Starring Philip Ng. Rated PG.

The term icon gets thrown around a lot at whim these days. Bruce Lee, however, is one individual who lives up to that weighty title. His enduring international reputation remains unmatched among Asian North Americans in entertainment. (His closest contender, Jackie Chan, is Hong Kong–based.) Alas, this Vancouver-shot Hollywood film almost undermines Lee’s legend in its attempt to appeal to mainstream preferences.

Although it’s based on real-life events in San Francisco in the 1960s, the problem here is that the drama, directed by George Nolfi, revolves around types, not characters. As the final third proves, that’s fine for action-based films. However, for the most part, Birth of the Dragon attempts to be a character study, dragged down by one-dimensional roles and a merely adequate screenplay.

Portrayed by Philip Ng, Lee is a fame-hungry, egomaniacal upstart blind in his ambition to popularize kung fu in North America, while his adversary Wong Jack Man (Yu Xia) is depicted as the wise, pious Shaolin monk from the motherland, virtuously preserving traditional principles while humbly accepting a lowly role as a dishwasher to serve penance for a past grievance. Although the cocksure Lee wants to face off against Wong, the reserved Wong repeatedly declines—until stakes escalate to a point that he can no longer ignore.

The film faced backlash after its world premiere in Toronto due to an overemphasis on the minor, fictional Caucasian character Steve (Billy Magnussen). Even with further re-editing, the hyper-generic Steve still takes up far too much screen time with his clunky story of the Midwestern blond boy who learns about the exotic ways of the East and falls for a beautiful, innocent server (Jingjing Qu) enslaved by evil dragon lady Auntie Blossom (Jin Xing). All that’s missing is songs from Madama Butterfly, Miss Saigon, and an Oriental riff.

What do work are the hypnotic displays of martial arts and other physical feats. In fact, the film finally takes off when it shifts gears from drama to “kicking ass”. The finale—and that phrase, repeated throughout the film—suggests what the focus should have been, as the contrasting martial arts styles of Lee and Wong prove arresting. Hopefully, this isn’t the last of renewed attention to Lee, but only the beginning.