10 Movies That Directly Influenced Gaming
3. Enter The Dragon
Games Influenced: Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken, any tournament fighter.
An underground fighting tournament featuring the world's greatest warriors, the victor eventually facing the villainous host in an all-out bout of good vs evil. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken and so many other classic fight franchises share this plot, and Bruce Lee is the man responsible.
Han’s tournament in Enter The Dragon is basically a way to ensure the movies Kung Fu action isn’t interrupted by any of that pesky gunfire, and provided the template for any game that involves you punching your opponent until they stopped moving.
It’s one of the reasons there are so many Bruce Lee clones in said fighting games. From Tekken’s Marshall Law to Soul Calibur's Maxi, Dead Or Alive’s Jann Lee to Street Fighter’s Fei Long, the list is almost endless. Heck, Liu Kang’s story in Mortal Kombat is basically a copy and paste of Agent Lee’s story in Enter The Dragon. Just replace the British intelligence group with a god of thunder and the villainous drug ring with a sorcerer herald of an ancient warlord who devours his fallen opponent's souls.