Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon

I often elicit bursts of you’re kidding me laughter when I tell people that one of my favorite movies is Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon. It’s the story of a kung fu prodigy, native to Harlem, Leroy Green who embarks on a quest to find “the master” who can show him how to find his inner power which in the movie is termed “the glow.” As in all such movies about fisticuffs, Leroy has an adversary, Sho’Nuff (or the Shogun of Harlem), who is “sick of hearing the bullsh-- superman stories about the, wha-saaaa, Bruce Leroy (who legion has it) catches bullets with his teethe… please,” Sho’Nuff remarks incredulously. Sho’Nuff is determined to bait Leroy into a fight so that he may prove to everyone, once and for all, that “the show gun is the master!” Not Leroy. (I know even the description sounds silly but bare with me, there’s a point to it all.)

B.G.’s The Last Dragon fuses the genres of martial arts, comedy and drama together in an admittedly cookie-cutter formula. Blatantly obvious plot aside however, what makes this movie timeless is the classic story of self discovery. This is the dominant theme of the storyline. It’s something which we can all relate to. The movie’s culmination comes in a scene where Leroy and his nemesis are made to finally pit their skills against each other (the classic conflict of purity of intentions verses self-aggrandizement). As the clash ensues, Sho’Nuff stuns Leroy when he reveals that he has gained enough self mastery to achieve a concentration of “the glow” in his hands and forearms. The added power he gets from his supercharged hands allows Sho’Nuff to take command of the fight. Leroy simply wobbles like a doll as Sho’Nuff relentlessly slaps and punches him all around the warehouse yard where they were fighting. And with every potently powerful strike he commands Leroy to cry uncle by professing that “Sho’Nuff is the master,” but Leroy refuses to yield to this demand. He gets punished for his obstinacy. Sho’Nuff plunges Leroy’s head in a nearby basin of water, holding him there, almost but not quite drowning him, to not so subtly encourage Leroy to reconsider his position. Every time Sho’Nuff allows Leroy a momentary breath of air it is only to taunt him with the question, “Who is the master!” Leroy continues to refuse a response, and again and again Sho’Nuff plunges his head into the water. And it is while his head is submerged under the water and he’s struggling for breath that Leroy begins to awaken to the realization of who he really is until finally it all clicks and he just knows. Again Sho’Nuff lifts Leroy’s head out of the water and demands he answer, “who is the one and only master!” (This is my favorite part of the movie) Leroy is at last in a place where he can respond with unwavering conviction, “I am.” And with this self-realization comes a glow which permeates his entire body. Such a deep and pure knowing easily overpowers the partial, and now weakening and flickering, glow Sho’Nuff is able to muster.

Leroy’s journey to the realization that the master he has been so earnestly seeking is in fact within himself is the common story of all of us. In our divergent searches for God, in our various pursuits of happiness, the very pangs of any and all unrest we may feel is nothing but an earnest desire to awaken to an understanding of who we really are. How we toil and struggle in the world, erecting complicated dogmas to help us cope until we finally figure out that the very answer we seek, “the master” we have been searching for all this time, has been within the very being of our Being all along.

I loved B.G.’s The Last Dragon as a child because I really liked martial arts movies – plus the movie was funny and Leroy was a cutey (I developed a crush). I still love this movie today not because I believe it’s a shining example of a fine artistic masterpiece, but because of the fundamental truth this movie so entertainingly reminds me of. Even the architect(s) of the Sphinx knew this truth, "Look Within for that which Thou needest."

Check out a clip: http://www.yourdivineinheritance.com/bdlg.html

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