I had the reverse experience, in a way: As a teen I though it was just fair. I thought the fight scenes - the reason we saw the film, of course - were gimmicky, repetitive, and unconvincing, and thought the same of other kung fu films. The rest of the movie was odd and boring. It was heretical and I kept that opinion to myself.

I saw it again in the last few years and while for me the rest of the movie was awful, the fight scenes were mesmerizing. Bruce Lee's physicality, the physical acting, is on a different planet than anything I've seen. Lee could have been a dancer or the original Andy Serkis - not that kung fu actor was a bad career move either.

Lee trained as a competitive ballroom dancer before he pivoted to martial arts. The two actually have a lot in common, though the purposes are quite different!

I agree that Lee's grace and style are fun to watch. It's also painfully obvious that he way outclassed his opponents in the movie, sort of like Fred Astaire dancing with a football player. I suspect that his ballroom training was the secret sauce that put his martial arts at an elegant level that the other martial arts practitioners couldn't match.

> It's also painfully obvious that he way outclassed his opponents in the movie, sort of like Fred Astaire dancing with a football player

Yes; the others occupied far too much of the screen time, which was very frustrating! It was like going to see Jimi Hendrix and hearing mostly bass and drum breaks. It's a vehicle for Lee; almost everything else in the movie sucks anyway; just find excuses to put Lee on the screen doing something!

But for me, I'd add to grace and style: The power of the emotion he could convey just through his body was incredible. I don't have a great appreciation for dance, but I've seen a couple best-in-the-world level dancers do something similar.