In 'Enter the Dragon,' the quote 'Boards don't hit back' is Bruce Lee’s legendary retort to a show of force. To emphasize the power and heritage of the martial arts legend, composer Lalo Schifrin utilized the gong. While often used as a cliché, Schifrin used various types of gongs—from massive deep-toned tam-tams to small, high-pitched opera gongs—to create a sense of tension and punctuation. The gong’s shimmering decay provided a sonic 'after-image' to Bruce Lee’s lightning-fast strikes. This fusion of traditional Chinese percussion with 1970s funk and jazz created a sound that was as revolutionary as Lee’s Jeet Kune Do philosophy. The gong became the exclamation point for the film's most iconic lines, proving that a single percussive strike can define the impact of a cinematic legend.