A Look Back at Bruce Lee, Wise Man of Kung Fu
The only thing faster
than Bruce Lee’s
fist was his influence. He was a slight man at 5-foot-7-inches and 135 pounds
with a childlike bowl haircut. Yet he would marry Chinese nationalism with
Hollywood effects with grand effect, looming large in films such as Fists of
Fury and Enter the Dragon. The latter of which will be airing on
November 27th in honor of what would have been Lee’s 74th birthday on the El
Rey Network as part of their Thanksgiving “Way of the Turkey” marathon that will also celebrate Lee’s legacy (the
channel is available through some providers like DirecTV).
Lee Jun-Fan was born
November 27, 1940 at the Jackson Street Hospital in Chinatown, San Francisco,
not more than an hour’s walk from Fisherman’s Wharf. The supervising physician,
Dr. Mary Glover, asked to christen the boy with an English name. Bruce, she
suggested. Agreed, said Mrs. Grace Lee.
Three months later, the
family returned to Hong Kong. Little did they know that 18 years later, fearing
repercussion from a Triad gang member whose son Bruce had bloodied in a
fistfight, they would mail him back to America in a third-class ship bunk.
Young Bruce had the
nickname “Mo Si Tung,” meaning never sits still. He was a hot headed youth. His
status as a child film star and member of the privileged Ho-Tung clan
guaranteed him some social immunity. He was privately taught by Wing Chen
grandmaster Yip Man. He became a Hong Kong cha-cha dance champion. In short, he
was on the fast track.
That ended when Bruce
arrived in America with $100, a pair of glasses, and the plan to become a
dentist. After flitting between jobs, siblings and cities, he landed as a drama
student at the University of Washington in Seattle. There, Lee opened his first
martial arts school, the Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. A few years later in
1963, Lee would publish, Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of
Self-Defense, explaining the Taoist
philosophy upon which he would later base his martial discipline, Jeet Kune Do,
meaning Way of the Intercepting Fist.
In 1964, Bruce married
Linda Emery, dropped out of college, moved to Oakland, California, and was
invited to the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships. He
demonstrated the two-finger push-up and the one-inch punch, landing a solid hit
on volunteer Bob Baker, who later said, “I had to stay home from work because
the pain in my chest was unbearable.”
First exposed to
Hollywood via the Karate Championships, Lee snagged his first role as Kato,
sidekick of The Green Hornet. After a few years as a support actor, Lee
returned to Hong Kong and obtained his first leading role in The Big Boss. All of Asia fell in love with Cheng, the furious factory worker
fighting against Hsiao Mi, boss of a narcotics smuggling operation. The release
became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hong Kong.
That is, until Bruce
Lee’s next film: Fists of Fury (also released as The Iron Hand and The
Chinese Connection) which showcased Lee as a martial artist retaliating
against Japanese racism in Shanghai. Ever since Asians first came to America as
exploited laborers on the transcontinental railroad, male Asian-Americans were
often pigeonholed as stolid, nerdish and watered-down. All that changed with
Lee’s bared teeth and flying sidekicks.
For Way of the Dragon, Lee’s third major film, he was writer, director, actor and
choreographer of all fight scenes. The story pitted Chinese restaurant owners
in Rome against the local mafia, starring Lee as the underdog martial artist,
Tang Lung. It was also the big break for Chuck Norris.
Lee’s fourth film, Game of Death, was never finished. He halted production to star in Warner Bros.
Enter the Dragon as a shaolin martial artist working undercover
on behalf of British Intelligence to expose a narcotics trafficking operation.
The movie smashed records. It launched a Kung Fu craze in the 1970s, spawned
the film career of Jackie Chan, and cemented Bruce Lee as an all-time great.
Bruce never witnessed
the film’s release. On July 20, 1973, he took the painkiller Equagesic for a
headache. After dinner, he napped and never woke up. He would have turned 75 in
2014.
Beth Kelly is a blogger and film fanatic based in Chicago, IL. Working previously as an English teacher in South Korea and Poland, she's now back in the Midwest and feeling better than ever. Follow her woefully neglected Twitter account at @bkelly_88.
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