Review: Enter The Dragon

Arts Festival

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Enter The Dragon: Karsh Kale & Midival Punditz
Pacific Blue Festival Club, Tuesday, March 16, and Wednesday, March 17

This performance features a screening of Enter The Dragon, the 1973 martial arts film that introduced Bruce Lee to the world as a superstar.

It was also his last film. For this screening a brand new soundtrack has been imagined - and is performed live - by Karsh Kale and Midival Punditz. Kale wrote the score, which features pre-recorded sequences as well as his own live tabla and drum-kit performances.

The Punditz are responsible for triggering the pre-recorded components and the onstage sound production and treatments; weaving a bold new pulse under a film that is a classic of its genre.

Kale's tabla playing is masterful, the heel of the left hand providing a proud murmur, the fingers on the right cheekily scampering.

His kit-playing features regular cymbal splashing and crashing, the bass and high hat working together to provide occasional references to the film's original score.

Enter The Dragon was originally soundtracked by Lalo Schifrin, a master of modern cinema scores - so Kale and the Punditz are attempting to tread in big footprints.

They manage, mostly by sidestepping, accenting the film's eastern themes and settings with bamboo flute and tabla and then combining these components with modern electro flourishes. It is an interesting exercise - to watch a live soundtrack unfold in real time/reel time.

There are moments when the new music chokes some of the poetry of the film, but for the brief occasions in which it might be construed as overpowering, there are new chance encounters; new moments of symmetry between what the film is hoping to achieve and the aims of the new score.

And as the action builds, the score follows - the final fight sequences serve up several brilliant bursts of sound colour playing with and against the choreography of the fighting.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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