Enter the Dragon revolves around the three main characters. Lee, a man recruited by an agency to investigate a tournament hosted by Han, since they believe he has an Opium trade there. Roper and Williams are former army buddies since Vietnam and they enter the tournament due to different problems that they have. Roper is on the run from the Mafia due to his gambling debts, while Williams is harassed by racist police officers and defends himself from them and uses the car for his getaway. It is a deadly tournament that they will enter on an island. Lee's job is to get the other two out of there alive.
PLOT
Lee, a highly skilled Shaolin martial artist from Hong Kong, is approached by Braithwaite, a British intelligence agent investigating suspected crime lord Han. Lee is persuaded to attend a high-profile martial arts competition on Han's private island in order to gather evidence that will prove Han's involvement in drug trafficking and prostitution. Shortly before his departure, Lee also learns that his sister's killer, O'Hara, is working as Han's bodyguard on the island. Also fighting in the competition are indebted gambling addict Roper and fellow Vietnam war veteran Williams.
At the end of the first day, Han gives strict orders to the competitors not to leave their rooms. Lee makes contact with undercover operative Mei Ling and sneaks into Han's compound, looking for evidence. He is discovered by several guards, but manages to escape. The next morning, Han has the guards publicly killed by chief guard Bolo for failing him. After the execution, Lee faces O'Hara in the competition, and, after an emotional battle, he ends up killing him. With the day's competition over, Han confronts Williams, who had also left his room the previous night to exercise, initially thinking him to be the intruder, and beats him to death when he refuses to cooperate. Han then reveals the scale of his drug operation to Roper in the hope that he will join his organization. He also implicitly threatens to imprison Roper, along with all the other martial artists who competed in Han's tournament in the past, if Roper ever refuses. Despite being initially intrigued, Roper refuses after learning of Williams' fate.
Lee sneaks out again that night and manages to send a message to Braithwaite, but is finally captured after a protracted battle with the guards. The next morning, Han arranges for Roper to fight Lee, but Roper refuses. As a punishment, Roper has to fight Bolo instead, whom he manages to overpower and kill after a grueling encounter. Enraged by the unexpected victory, Han commands his remaining men to kill Lee and Roper. Facing insurmountable odds, they are soon aided by the island's prisoners, who had been freed by Mei Ling. Han escapes, pursued by Lee, who finally corners him in a hidden mirror room. The mirrors give Han an advantage, but Lee breaks all the room's mirrors to reveal Han's location, and eventually kills him. Lee returns to the main battle, which is now over. A bruised and bloodied Roper sits victorious while the military finally arrive to take control of the island.
Considered by many to be one of the greatest (if not THE) martial arts films of all time, Enter the Dragon was the first to combine the martial arts genre with the blaxploitation genre, and has been subsequently copied ever since. Its violent and bloody climax is all the more real when you understand that many other asian stunt performers believed that if they could defeat Lee on screen then they would become stars themselves, so the climax that you see is in effect REAL, much to the concern of the films producers at the time.
Check out Enter the Dragon on IMDB
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