Marital arts legend Bruce Lee was a pioneer of action cinema. Lee has choreographed some of the most iconic action scenes of all time. The final clash between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in?The Way of the Dragon (1972)?is among the most iconic fights in martial arts cinema history. Actor and martial artist Bob Wall once opened up about working with Lee and Norris on the sets of?The Way of the Dragon. He also mentioned the risk Lee took to film the iconic scene.
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Wall collaborated with the Jeet Kune Do founder in The Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon, and The Game of Death. In an exclusive interview with?City on Fire, Bob Wall opened up about filming the 1972 film in Rome, Italy.
Bob Walls’s experience of collaborating with Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris
During the 2011 interview, the interviewer asked Wall about his experience on the set of?The Way of the Dragon. The martial arts master recalled the memory of collaborating with two martial arts legends with fondness.?“It was great fun, we had a ball. It was the first Hong Kong film filmed in a foreign location,”?revealed Bob Wall. However, he also said that Lee’s plan to film inside the Colosseum seemed impossible when they got there.?“Nobody had filmed in there for years,”?said Wall.
However, the actor also revealed his wife had the connections that opened the doors for them. Bob Wall said they had three weeks to film the scenes. Wall said it felt special when they got inside the famous arena of the Roman gladiators. However, he also said Lee took a massive risk filming inside the Colosseum since with was illegal.
Despite the risk, the crew filmed?the iconic fight scene inside the Colosseum?and flew back to Hong Kong. They shot the rest of the movie in Hong Kong and merged it with the footage from Rome. Wall mentioned getting some?“Amazing”?photos from places closed to the public.
How an entire film crew escaped detection
Lee and the crew got inside the Colosseum and got permission to film after bribing the authorities. However, one might question how they snuck in all the equipment. In Matthew Polly’s book Bruce Lee: A Life, the author revealed the secret.
Rare behind the scenes photos of Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris from “Way of the Dragon” pic.twitter.com/5JnKyFiKIT
— FranLL (@Energyze79) July 24, 2018
According to Polly, the entire crew acted like tourists who had brought cameras to take pictures. However, once they got inside the arena, the film crew began shooting the fight scene instead.
Watch this story – Relive the Iconic on-Screen Fights of the GOAT Bruce Lee From His Movie Collection
Did you know Bob Wall had a hand in helping the Colosseum fight become a reality??
