Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

The Way of the Dragon Blu-ray Movie Review

Insert your favorite Chuck Norris joke here.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 10, 2013

Note: This film is currently only available as part of Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection.

For hordes of baby boomers, Bruce Lee will probably forever be Kato. In the wake of the insanely popular Adam West Batman series, ABC greenlit another superhero in the hopes of lightning striking twice, but The Green Hornet had neither Batman’s campy sense of humor nor, ultimately, its popularity (though truth be told, by the time The Green Hornet aired, Batman was probably already at its all time peak in popularity and was soon to begin losing its audience, ultimately following its sibling into the purgatory of cancellation and endless reruns via syndication). Bruce Lee made such an impression as Van Williams’ sidekick in The Green Hornet that the series was actually known colloquially in many international markets as The Kato Show. Many Westerners at least were unaware that Lee had toiled in film for years as a child actor before his breakout role in American television. Though The Green Hornet was not in itself a success, it raised Lee’s profile to the point where he at least could find occasional work as a guest star in other American television series, but perhaps surprisingly it took a few more years until Lee’s tragically brief adult film career finally took hold. Over the course of a mere two or so years, Lee made only five films, but he established himself as the leading martial arts star of his generation and due perhaps at least somewhat to his untimely death at the age of 32 in 1973, Lee rather quickly became even more legendary, part of that cadre of stars who, rather like James Dean, experienced a post-mortem reassessment of their contributions that only grew with the passing years. The international market has seen several Blu-ray releases of Lee’s first films over the years, both singly and in deluxe boxed sets, but fans were overjoyed to hear of this new Shout! Factory set, which includes four of Lee’s five films (Enter the Dragon is a Warner property and has been released on Blu-ray by that studio). Joy turned to shock, however, when early recipients of this extravagantly packaged set started complaining that Fortune Star, who had provided the masters to Shout! for this release, had “cheated” viewers by supplying upscaled standard definition transfers rather than native high definition properties.

. . .and now, for the rest of the story. Paul Harvey used to tease his radio audiences with that famous introductory phrase, and it’s more or less perfect for “what happened next”. After comments from consumers who received early versions of the first release, and (if I might be less than perfectly humble for a moment) the original Blu-ray.com review, Shout! realized there was something wrong with the release. While they remained a bit circumspect on what was happening, with original reports seeming to focus only on the mislabeled discs I had identified in my original review, Shout! ultimately evidently uncovered newer high definition masters for three of the films and went back to the drawing board to recreate and reissue the set. There have been a lot of accusations flying around the internet (what else is new?) alleging all kinds of nefarious behavior, but I for one find this neither helpful nor ultimately of much importance. What matters is that Shout! has tried to address concerns and has probably gone to considerable expense to recall the first set and reissue this “new, improved” one. Their official statement detailing the differences in this new set reads:

Correct pairing of disc label art and media for discs 10 and 11, which had inadvertently been swapped on the original release.

New Blu-rays for The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon. Contrary to speculation circulating on the internet, the original set did contain hi-def masters of the first three feature films. However, after comments from fans who had received early copies of our set, we discovered that our sources were not the recently restored transfers used for the Blu-rays in Hong Kong and Japan, but rather the original masters done a few years ago in Canada. We therefore acquired the improved masters (the master for Game of Death was no appreciably different), and have included them on this new set, for a truly definitive Bruce Lee collection.

Some fans have thrown brickbats at Shout! for supposedly not “coming clean” about whether the first set contained upscales or not, and to them I’d simply ask two questions, the first of which is: what difference does it make, now that Shout! has corrected the problem? The second, perhaps tangential, question is whether this is simply a matter of terminology. As lovers of FUNimation anime releases are well aware, that label regularly lists releases as HD native when what they really mean is that they have been provided (pre-existing) upscaled HD masters of native SD content. That may in fact be what has happened here, but again, I find the brouhaha a relatively moot point, now that corrected masters have been provided.

The Way of the Dragon announced Bruce Lee as not just a superstar, but as a burgeoning auteur. Aside from appearing in the film, Lee wrote, co-produced and directed, enjoying one of the pinnacle successes of his all too brief career. Lee portrays Tang Lung, a genial guy who is sent, perhaps unwisely, to help a relative whose Rome restaurant is being targeted by the Mafia. The Way of the Dragon presages the later films of stars like Jackie Chan, with an almost goofy sense of humor at times. If some of the film hasn’t aged very well (there are a couple of gay stereotypes that some may not find particularly amusing), the film is breezily entertaining and contains a number of Lee’s best known action sequences.

There’s no denying that much of this film is over repetitive, with one assassination attempt after another against Tang failing, to the point that some cynics may be muttering under their breaths, “Just give up, already.” But things cartwheel toward the incredibly exciting finale, where Lee takes out a series of henchmen, including a young a rather hirsute Chuck Norris, in one of the best known martial arts sequences in Lee’s entire career. Lee stages this final epic battle very well, including some kind of funny cutaways to one of the resident feral cats in Rome’s Colosseum, an iconic locale with obviously loads of history regarding epochal skirmishes of yore echoing through its decaying stone walls.

A bittersweet quality infuses much of The Way of the Dragon, at least for modern day audiences who can’t help but see the film and wonder what might have been had Lee lived a longer life. This is one of the more artful of Lee’s few films, one that fairly effortlessly blends action and comedy, and it certainly shows that had he been given more time, Lee easily could have matured into a topflight director. There’s little doubt that films like The Way of the Dragon influenced a whole glut of comedy laced martial arts films that were to follow. Lee had the misfortune of not only being ahead of his time, but of not having enough time to begin with.

The Way of the Dragon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screencaps 1-10 are taken from this new release. Screencaps 11-20 are from the original recalled release. I have included at least a couple of "similar" frames for comparison as well as other moments from the film for a general overview of the changes.

The Way of the Dragon is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1 (the original was framed at 2.36:1). This was the one of the more problematic looking transfers in the first set, and while some of those issues are obviously inherent in the elements (more about that in a minute), this new version is probably the most dramatic improvement in the set. Clarity and sharpness are much improved here, as is fine detail, though, again, this presentation hardly rises to the pristine levels of contemporary films (as obviously should be expected). There are still major issues with the first ten minutes or so of this presentation, as well as the closing few moments, where things look completely out of focus and midrange shots often devolve into mere blobs of color rather than identifiable objects. As with the first release, this is one of the grainier efforts in this set, though the tendency for noise to spike in the darkest scenes has been ameliorated. Contrast is still slightly problematic, but it, too, is at least marginally better in this new version, without the wide fluctuations that were quite noticeable in the original release.

The Way of the Dragon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! Factory has included several different audio options, but their menu listings either don't always match what's actually present or fail to disclose whether the tracks are lossless or not. The following list offers the menu listings followed by actual audio specs in parentheses, if those differ from the menu listing or if further clarification is needed:

• Mandarin Mono (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• Mandarin DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• Cantonese Mono (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1
• English Mono (U.S. Dub) (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• English Mono (Japanese Theatrical) (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

This is one case where the English dub in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is probably the best overall choice, given the fact that most audiophiles will probably reject the lossy tracks outright. The Cantonsese Dolby Digital 5.1 track is probably the best overall runner-up, as rather weirdly the Mandarin DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track sounds noticeably muffled for some reason. Something that helps the English track at least a little is that at least some of the dialogue was originally spoken in English, so the post-looping doesn't have quite the mismatch of lip movement to spoken word that some of the other films do in their dubbed versions. Fidelity is reasonable, though never outstanding, with some minimal distortion present in the midrange. As with the other releases in this package, surround activity tends to only really be exploited with regard to sound effects and score.

The Way of the Dragon Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailers (1080p; 2:12)


• U.S. TV Spot (1080p; 00:27)


• Alternate Title Sequence (1080p; 4:54)


• Celebrity Interviews (1080i; 4:34) include Sammo Hung, Simon Yam and Wong Jing speaking about Lee and the film.


• Kung Fu? Jon Been Remembers the Shooting of the Film (1080i; 21:42). Benn is misidentified as Been on the menu. He's still with us, guys.


• Still Gallery (1080p; 3:05)


• Audio Commentary by Hong Kong Film Expert Mike Leeder follows the tradition of all the films in this set by providing a quite interesting commentary hobbled by horrible phasing issues.

The Way of the Dragon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans of The Way of the Dragon know it has always had problems from a video quality standpoint, but this new master does address at least some of the sharpness issues. That said, while this is easily the most dramatic improvement in the new versions, ironically this is still easily one of the worst looking films of the four included in this Legacy collection.