Skip to main content

Why Movies Get Bruce Lee's Fight With Wong Jack-Man So Wrong

Bruce Lee's famed fight with Wong Jack-man has been recreated on film twice, but while both of these portrayals diverge from the facts of the original match, there are good reasons for the inaccuracies. Bruce Lee's development of Jeet Kune Do was born out of his fight with Wong, which took place in San Francisco in 1964. The fight was later depicted in the 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and again in 2017's Birth of the Dragon.

Aside from the fact of the fight's occurrence and Lee's dissatisfaction with the outcome leading to his creation of Jeet Kune Do, the versions of the fight seen in both films are almost entirely fictionalized. One of the major reasons for this is the lack of consensus on many details of the fight, with even eyewitness accounts varying greatly. This extends to the duration of the fight, which has been, at different times, reported as being a quick match of a few minutes and as one lasting as long as 25 minutes. Accounts of Lee and Wong's motivations for the fight also vary considerably, as well.

RELATED: How Bruce Lee's Game Of Death Happened Because Of A Cancelled Period Movie

Any movie attempting to sift through the specifics of Bruce Lee and Wong Jack-man's match would encounter a very different version of events depending on who is telling the story. Both Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and Birth of the Dragon adopt Bruce Lee's well-known virtue of simplicity in establishing the fight itself as a historic fact. Beyond that, both films take creative license where they need to, which feeds into the other big reason for their historical inaccuracies.

Both movies aim to tell very different stories with the life of Bruce Lee as their basis. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story acts as a biopic in the full sense, while the heavily fictionalized Birth of the Dragon zeroes in on Lee's fight with Wong as a pivotal moment in his life. With their different agendas, the two movies have to show the Lee versus Wong fight in a way that best fits their respective stories. That also makes a strict adherence to the facts of the fight — already hard enough to pin down — an even tougher proposition.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story presents the fight as highly ritualized and even changes Wong's name to Johnny Sun (played by John Cheung). The unconnected real-life back injury of Bruce Lee (Jason Scott Lee) is also merged with the fight as a result of Sun kicking Lee in the back. Additionally, the two have a fictional rematch months later that leads directly to Lee being cast as Kato on The Green Hornet. Birth of the Dragon emphasizes the mythic nature of the fight, depicting Wong Jack-man (Xia Yu) as a Shaolin monk and his fight with Bruce Lee (Philip Ng) as a life-changing match for Lee.

Both versions condense details of Lee's life and those of the fight in a way that streamlines them into different stories about Lee's growth as a human, philosopher, and martial artist. While neither Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story nor Birth of the Dragon is literally a true account of Lee's fight with Wong, both place their attention on how important the fight was for Lee. In his showdown with Wong years before his rise to fame, Bruce Lee came to deepen his martial arts knowledge beyond his Wing Chun training with Ip Man. The two movies get that much right because that is the most important outcome of Bruce Lee's legendary fight with Wong Jack-man.

NEXT: Why Hollywood Finally Cast Bruce Lee (After Rejecting Him For So Long)



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who Is Billy? Black Christmas 1974's Ending Explained

Bob Clark's 1974 horror film Black Christmas is one of the most influential slasher movies of all time, and it has an unforgettably chilling ending. In Black Christmas Billy is considered the villain as he picks off victims one by one, and after almost 50 years, his identity is still debated. The story takes place in a sorority house, where the residents are throwing a Christmas party before they depart. Little do they know, however, that a perverted killer has made his way into the house, and is preparing to pick them off one by one. The Billy Black Christmas character remains in the shadows for most of the movie, that is, until the chilling ending.
Post a Comment
Read more

Every Actress Who Played Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, Ranked

Author  Agatha Christie 's Miss Marple is one of the most iconic and celebrated literary sleuths of all time. The amateur investigator was first introduced in the 1930 novel Murder at the Vicarage , appearing in 11 subsequent novels up until 1976. The character has been portrayed on the stage, on radio, and for our purposes, on the big and small screen several times since the character's screen debut in 1961. Over the past 60 years, Miss Marple has been portrayed by several actresses, many of whom hail from different parts of the world. To see who did Miss Marple the most justice on screen, scroll below. Updated July 21st, 2022 by George Chrysostomou:  Agatha Christie's works are still influencing the industry today and Miss Marple is among her most famous creations. With the Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion , taking the audience back to the genre, it's well worth checking out these classic portrayals of one of the best detectives out there featuring some fantastic Mis...
Post a Comment
Read more

Demonologist: How to Find Every Finger Location (& What They’re For)

Players need to find the location of five Fingers in Demonologist 's abandoned house to exorcise a ghost haunting the place, finishing every objective on the map to defeat this supernatural enemy. Given the chaotic nature of this horror game, it can be hard for players to look for these small fingers on such a large map. There are also some tasks that need to be completed before players are even able to start looking for these items in the first place.
Post a Comment
Read more