35
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 60TheWrapRobert AbeleTheWrapRobert AbeleAs alternatingly silly and serious as its mix of wisdom and wallops, and even with that blond bro gumming up the works, “Birth” is nevertheless zippy, B-movie entertainment.
- 58IGNIGNBirth of the Dragon is not the Bruce Lee biopic you’ve been waiting for, as strong performances and martial arts action by Philip Ng and Xia Yu are wasted on a movie that had too little faith in the real story.
- 50San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonSan Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonThe problem with Birth of the Dragon, George Nolfi’s largely fictionalized account of a 1964 fight between an Oakland martial arts instructor named Bruce Lee and San Francisco instructor Wong Jack Man is that Lee...is the third-most important character in the film.
- 50The New York TimesGlenn KennyThe New York TimesGlenn KennyBirth of the Dragon is ambitious: it wants to be a character study, an explication of martial arts philosophy and an action picture.... But the film never really gets fully juiced until the climax.
- 40Los Angeles TimesNoel MurrayLos Angeles TimesNoel MurrayIt’s unusual to see a film like this make its nominal hero into a jerk, who learns something essential from his nemesis. True or not, the complex characterization does make for a better story.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe fight scenes are indeed the film’s strongest element, even if at times they seem overly choreographed and slightly cheesy.
- Xia's humble sifu lends more gravitas than this dreck deserves, and a rousing, improbable finale in which Lee and Man take on the mob together offers some great fight choreography, but it's all too little, too late.
- 38Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreThe whole enterprise plays like a throwback, summoning up memories of Lee’s cut-rate/no-script “chop sockey” pictures where the charisma was obvious, the fights epic, the stories an afterthought and the effects wincingly obvious.
- 33The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyThe A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyThe aura of cheap-o emptiness is overwhelming: Scenes tend to be visually featureless, composed against strangely empty walls or Vancouver street corners. Even the occasionally decent fight choreography looks unappealing.
- 0RogerEbert.comScout TafoyaRogerEbert.comScout TafoyaA preposterous screenwriting-for-dummies exercise directed with all the flare of a mid-‘90s tourism video.