Before The Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee almost starred in a different movie. During his career, Lee headlined five kung fu pictures, four of which being in Hong Kong. His third movie, The Way of the Dragon, is widely regarded as one of the best entries in the martial arts genre of all time. Though it doesn’t have the reputation of Enter the Dragon, it holds a special place in the actor’s legacy.
1972’s The Way of the Dragon is known as the only movie that Lee wrote, directed, and starred in. Lee’s story took his character to Rome, Italy, where his goal was to protect a Chinese restaurant from gangsters trying to force them out of business. The movie’s ending, which took place in the Colosseum, featured a one-on-one final battle between Bruce Lee and then-unknown Chuck Norris. The fight between the Hong Kong superstar and the American karate champion, which raged on for ten minutes, remains the most memorable part of the entire film. In fact, it’s one of the most talked-about fight scenes in the history of martial arts movies.
It was claimed in Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly that The Way of the Dragon almost didn’t become a reality. Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest, which had made both The Big Boss and Fist of Fury with Lee, originally intended for him to make A Man Called Tiger (also known as Yellow-Faced Tiger) as his third picture. Lee was to play a martial artist who suffered from jaundice, which was the reason for his nickname, “Yellow Faced Tiger”. The plan was for Lee to once again be teamed with director Lo Wei, who had helmed his last two movies.
Not long after accepting the starring role in A Man Called Tiger, Lee began to have second thoughts. Polly wrote in his book that Lee’s trepidations about making the movie were tied directly to his rivalry with Jimmy Wang Yu, a popular martial arts actor and the star of the first true kung fu film, The Chinese Boxer. With The Chinese Boxer, Wang Yu had accomplished an impressive feat by being the star, the director, and the writer of a major box office hit. Lee believed that he too had to do these things if he really wanted to surpass Wang Yu. As a result, Lee developed the story for The Way of the Dragon and lost interest in moving any further with A Man Called Tiger.
Lee backing out of A Man Called Tiger led to a surprising casting change. Having lost Lee, Lo replaced A Man Called Tiger’s original star with Wang Yu himself. According to Polly, Bruce Lee was upset about Golden Harvest giving the role to his rival, and became concerned about the possibility of A Man Called Tiger being a bigger success than The Way of the Dragon. However, this scenario never came to pass. Jimmy Wang Yu’s film did enjoy some degree of success in Hong Kong when it hit theaters in 1973, but the waves The Way of the Dragon made at the box office and its current fame prove that Bruce Lee changing his mind about A Man Called Tiger was the right choice.