned page 7 refers to the fight scene with Sammo Hung which opens the film. Bruce wanted to film that scene so that audiences knew that he was the star instead of John Saxon, who had already gone about reshooting his first fight scene (which was originally going to be the film’s second opening scene after Jim Kelly’s first fight scene).
47) Warner Brothers knew about how temperamental that Bruce Lee could be. His tantrums were the stuff of legend, so they sent a telegram to his Hong Kong address while he was still in the U.S. on June 7. The reason was because they knew that he wouldn’t be happy if the title was going to be changed to The Island of Han. By the time that Bruce arrived in Hong Kong on June 8, he wrote a letter to Warner leader Ted Ashley at the Hyatt Regency Hotel where he managed to refrain from indulging in foul language while expressing why the title should be just Enter the Dragon.
48) Andre Morgan broke down the budget somewhat: “That film cost 400,000 USD. Never mind all of the bullsh!t that’s been said, I signed every check and I was the one who went through the audit with the Warner’s auditor. I even went through the audit for the extra 300 rolls of toilet paper. Of that $400,000, Bruce got $100,000, Bob Clouse got $25,000, Freddie and Paul got $25,000, and Raymond got $25,000. When you take all of that out, that leaves $225,000 to make the whole movie. When you look at what we did for that amount of money, it looked like a 4 million dollar movie.”
49) By bullsh!t, he is referring to Fred Weintraub because Fred claimed that the overall production budget was $500,000. Fred had to lie because not many people would have taken the film seriously if the budget was revealed to be less than half a million. Fred claimed that the budget was evenly divided between Warner Brothers and Golden Harvest. If true, this would mean that Bruce forced Raymond to be paid a quarter of what Bruce was getting. Since the movie was officially co-produced by Concord (Bruce’s company with Raymond), it seems awfully unfair; especially when taking into consideration that facilities were provided by the Golden Harvest studio.
50) Contrary to popular belief, Enter the Dragon was not completely shot without sound. Andre concludes: “When the budget was done, we were not supposed to shoot synch sound as production sound. All it was going to be was a guide track and everything would be dubbed later as was the practice in Hong Kong in those days. It was only when Fred and Paul showed up that it was said that we have to shoot production sound that we can use which just put more pressure on Bruce because he was very conscious of his accent. The fact that he just wasn’t acting but acting with his voice put more pressure on him. He was very self-conscious about it. Bruce was very worried about everything.”
