This is a biopic of the legendary martial artist Bruce Lee staring Bruce Li. It's actually quite an effective film about his rise to stardom. Li has one half the charisma of Bruce Lee but that's not unexpected. The plot follows his life especially in his epic fights. The action is solid with loads of hand to hand combat. Li is at least competently skilled in that arena. There are some missing story elements and some liberties are taken as always. His family life is mostly in the background. The production value may not be that high but in a way, it matches those Bruce Lee movies of that era. It's a functional biopic and that's more than expected.

Bruce Lee The Man, The Myth is probably the first martial arts movie that I remember seeing. I remember on Saturday afternoons after Saturday morning cartoons channel 29 had "Kung Fu Theater" and played all kinds of old school kung fu movies. This was one that they played a lot and is also my introduction to Bruce Lee. The film is chronologically correct, but for the most part the story and the amount of fights Bruce got in are greatly exaggerated or fiction. If you want to learn about Bruce Lee, there are some excellent documentaries and books to learn about the man and his life. However, Bruce Lee The Man, The Myth is a very entertaining film and everything I want in a classic kung fu movie. Even though Bruce Li is a Bruce Lee imitator, he is really good. While pretty much nobody was in the shape Bruce Lee was in, or had the explosive power that he had, Bruce Li was in great shape and possesses great fighting skills. Plus, he has plenty of charisma and kind of resembles Bruce Lee. The fights are incredible and there is a lot of them here. When watching foreign films, I normally prefer to watch them in its original language and subtitles. This is one notable exception and the ridiculous dialouge put this movie over the top with some truly memorable, hilarious dialouge that I find myself quoting all time. While the film is more fiction than fact, this is highly entertaining and has a larger budget than most of the other Brucespoitation movies that came out during this period. Shot on location in Hong Kong, the US and Europe, this is bar far the most well made of these films as well as a big personal favorite. For anyone that might remember The Headbanger's Ball on MTV in the 80's, you might recall them showing clips from this movie with SOD playing in the background. While I highly doubt Bruce Lee told everyone their martial arts are garbage, laughed at them and beat them up, Bruce Lee The Man, The Myth is a beautiful movie man and if you have'nt seen this, you are truly missing out.

Early in the 1980s, there were four premium channels to choose from on a local cable system, and my family chose all four. HBO, Showtime, The Movie Channel, and a channel the presented low budget drive in stuff, called Bravo. Bravo then became, Rendezvous, and I was having a field day with all the low budget films I could handle. New World Roger Corman titles, Crown International (BORING),Film Ventures International, and a slew of other films from one shot companies or small distribution companies that would soon be forgottenOne evening, I was treated to this film, The Dragon Lives, and as bad and most likely, inaccurate account of Bruce Lee' life, this was a hoot! The problem is, I couldn't remember the name of the film. The channel only showed it once or twice. Scenes of Bruce being a homeless dweeb walking around San Francisco, walking off the set of a racist Asian film, getting involved in Mixed Martial arts tournaments, and doing battle with a behemoth African-American martial artist, and bumping into his soon to-be-wife, Linda by accidentally snatching her sandwich while doing hand exercises remained to me to this day. BUT WHAT WAS THE TITLE OF THIS FILM? For years I was looking for this film. On VHS, writing letters to TV hosts of Kung Fu theater programs thinking they would really know the answer, and talking to martial artists who had collections of Bruce Lee films to no avail. Hell, even Joe Bob Briggs didn't recall the filmWith the invention of the Internet, I was able to locate fans of bad martial arts film wanting to know if they ever heard of the film, and if so, what was the title? The closest I got via the Internet was a sole person who replied, the movie was Bruce Lee: the Man the Myth. Uh-no, I recalled the film was Dragon Something or other. I had a EP copy of BL:TMTM and there wasn't anything remotely resembling this film. Someone sent me a scan of the film on VHS with the title, Bruce Lee Man and the Myth, and it seemed that was the right title, but my Alpha video with the same title wasn't the film.Well, thanks to folks of VCI DVD, I finally found the title, The Dragon Lives. It didn't have the Film Ventures International Georgia Peaches logo at the beginning (which I remembered vividly), but upon scanning through the film, I found it. I found my holy grail of Bruce Lee rip-offs and said -to-be true stories of Lee and his life. Widescreen, too! No classic, but hey on a nice Summer eve, this would play great on my HD 52 inch TV placed outside in my backyard and pretending I'm at the drive in.

I would give this movie 2/10 for the acting. 10/10 for the fights. The star (Bruce Li) was much, much better and played the party of Bruce Lee well. The version I saw was of DVD and seemed to have parts missing from it.I'm not really sure how much was fact or fiction. I would say that most was fiction. It's a shame we did not get to see the real Bruce Lee. It's a shame that he is not alive today. Bruce Lee was more than just a star, but a politician and promoter of peace.The training scenes were excellent. The fight scenes were excellent. Bruce Lee fans will enjoy this film and so will Martial Arts fans. Regular movie goers should stay away. Overall I gave it 7/10.