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Enterbay Bruce Lee - Way of the Dragon

  

"The following is a guest review.  The review and photos do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Michael Crawford or Michael's Review of the Week, and are the opinion and work of the guest author."

Here's a guest review of the latest Enterbay Bruce Lee figure, from new guest reviewer Josh Elam.  Take it away, Josh!

Thank you so much for this chance at reviewing this awesome figure Michael. So if you’ve read Jeff Parker’s review of this toy’s predecessor (Game of Death) you know what you’re in for. The best Bruce Lee figure ever! That’s right, they’ve out done themselves on this one, and one upped themselves one might say; an honest to god tribute to a man who could very well be the best martial artist of all time. A short synopsis of the film which this figure is based off of will follow this paragraph. 

“Tang Lung (Bruce Lee) is sent from Hong Kong to Rome to help a family friend whose restaurant is being targeted by the local gangsters. After their offers to purchase the restaurant outright are repeatedly turned down, the gangsters turn to intimidation. Tang Lung fends off the local gangsters, but that does not stop the mafia boss. He hires martial arts experts, the best of whom is known as "Colt" (Chuck Norris). This leads to a showdown between Tang Lung and Colt in the Coliseum.” Taken from Wikipedia.org

Now the reason this along with “Game of Death”, and “Enter the Dragon” are so historical are because they truly display his prowess and showcased Jeet Kun Do (his self-made martial art; the art of fighting without fighting). “Enter the Dragon” being his first American movie, makes it more recognizable to the majority of people.

But what really makes “Way of the Dragon” shine is the infamous alley fight scene where Bruce opens up the ultimate can of whoop-a$$ and wielded two sets of nunchaku and obliterated everyone that got in his way, including the unimpressive Chuck Norris (who was, interestingly enough, trained by Bruce Lee). But enough of the history lesson, lol, and on to the figure. But be forewarned, my camera doesn’t like non-living subjects and the doll looks better in real life. Let’s start with the Packaging shall we:









Packaging: ***¼
Most people will want to know why in the world it gets this high of a rating in my book. Well my book consists of very sparse packaging. Not much too it, simple and get’s the point across. Where as the packaging set forth here is the Mercedes Benz of packaging. Sure a lot of resources were used/wasted but the packaging just isn’t a box to store the figure. It holds, without twisty ties I might add, Lee, and all of his accessories (a group picture will be below. It folds out to be the biggest diorama I’ve seen, in box form that is. I’m not really a fan of the gigantic thing, mostly because I don’t have room to store it. On a side note though the box weighs a solid 6 pounds. But since it’s the diorama it gets 4 ½ stars.

Sculpt: ****
Simply the best sculpt I’ve ever seen, since Lonnie Hale’s Harrison Ford sculpts (shameless plug). With a dead on likeness you almost expect it to look at you and scream as the figure beat you down. What else to say really. But I’ll go down into more detail as I consider the 360o Eye System; which is patented by Enterbay; to be a part of this sculpt.

With the last figure there were to sets of eyes, one facing forward and one facing to the side which you could swap out. But with this one they created a whole new lifelike system, which allows you to rotate the eyes whichever way you wish. But be careful, from what I’ve read there is at least one loose eye (it doesn’t fall out, but it’s hard pressed to stay where it’s put) for each figure but more on that later.

Everything that you see when you look at Bruce is here, the small pock marks on his face, the scar on his right cheek, the light stubble, the wrinkles on his brow, and the little red spot right between his eyes when gets pissed. It’s all there and all encompassing. The best of the Bruce Lee sculpts to grace this fine planet. As it should be for the $322.56 my wife paid for it. 

The hair is a great rubber material and has the look of real hair. It has the crown of his head beautifully sculpted as well. It is removable, so you can adjust the 360o Eyes. Upon looking inside you see the magnet that holds it on. (I haven’t included a picture because Jeff Parker covered that in his.) Overall a great 5 star sculpt.

The hands; which will be covered in three different areas today, are the best sculpted hands I’ve ever had the pleasure of looking at in 1:6th form. All sculpted from source material of Lee’s actual hands, they look real enough to blow you away!!

Paint: ***
Well … here’s where things get a little sticky, I promised myself to be objective and I am definitely trying. The paint is great overall, on the hands, and most everywhere else. But for some gorram (firefly slang) reason, Enterbay seems to forget to put a protective clear coat on their eyebrow paint. Right out of the box, the paint is chipping. Intentional I’m sure, to give it a natural look, however, the right eyebrow makes it look like he has a scar there now. Cool yeah, but disappointing much. Seeing how much my wife paid for it for my b-day and the paint is chipping. 

I’ve thought about repainting the eye brow, but I’m no DaVinci when it comes to painting. My Indy paint job looks rather bad, but I like it. It’s the first one I’d ever done. But its paint was finely covered in a nice clear coat finish. Evidently Enterbay missed that class. But it’s no big thing … yet. So it only get’s 3 ½ stars.

Articulation: ***1/2
A solid 3 1/2 star rating … Wait! What!?! Only 43 1/2stars, but why? Well considering what we’re all used to with the HT Bodies, Medicom bodies and all the others out there that can accomplish what only gymnasts and contortionists can. But with Bruce Lee Enterbay must’ve figured “Why should we screw up the best Lee sculpt ever by making an ugly body to go along with it.” So we lose a lower wrist joint, an upper torso joint, and rotating ankles (which move left to right, and back and forth).

To tell the truth I’m living with that just fine. The wrists and fingers don’t need any articulation, because that would take away the human look of the figure. The sculpted torso is again a big bonus, because you get this statuesque look of the figure. Taking it from toy all the way to “If you ever touch it son God will cry!” I’m just kidding of course, but it will most likely be my child’s/children’s college tuition.

The arms have standard articulation, with ball joint shoulders, ball jointed elbows and rotating-peg wrists. The head has is ball jointed, and the eyes have 360o movement (if you can’t tell I love this feature). The torso is I believe rotocast, but I don’t think I have that right. The legs are ball joints at the hip with ball joint thighs, which rotate in 360o, the knees are again double jointed and the feet move, as stated above, left to right & back and forth.

Like I said before I’m perfectly fine with this seeing as though this figure goes beyond “Toy” and to a stature of art. So I give this a four star rating because some will dislike the lack of articulation in the stated areas.

Outfit: ***1/2
Again with the three and a half stars? Yup I’m at it again. In fact the reason why this falls from perfect on screen adaptation to “eh” is because you can’t remove the clothing (other then his outer shirt). That’s right, his pants and tank top are stuck on there because of the hellacious knot tied at the back of the pants. I wanted to take a picture of his a$$ serial # plate, but couldn’t get his dang pants off. Oh well, I love the look anyway.

But seeing as though I’m thinking of doing stop motion with this figure, or perhaps a 1:6th comic strip, I was hoping to customize his look. I have done so with my Indy’s leather jacket, and I’m looking into 1:6th tennis shoes. So this get’s only four stars.

Accessories: ****
A perfect four star rating. This comes with more accessories then I’ve seen with much more expensive figures. With 4 sets of hands and 2 non set hands, 2 nunchaku, 1 bow staff and two throwing darts, (shown in the interior box picture). A wealth of accessories makes this 4 stars. Some of the casts on the hands don’t always hold their accessories correctly if at all.

Fun Factor: ***
Well this certainly ain’t for your 6 yr. old that is unless he’s a genius and can create computers out of Lego building blocks and spends his days disarming thermo-nuclear warheads while on a Ducati crotch rocket. This was made for adult collectors only and the box says it loud and clear. 

“THIS IS NOT MEANT FOR CHILDREN!”

But thankfully for us adult collectors, those of us with enough cahones to take him out of the box, he’s great fun to play around with. So with this in mind he get’s only three and a half stars.

Value: *
Wasn’t expecting that were you? Neither was I. This figure, albeit the ultimate Lee figure, is just not worth the $322.56 my wife paid for it. I love her and it dearly, but I wasn’t really expecting to get it. It just happened; she said “Guess what I got you for your birthday?” I smiled and asked “What?” and she answered with a picture of this. I nearly fainted.

My business part of me screamed like Will Smith on the Fresh Prince when confronted by a blinding sight … “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” while my fanboy and collector side went just like the Kool-Aid man, “Oh YEAH!!!!” So yeah one star in this category.

Things to watch out for:
Those dang small darts, I lost one, thank god my wife has eyes like an eagle because she found it. The eyebrow paint is another one. Oh yeah and the price. Some of the casts on the hands don’t always hold their accessories correctly if at all.

Overall: ***1/2
Okay, now I know this is generous giving the incredibly heavy price tag and lack of articulation. Though the abundance of accessories, the sculpt (head, hands, torso and everything else), the outfit, and everything that culminates in the best Bruce Lee figure are what make it three and a half stars. But at least it’s not the now $400 GOD version, that’s just incredibly crazy, lol, look who’s talking huh. When compared to Medicom’s Bruce figures, it may be better for the light of wallet people to go with their versions, but for those die hard Lee fans this is the only way to go.

Score Recap:
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpt - ****
Paint - ***
Articulation - ***
Outfit - ***
Accessories - ****
Fun Factor - **1/2
Value - *
Overall - ***1/2


Figure from the collection of Josh Elam.

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