SPEC D: George Nolfi. U.S./China/Canada. 103 min. Sep 15, 7:30 pm, Isabel Bader Sep 16, 4:45 pm, Isabel Bader. Rating: NN
In 1964, a cocky martial artist named Bruce Lee squared off against Shaolin monk Wong Jack Man in San Francisco, pitting his westernized kung-fu against Wong’s eastern Wing Chun discipline. Birth Of The Dragon takes that incident and builds an old-school chop-socky movie around it.
Screenwriters Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson pack the story with gangsters, thugs, wise monks and wisecracking sidekicks, all seen through the eyes of a fictional white guy (Billy Magnussen) who befriends Wong while training with Lee – and ultimately enlists them both in a battle to save the woman he loves (Melody Peng).
The genre conceit is a really great idea, but Nolfi can’t pull it off. Sure, he’s got fight sequences choreographed by Corey Yuen, but he takes forever to get to them. And Magnussen’s character is a dud compared to the charismatic Li (Philip Wan-Lung Ng) and the deadpan Wong (Xia Yu).
