Did You Know?
Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong three weeks before the film's premiere in 1973. The film includes footage from Lee's real-life funeral.
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Bruce Lee actually struck Jackie Chan in the face with one of his fighting sticks. He immediately apologized and insisted that Chan could work on all of his movies after that. Unfortunately, Lee died before he could keep his promise.
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Biker movie legend William Smith was supposed to play Roper, but was unavailable at the time of filming.
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Over 8,000 mirrors were used to setup the "Hall of Mirrors" where the climax duel takes place.
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The courtyards where Han's martial arts students train were actually modified tennis courts.
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Bruce Lee suffered some on-set injuries. His hand was severely cut while shooting O'Hara's death scene, when Bob Wall mistimed his thrust of the broken bottle towards Lee (fake glass was not available). When Lee held the poisonous snake that guarded the secret entrance to Han's drug lab, the snake bit Lee. Fortunately, the snake's venom gland had been removed.
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Warner Brothers wanted to call the film 'Han's Island' because they thought international audiences would be confused by an action film titled 'Enter the Dragon'. Other alternate titles were "Blood and Steel" and "The Deadly Three", a reference to 'Bruce Lee', John Saxon, and Jim Kelly's characters.
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The opening fight sequence between Bruce Lee and Sammo Hung Kam-Bo was shot after filming, and completed at Lee's request.
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The scene where Han takes Roper down to his underground opium factory via his 'guillotine lift' was the last scene John Saxon shot.
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The movie was filmed without sound. All of the dialogue and effects were dubbed in during post-production.
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After Bruce Lee cut his hand on the bottles (a miscue by Bob Wall), he hit Wall with a "real" flying kick in a subsequent scene. Even though Wall knew it was coming, he was knocked into the man behind him so hard both of his arms were broken.
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Cameo
Jackie Chan:
Towards the end of the film, in the big cave fight scene. Lee grabs his hair for a while before breaking his neck.
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Spoilers
Kien Shih did not speak English, and mouthed his lines as best he could. Chinese-American actor Keye Luke overdubbed his dialogue. Luke also narrated an earlier scene depicting the death of Bruce Lee's sister.
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Originally, Han was going to kill Roper, and Williams and Lee would fight Han's army at the end. Roper's and Williams' roles were reversed by John Saxon's agent.
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