Another Bruce Lee Bio-Pic in the Works

You might be asking what's wrong with the first Bruce Lee bio-pic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story? My answer is, not much, really. I mean, it's a bio-pic so it has its disappointments, but I thought Jason Scott Lee was good. But we're about to get another Bruce Lee movie anyway.

Frankly, I'm looking forward to it because it's going to star Tony Leung, and Bruce's brother, Robert Lee, says this won't contain the many inaccuracies about Lee's life that have cropped up since his death in 1973. The project is conceived as a trilogy, which would seem entirely too self-indulgent if this weren't a Hong Kong production about one of its national treasures, even though Lee was born in San Francisco. He's like the Beatles of Hong Kong, so I don't have any problem with this in the first place and the addition of Leung (the Tony Leung from the 90s skin flick The Lover and not the Tony Leung from the Ang Lee skin flick Lust, Caution) is just the icing on the cake.

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Bruce Lee vs. Iron Man = Awesome

Here's a fantazmic little video as you head into your weekend. According to Movie Moron, it's the work of Canadian animator Patrick Boivin, so kudos to that guy.

I had never before wondered who would win a fight between Bruce Lee and Iron Man, but now I have my answer, thanks to Boivin's very convincing video. It's pretty much the coolest thing you'll see today. It reminds me a lot of the old Nissan commercial with the Barbie doll that used Van Halen's cover of "You Really Got Me," if you remember that. Bitchin' soundtrack, too.

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Superb Viral Ads for Nokia's Bruce Lee Phone

This is a really cool ad campaign for the new Nokia N96 phone, which I guess comes in a collector's edition Bruce Lee model. I guess if he were to endorse a phone some 35 years after his death, this one's as good as any.

Anyway, the commercials are just bad ass. It's some guy in a Lee-inspired jumpsuit performing unreal feats with a pair of nunchakus. As near as I can tell, there's not a frame of Bruce Lee in either one of these videos, just a guy in a jumpsuit swingin' 'chuks around. And then they add his signature yelps for effect.The two videos feature "Bruce" playing ping-pong and playing with fire. Ironically, the jumpsuit is the same one producer Raymond Chow stuck a sorta-look-alike into so he could finish Game of Death following Lee's unexpected passing. It wasn't very convincing then, either.

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The Top Five Posthumous Performances

5 - Spencer Tracy - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

4 - Bruce Lee - Enter the Dragon

3 - Massimo Troisi - Il Postino

2 - James Dean - Giant

1 - Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

                      Heath Ledger: Oscar-bound?

We're fortunate this week that Bernie Mac left us with a very funny final performance in Soul Men. He's never been better, so watching his work in that comedy is certainly bittersweet, but it's better to go out on top than, say, Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 from Outer Space or Emmitt Smith with the Arizona Cardinals.

Thanks for all the suggestions, which included Stanley Kubrick for directing Eyes Wide Shut, Brandon Lee in The Crow, John Candy (Wagon's East), Natalie Wood for Dreamscape, Adrienne Shelly (who wrote, directed and co-starred in Waitress), Oliver Reed in Gladiator, Clark Gable in The Misfits, and John Ritter's very funny supporting performance as the mall manager in Bad Santa, among others.

Incidentally, while Peter Finch did win the Academy Award posthumously for his role in Network, he passed away between the time the film was released and his Oscar win. And last week, we said, "Last performances for which the actor, actress, or director wasn't around to see it on screen," and Finch doesn't fit that bill, I'm afraid.

So why did we settle on these Top Five and not some of those? We don't think of Gable for his final performance like we do in the cases of Bruce Lee or James Dean. Natalie Wood and John Candy were in bad movies, so that doesn't help, and Kubrick would probably have preferred a different final line on his résumé, as well. Three of these performances showcase unreal talent muted too soon, and their work has and will continue to inspire many young actors. Another is legendary for winning a posthumous Oscar, and the fifth entry may be the most miraculous one of all.

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The Top Five Martial Arts Movies

Though the brand new film The Forbidden Kingdom combines the talents of the two greatest living martial arts movie stars, it isn't exactly up to snuff. Jackie Chan and Jet Li have done much better work, as has the genre.

This Top Five list is interesting in many ways, because it represents so many different ideas of what the genre should represent.

1 - Enter the Dragon



Purists might decry having Enter the Dragon at number one, because it was a Hollywood attempt to cash in on the growing stardom of Bruce Lee.

Still, it's one of the few 35-year-old action movies that is still impressive from that standpoint, it perfectly displays why Bruce Lee would've been the biggest star in the world for his generation had he not died, and while all the combat is hand to hand instead of the more visual wu shu, Enter the Dragon contains the signature fight scene in martial arts movies: Lee's tournament fight against the evil and overmatched Oharra. Lee's hands move so fast that critics alleged that frames were taken out of the scene to make him look faster. In fact, the opposite is true: Frames were added to make it look like frames weren't taken out.

This film is the Elvis of martial arts flicks.

2 - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

There's not much argument that Crouching Tiger belongs on this list. Directed by Ang Lee, it is clearly looking at martial arts differently than Enter the Dragon. It has a historical and mythical relevance the culture taps into, and an unmatched beauty in its choreography. Throw in the most haunting and lyrical story the genre has seen - and the fact that it's the highest-grossing foreign language film ever - and its place is secure.

3 - Legend of Drunken Master



Jackie Chan's Legend of Drunken Master is perhaps the most respected and imitated Chinese martial arts film. Made in 1994 when Chan was already 40, it's the perfect vehicle for his unparalleled combination of violence, humor, and artistry as a storyteller whose canvas is fight scenes. The final sequence in this film may be the best of its kind.

4 - Shaolin Master Killer



Shaolin Master Killer proves the one thing that is absolutely true about this genre: It doesn't matter where it comes from, be it Hollywood or Hong Kong, or on a big budget or no budget at all, if you fit unending fight scenes the likes of which no one has seen before around any kind of story at all, you too can have a classic. This film has the lowest name recognition on our list, I realize, but a true fan has to spend some time with Chia-Liang Lu's masterwork.

5 - Once Upon a Time in China



Finally, the pivotal number five slot is occupied by a Jet Li movie. I'm not a great fan of Jet's, but there's no way to ignore his first two Once Upon a Time in China films, and the second one, for me, is the best marriage of the kind of martial arts action China has exported so well over the years with the epic historical battle that so many filmmakers have used as the springboard for their action sequences.

I believe I'm correct that the second Once Upon a Time is Jet Li's favorite, too, and I prefer the fights in it a little more.