Birth of the Dragon

Which is the more effec­tive way to admin­is­ter phys­i­cal dam­age to anoth­er human being: mod­ern Kung Fu or the North Shaolin method? George Nolfi’s sec­ond fea­ture as direc­tor puts this pos­er to the test as he draws our atten­tion to a dra­mat­ic bout between the late icon Bruce Lee – played by Kung Fu star, Philip Ng – and Shaolin mas­ter, Wong Jack Man (Xia Yu).

Whisk­ing us back to Lee’s ear­ly years when he worked as a mar­tial arts instruc­tor in San Fran­cis­co, the film attempts to imag­ine why this fabled encounter took place and what its wider ram­i­fi­ca­tions would have been. In doing so, it intro­duces a fic­tion­al stu­dent, Steve McK­ee (Bil­ly Mag­nussen), who acts as a focus for the action.

Since its fes­ti­val debut at the Toron­to Film Fes­ti­val in 2016, film has invit­ed unwant­ed com­par­isons to the recent remake of Ghost in the Shell, which was sub­ject to a wave of white­wash­ing accu­sa­tions. Magnussen’s Mck­ee is the only white Amer­i­can char­ac­ter in the film, but the big prob­lem is that his sto­ry is afford­ed far more screen time than any­one else’s. Fur­ther­more, debu­tant Jingjing Qu is trapped in an unimag­i­na­tive female role as a damsel in dis­tress, and this frus­trat­ing deci­sion even­tu­al­ly sees Lee and Wong Jack Man bat­tling it out to pre­serve her honour.

Dis­ap­point­ing­ly, the fight scenes lack any real ath­let­ic dynamism or unpre­dictabil­i­ty, two fea­tures that set Lee’s big-screen clash­es apart from the slew of imi­ta­tions that fol­lowed his untime­ly death in 1993. Xia Yu has a pass­able excuse in that his for­mal train­ing does not extend to mar­tial arts, while his expe­ri­ence as a sea­soned actor helps to plug the gap.

The reverse is true of Ng, who’s deci­sion to char­ac­terise Lee as cocky and ego­tis­ti­cal is tough to take seri­ous­ly. It’s an inspir­ing ren­der­ing, and is done no favours by the dull cam­er­a­work and edit­ing. There is a pass­ing visu­al ref­er­ence to the sem­i­nal Enter the Drag­on in the form of Ng’s slashed ribcage.

But Birth of the Drag­on doesn’t offer a fair or cred­i­ble reflec­tion of Lee, Kung Fu or even the films that launched him as a mould-break­ing hero of the East. Hav­ing more in com­mon with grey liq­uid cement than glis­ten­ing holy water, it crash­es where it should flow.