Bruce Lee

gigatos | November 25, 2021

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Summary

Bruce Lee (July 20, 1973) was a prominent Hong Kong-born American martial artist, martial arts master, actor, filmmaker, philosopher and writer. Lee is widely regarded by critics, pundits, media and martial artist greats as the most influential martial artist of all time and a 20th century pop culture icon who bridged the gap between East and West. He is often credited with helping to change the way Asians were portrayed in American films. He was a renovator and the greatest exponent of martial arts, dedicating his life to this discipline, seeking perfection and truth, creating his own combat method and philosophy of life, the Jun Fan Gung-Fu, which later, in addition to his philosophical concept, would be called Jeet Kune Do or “the way of the intercepting fist”.

His films, interviews and mainly his charisma and influence spread the passion for martial arts throughout the West, generating a wave of followers throughout the world.

Bruce Lee was born in Chinatown (however, Bruce grew up in Kowloon (Hong Kong), where he began training at the age of thirteen and formally practiced the Chinese martial arts of Tai Chi with his father, and then Wing Chun style with Master Ip Man. From a very young age, he appeared in films playing children and later teenagers. At the age of eighteen, Bruce returned to the United States, where he began his studies in philosophy at the University of Washington. Being an innovator and thinker, he applied what he learned to his art; he studied the thought of various Western and Eastern philosophers coming from Taoism such as Lao-Tse and Chuang-Tse and, in addition, he began to train his college classmates in the art of Chinese kung-fu.

During that time, Bruce opened his first martial arts school: the Jun Fan Gung-Fu Institute, located in Seattle; later, he opened two more schools in Oakland and Los Angeles (California). Quickly, based on all he had learned from his martial experiences in the disciplines of boxing, western fencing (from his brother Peter Lee), judo (from his friend and student Taki Kimura), Filipino eskrima (from his friend and student Dan Inosanto), muay thai, and tangsudo (from his friend and actor Chuck Norris), Bruce began to develop new ideas about martial arts training, which led to the creation of his system, Jun Fan Gung-Fu. This then evolved into physical and philosophical concepts, giving rise to his own method of combat, which he called Jeet Kune Do or “the way of the intercepting fist”, of which he always proclaimed that it should not be taken as a simple “style” or prefixed “system”. Some time later he regretted having given it a name, as that made it just another martial art and since then he insisted that Jeet Kune Do was just a name, emphasizing “no style” or “no form”.

While doing so, Bruce became a celebrity through the American series The Green Hornet, as well as his subsequent popular movies: The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon and Game of Death, exposing Chinese martial arts to the Western world. Bruce became an icon recognized around the world, especially among the Chinese.

Bruce Lee married Linda Cadwell in 1964 and they later had son Brandon Lee born in 1965, as well as daughter Shannon Lee, born in 1969. Bruce Lee”s life was cut short on July 20, 1973, when he died of a stroke of unknown cause. His body rests in Lake View Cemetery in Capitol Hill, Seattle, next to his son Brandon, who died in 1993 after being accidentally shot while filming the movie The Crow.

The legacy left by Bruce Lee ranges from films to books such as The Tao of Jeet Kune Do, where he shows much of his philosophy and fighting methods. His image endures over time and has remained in history as a great legend of martial arts, being even chosen by TIME magazine as one of the hundred most influential men of the twentieth century, besides being considered one of the heroes and icons of history.

The marriage between his father, Lee Hoi-chuen, of Han ethnicity, and his mother, Grace Ho, of Chinese-German descent, produced five children; Bruce was the fourth of these children; his siblings were Phoebe Lee, Agnes Lee, Peter Lee, and Robert Lee. Bruce”s birth in the United States came about by chance, as his father, who worked as a Cantonese film actor and comedian in the Chinese opera, was on tour presenting an “Opera Company” play that passed through San Francisco at the time.

According to the papers submitted by the U.S. Department of Labor, Lee was registered with a Chinese and an American name. The Chinese name Jun-Fan was given to him by his mother and he was registered as Lee Jun-Fan, while the English name, Bruce, was suggested by a nurse at the Chinese Hospital, Maria Glover, so that the newborn would carry a Western name to avoid any problems with his American birth certificate; finally his parents agreed with what the nurse said and he was also registered with that name, Bruce Lee.

When Bruce turned three months old, his parents received correspondence from Hong Kong instructing them not to return as the Japanese invasion of Manchuria made the situation very complicated, but Lee Hoi-chuen chose to do so anyway, as his other children, Peter, Agnes and Phoebe, were there.

Names

As it is Chinese custom to put the surname in front of the name, Bruce was registered as “Lee Jun-Fan”, but the name “Jun-Fan” has its own explanation. The meaning of the name “Jun” is “to awaken or make something prosperous” while the syllable “Fan” refers to the Chinese name of the city of San Francisco, but its true meaning is to defend small countries from the abuse of big ones; the name “Fan” was widely used by the Chinese born in Hong Kong since in those days they felt inferior to the invading countries and their desire was to outshine and be superior to foreign powers, as well as to regain the golden age of China. Therefore, the true meaning of the name “Jun-Fan” was to “awaken and make a small nation prosperous”, as well as to protect them from the abuse of the invading countries, being Japan and the United Kingdom.

However, during the first years of his life, Lee Hoi-chuen”s mother decided to call him under the feminine pseudonym of “Sai Fon” which means “little phoenix”, following an old and superstitious tradition in which it was to hide the sex of the newborn from the evil spirits that steal the male baby; Bruce”s parents had already suffered the loss of a first son in the first years of their marriage, so that was why Bruce”s parents and grandmother began to call him that way so that the spirits would pass by.

The Western name “Bruce” was first used when he turned twelve and was enrolled in La Salle Secondary School, a Catholic high school in Hong Kong where he was first taught English. Until then, he did not know what his Western name was and the moment the students were asked to write his name, Bruce copied the name of the student next to him.

Also read, history – Soviet invasion of Manchuria

During his childhood, he began attending Tak Sun Elementary, which was a few blocks from his home, and when he was about twelve years old he was enrolled in an English-speaking Catholic high school, La Salle College, where he was expelled for bad behavior; at the time, he was not interested in school, his attitude towards teachers and principals at La Salle College was defiant, his grades were not high, and his reputation as a gang member led to an expulsion.

“I was a misguided boy who went looking for fights….. We used chains and pens with knives hidden inside.”

At that time, Bruce knew a boy his age, or a little older, William Cheung, who was always in fights and never lost. One day, Bruce asked him why he always won and he told him it was because of his martial arts training. On that occasion, William proposed him to learn the Chinese style of wing chun and Bruce accepted. Bruce”s behavior when he first entered Ip Man”s academy was not very respectful, especially for an oriental boy, so Ip Man decided that Bruce was not qualified to learn the art of Wing chun, and so they told him through William Cheung. Bruce decided to return the next day with humility and respect and so Master Ip Man gave him a chance. Bruce spent three to four years learning Wing chun under the tutelage of Ip Man, although most of his training was received from one of his best students, Wong Shun-leung.

After being expelled from La Salle College, his parents quickly enrolled him in another Catholic school called Saint Francis Xavier College, in Kowloon; in those days there were inter-school tournaments in sports, since they were schools with a strong English influence, where they held western boxing tournaments among them. Bruce decided to take part in one of them, which was held at St. George”s College; he won it after defeating three-time champion Gary Elms in the third round by knockout. Before reaching the finals, Bruce had knocked out boxers Yang Huang, Lieh Lo and Shen Yuen in the first round. He was also introduced by his brother Peter Lee to the art of western fencing, of which his brother was a champion. All these influences had an impact on him when he created his own style years later.

Beginnings in acting

Her first film appearance was at the age of two months in Golden Gate Girl, also known as Tears of San Francisco; this film was shot in San Francisco in 1940, but was released a year later, in 1941.

Subsequently, Bruce shot about twenty more films and all of them featured his stage name, Lee Siu Lung , which means the “Little Dragon Lee”; this nickname accompanied him for the rest of his life and was acquired in the 1948 film, Wealth is Like a Dream. The 1950 film The Kid is the only one in which he worked with his father, but curiously they do not appear together in any scene.

In February 1965, Bruce and his wife Linda had their first child, Brandon, and 6 days later, Lee Hoi-Chuen (when he returned to Oakland, Bruce received a phone call from Ed Parker, who told him to audition in Hollywood with William Dozier, executive producer of the Batman television series, who had seen him a year earlier at the martial arts show he had given in Long Beach. Dozier then asked Bruce if he would be interested in playing the role of Lee Chan (The Number One Son) in a television adaptation of Charlie Chan. Bruce expressed interest in the project and just a week later left for Hollywood, where he auditioned. Bruce signed a contract option and immediately began drama classes; the studio, 20th Century Fox, gave him drama and acting lessons so he could better exploit his expressive talents and adapt him to the American film market, but his hopes were dashed when he received a call from Dozier that the series had been put on hold. Dozier knew of Bruce through the mediation of a mutual friend of his and Parker”s (Jay Sebring, the Hollywood hairdresser who was a friend of Sharon Tate, both of whom were killed in the Charles Manson-led killing spree).

In February of the following year (1966), Bruce was offered a supporting role in the television series The Green Hornet, playing Kato, where he worked alongside Van Williams. Once the contract was signed, he packed up his things and left with his family for Los Angeles, where he bought a small apartment on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood. His friend, James Y. Lee, was very saddened, but Bruce promised to visit him as often as he could, to train with him and his students. The success that this series achieved went beyond the screens, as Bruce was showing an innovative fighting technique, unknown at that time to the American public accustomed to boxing fights; this series lasted one season and ended successfully in 1967. Bruce also returned with his Kato character and appeared in three episodes of the Batman series.

In 1967, Bruce opened his third Jun Fan Gung-Fu Institute, which was his last kwoon; it was located at 628 College Street in Los Angeles” Chinatown, and, unlike the ones he had in Seattle and Oakland, it had no identifying markings, and even the windows were painted over to maintain anonymity. Bruce did not need the gym to live, as, fortunately, he could make a living from his television and movie appearances. So, in this way, the people of Chinatown were carefully selected among talented martial artists, movie artists and people related to show business that Bruce had known, such as Joe Lewis, Mike Stone, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Stirling Siliphant, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, among others.

Bruce did not like crowded classes, as he intended the classes to be as close to personal training as possible, and gave the example of a boxing trainer who could only teach two or three at the most if he wanted the boxer to respond to him up in the ring. It was for this reason that he turned down the offer to found a chain of gyms under the name Kato.

During those years, Bruce had small roles in Ironside and Here Come the Brides. In 1969, Lee made a small appearance in his first American film, Marlowe, in which he played a thug hired to intimidate private detective Philip Marlowe, who was played by James Garner.

In 1970, after suffering a back injury while lifting weights and having the results of the doctors not encouraging, Bruce began to recover in a matter of months. He wanted to resume his artistic career, so he started working on the script of The Silent Flute together with James Coburn and Stirling Silliphant; this film should have launched him to stardom. This script is sent to Warner Brothers and after a few months they give the green light to the project with the condition that it be shot in India, so Bruce, Coburn and Silliphant travel to the mentioned place, exactly to New Delhi. There they spend ten days looking for locations for the film without any success. By the beginning of 1971, Bruce already had in mind The Warrior, a film about a Shaolin monk from the American Old West in search of knowledge and adventure. Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers received Bruce”s proposal but both wanted him to act in a type of series more of the time, that related to the old west. By June 1971, Bruce was feeling down in the dumps because he could not find work in the acting world, and also wanted to capture his fighting system on the screens, so his friend Stirling Silliphant wrote a script exclusively for him in which Bruce can show his vision of fighting and martial arts philosophy. Lee began filming the first episode of the TV series Longstreet, which was titled “The Way of the Intercepting Fist”, the same name as his fighting system.

“… You know, I did Longstreet for Paramount, and Paramount wanted me to be in a TV series. On the other hand, Warner Brothers wants me in some other one. But both of them, in my opinion, want me to be in a modern kind of something and they think the Western idea is out…”

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Consecration

In mid-1971, while visiting Hong Kong, Bruce was surprised to learn that the series he had recorded a few years earlier, The Green Hornet, was a hit, and even there they called it The Kato Show. After that he returned home to Los Angeles, but immediately received a call from a film producer in China, Raymond Chow, from Golden Harvest; he offered Bruce fifteen thousand dollars commission if he accepted to participate as a main actor in the shooting of two of his films, something that Lee accepted, although before leaving he finished recording the first episode of the Longstreet series, “The Way of the Intercepting Fist”.

At that time he decides to move to Hong Kong, and asks Taky Kimura (head of the Seattle school), James Lee (head of the Oakland school) and Dan Inosanto (head of the Los Angeles school), to close their activities, and no longer engage in commercially teaching what he had taught them.

After arriving in Hong Kong, Bruce immediately left for Pak Chong, Thailand, to shoot his first film The Big Boss (The Big Boss or Karate to Death in Bangkok). At Bruce Lee”s first face-to-face meeting with Raymond Chow, upon shaking his hand, Bruce told him: “I”m going to be the biggest Chinese star in the world”. The filming of the movie, which lasted six weeks, began under very harsh conditions, and with a budget of one hundred thousand dollars; during the first week of the film, Bruce sprained his ankle and caught a bad flu during his recovery process, and occasionally the filming was cut short due to cockroach invasion. Bruce and the other actors lost weight during filming; they did not eat due to the poor conditions in which the food was prepared and instead took vitamin pills to be able to endure the filming. Finally, the director, Wu Chai Wsaing, is replaced by his bad character and as a replacement comes Lo Wei; the problems between him and Bruce began quickly. After finishing the filming, Bruce and part of the crew returned to Hong Kong, and immediately, while still at the Kai Tak airport, held an impromptu press conference where they announced the release date for October 3 of that same year in Hong Kong.

Three days later, Bruce returned to the United States only to film three more episodes of Longstreet, where he appeared as Mike Longstreet”s martial arts master (a movie that became a smash hit grossing on its first day three hundred and seventy-two thousand dollars, three days later reaching one million and reaching a total of three million two hundred thousand dollars. After the release of The Big Boss, Bruce gained the pinnacle of Chinese popularity, where he was considered a national hero.

After the film, several production companies wanted to have Bruce in their ranks; they even sent him a blank check in order to leave Chow. On the other hand, Warner Brothers wanted to resume and hurry the project of The Silent Flute, offering him twenty-five thousand dollars. However, Lee decided to turn them all down and fulfill the contract he had with Golden Harvest, devoting himself entirely to his next film, Fist of Fury, which exploited the superiority of Kung Fu over the Japanese martial arts of karate, judo and samurai swordsmanship. The success achieved in Fist of Fury exceeded all expectations and managed to collect USD 4,431,423 in his native Hong Kong, beating a box office record set by his previous film The Big Boss; with this, Bruce Lee became an established star of martial arts films.

In 1972 and already finished the contract with Golden Harvest, Raymond Chow offered him a new contract to work again with director Lo Wei in the film Yellow Faced Tiger, but Bruce refused because he wanted to direct his own films, so Bruce and Chow created the Concord Production Inc. in which Bruce provided the creative aspect and Chow the economic one.

Lee and Chow”s first project was Way of the Dragon, a film in which Bruce was actor, screenwriter, co-producer and director, and also played percussion on the central theme of the soundtrack. The film was shot in Rome, Italy, and also starred actress Nora Miao, actor Bob Wall and seven-time world full contact karate champion and Tang Soo Do stylist Chuck Norris. After a month of filming in Rome, Bruce returned to Hong Kong with Norris and Wall. A day later, the three appeared on the Enjoy Yourself Tonight TV show to promote the film.

Bruce Lee intended Way of the Dragon to be the first of a trilogy, although before doing so he began what would be his next film, Game of Death, filming scenes with his friends and disciples Dan Inosanto, Tse Hon Joi and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

In December of that year (1972), Bruce attended the premiere of Way of the Dragon, a film that became another box office hit within the Chinese circuit, as Bruce did not want it to leave it, grossing over five million dollars and again breaking all the records set by his previous films. This film is considered a martial arts classic, and the fight in the Roman coliseum is one of the most memorable in Bruce Lee”s filmography; it is known as the fight of the century.

A few days after the release of Way of the Dragon, Bruce intended to continue filming Game of Death but this was interrupted after he received an offer of five hundred thousand dollars from Ted Ahley, president of Warner Brothers, to be the lead actor and co-director of the fight scenes in the martial arts film Blood and Steel; Bruce did not like the name and asked that it be called Enter the Dragon, a title the producers accepted. This was the first Chinese martial arts film to be produced by a major Hollywood studio (Warner Brothers), in association with Concord Production Inc.

Game of Death was put on hold to make way for the filming of Enter the Dragon, which began shooting in January 1973, in Hong Kong. The film production of this new movie was better than the previous ones, but still Bruce was nervous, as it was his first international project, which delayed the start of production. There were problems with the translation of the script, as well as some cultural conflicts, as the American crew did not want to eat typical Chinese food, and there were also frequent injuries due to lack of special equipment to ensure safety in the most risky scenes. Bruce suffered several injuries and accidents during filming, such as a cut from a bottle that hit him and a cobra bite. He worried and worked on every aspect of the film, so much so that by March, when filming was finished, he had lost weight and was restless and nervous; he wanted the film to be good and accepted by Western audiences.

Bruce and some of the film crew saw the completed Enter the Dragon project at a special preview screening where neither the music nor the special effects had been added yet; Bruce felt he was finally going to become an international star. The premiere was set for August 29, 1973, at Grauman”s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

“… Bruce got to see the final version of Enter the Dragon and got to see his finished work. He liked it very much. Between the day of his death in July and the release in August, some scenes were cut from the film, especially those with philosophical content. He was very determined and knew what he wanted to communicate about martial arts and its philosophy. He was determined that his dream would be part of the film…. I”m very happy that viewers will meet Bruce with the version that he loved the most, Bruce would be very proud to be able to say and have people say about him, “He was a true human being.” He was vibrant and full of life being true to himself.”

Enter the Dragon was shown in Hong Kong six days after his death, while the U.S. release was only in August of that year. The film was an overwhelming box office success, grossing two hundred million dollars on its release, and coming second only to The Exorcist (which grossed 357,500,000 dollars on its release), but surpassing other films such as Al Pacino”s Serpico, Clint Eastwood”s High Plains Drifter, John Wayne”s The Gallows Rope, among others; Bruce Lee earned a posthumous fame among the American public and is considered his masterpiece. One of the most remembered scenes of this film is the fight that Lee, Bruce”s character”s name, has against Mr. Han (Shih Kien) in the hall of mirrors. The film was listed in 2004 as “culturally significant and important” by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry.

Game of Death was the next film in his filmography; it began shooting in late 1972, before the start of Enter the Dragon, so Bruce Lee only shot forty minutes of the film before his untimely death. The feature film was finished by Golden Harvest and released in 1978, making use of a double and notorious -even crude- edits. Only eleven minutes were added from the initial shooting.

Bruce Lee had a very short life, he died in Kowloon, Hong Kong, on July 20, 1973 at only 32 years of age due to an allergic hypersensitivity to meprobamate, one of the chemical components of Equagesic, an analgesic for headaches. Months before his death, Bruce had had several fainting spells, exactly since the beginning of 1973, from which he managed to recover quickly.

On May 10, 1973, during one of the dubbing sessions of Enter the Dragon at Golden Harvest Studios, Bruce began to feel sick and decided to go to the bathroom to freshen up, where he began to have convulsions and vomiting until he finally collapsed, after which he lost consciousness. The people who were at Golden Harvest Studios noticed that Bruce was taking a long time so they went to look for him. When they entered, they found him on the floor and quickly took him to a hospital, where he was thoroughly examined. Neurosurgeon Peter Woo, the attending physician, did not know exactly what caused his brain swelling, but in order to treat him and reduce the swelling, he was given mannitol; it saved his life on that occasion. Bruce began to regain consciousness immediately; however, he could not speak and it took him several days to fully recover.

That same month, after finishing post-production on Enter the Dragon, Bruce returned to Los Angeles for a complete medical examination at UCLA (University of California). The result was positive for Bruce as he was told that he had the health and body of an 18 year old; furthermore, no abnormalities were found. It was explained to him that the loss of consciousness he had a few days earlier was caused by cerebral edema, with excess fluid surrounding the brain. Bruce was prescribed Dilantin (phenytoin), a medication that calms brain activity.

On July 10 of that year, Bruce had an altercation with his former manager, Lo Wei, at Golden Harvest Studios. Lo Wei claimed that Bruce had threatened him with a knife. This incident reached the ears of the press and caused Bruce to be a guest on Enjoy Yourself Tonight, where he talks about the incident. This was the last television appearance Bruce made in his lifetime.

On July 20, 1973 (ten days after that incident), Bruce Lee was at his home in Kowloon discussing the script of Game of Death with Raymond Chow. Between the two of them they cast Taiwanese actress Betty Ting Pei for a major female role in the film. After this, Chow returned home but first agreed with Bruce and actor George Lazenby to have dinner that evening; Chow wanted Lazenby to work on the film Game of Death. A few hours later, Bruce went to Betty Ting Pei”s house to discuss the film”s script. While at her friend”s apartment at around 2:00 p.m. that day, Lee felt a deep and overwhelming headache. Betty, according to her version which is considered official, gave him a prescription painkiller called Equagesic (a combination of aspirin and the tranquilizer meprobamate), which plunged him into a deep unconsciousness from which he would not return, entering into a coma.

At nine o”clock in the evening, Raymond Chow telephoned Betty”s house to find out why Bruce had not attended the dinner as they had agreed. Betty replied that she could not disturb Bruce because he was sleeping. When she went to the bedroom to try to wake him up, he was unresponsive, he had gone into a coma. Within ten minutes, an emergency doctor arrived at Betty”s house and tried to resuscitate Bruce, but seeing that he was unresponsive they called an ambulance which arrived around ten o”clock that night and took him to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Raymond phoned Bruce”s wife, Linda, to let her know what was happening. When Bruce arrived at the hospital, the doctors admitted him to intensive care and began to give him cardiac massages for his resuscitation, followed by electric shocks, but to no avail, as Bruce Lee had been admitted lifeless to the hospital.

Currently, there is still speculation about the causes of his death. Chow claimed in a 2005 interview that Bruce Lee”s death was due to an allergic reaction to meprobamate (a component of Equagesic, which he described as a common ingredient in painkillers), an interpretation also supported by coroner Donald Teare. However, Filkins, a highly regarded physician, said that the official explanation for Lee”s cause of death is flawed, since allergic reactions to drugs usually involve signs such as irregular swelling in the neck or respiratory failure. Instead, Filkins believes that Lee died of sudden unexpected death syndrome, which resulted from Sudep epilepsy, a syndrome that was not identified until 1995. For his part, forensic scientist Dr. Michael Hunter in the Discovery Channel program “Autopsies of Hollywood” presents the thesis that Lee”s body collapsed due to an adrenal crisis as a side effect of the excessive use of cortisone, administered to treat the pain of a herniated disc.

Lee was almost 33 years old and doctors assured that his body did not represent more than 18 or 20 biological years. Recently it has been said as another attributable cause, that his demise was due to an aneurysm that caused his headache and ultimately led to his death. His death shocked the Hong Kong public and the information was initially attributed as false. Lee”s autopsy showed that his brain had massively swollen compressing inside the skull cage. There were no visible external injuries, but he had Equagesic in his system.

About twenty thousand people gathered in front of the facade of the Kowloon Funeral Parlour where his bronze coffin, which had cost forty thousand dollars, was laid open at the top. The funeral that followed was apotheosis in Hong Kong; the crowd of admirers was so impressive that the atmosphere where Lee”s coffin lay was suffocating. In the transfer of the coffin from Hong Kong to Seattle, where he was finally buried, the coffin had to be changed, since with the humidity or condensation, the white lining with which the coffin was lined was stained blue, due to Bruce”s suit.

He was finally buried in Lake View Cemetery on Capitol Hill, Seattle, USA. In March 1993, his son Brandon, who died after being accidentally shot, was buried next to him.

In March 1961, Bruce Lee began studying at the University of Washington, where he majored in philosophy; during the fall of 1962 he began teaching kung fu classes at the Space Needle Restaurant in Seattle and it was during the course of one of his classes that he met a young woman named Linda Emery Cadwell (a Caucasian woman of English and Swedish parents), who had been invited by one of Bruce”s friends. After dating for a while, they became sweethearts. During 1963, Bruce opened the “Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute” on 4750 University Road in Seattle, which soon became a famous martial arts academy; the price to become a student was twenty-two dollars per month. Still, Bruce felt that Seattle did not offer him the possibilities that California could and decided to move there.

In June 1964, Bruce Lee decided to continue his studies at the University of Washington in Oakland, California, in order to open his second martial arts school (Oakland Gung Fu Institute) there and thus achieve greater financial stability. Before leaving, Bruce promised Linda that he would return, although she did not believe him at first since her parents were opposed to the relationship. After several months in which they continued to maintain contact through letters, Bruce returned to Seattle and proposed to Linda. They were married on August 17, 1964, and that same day they left for Oakland, California.

Bruce and Linda lived at the home of James Y. Lee and his wife. At that time, Bruce did not have the money to rent an apartment, and until the gymnasium was up and running, he could not afford to support his new family, so they were financially dependent on James, who was delighted to have them in his home. They found a place with a low rent to open their kwoon, and set about fixing it up to start the school as soon as possible. It didn”t take long for the first students to arrive.

In early 1965, Bruce Lee”s enthusiasm for martial arts became his greatest burden. His Oakland-based institute, which had gotten off to such a good start, began to decline in the number of students, which resulted in financial losses. In February of that year, his son Brandon was born. However, a week later he was informed of the death of his father Lee Hoi-Chuen. A few years later, in 1969, Bruce and Linda had Shannon Lee. He then resumed his film career and from film to film, he managed to position himself as the best martial artist not only in his personal life, but also in the world of cinema.

In 1973, at the height of his fame, he served as technical editor of a book entirely devoted to wing chun, written by the only one of the three students Bruce Lee certified to teach his vision of the martial arts who was of Chinese descent, James Yim Lee. J. Lee learned his wing chun from Bruce Lee, and the book only features photos of people of Chinese descent, including Ip Man (to whom thanks are due), Ted Wong and Bruce Lee himself.

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Philosophy

Bruce Lee”s philosophical interest began when he was under the tutelage of sifu Ip Man in wing chun. Ip Man was always interested in the philosophy of wing chun, and this he passed on to Bruce, something that had a great influence on him.

“If there is one thing that Ip Man gave Bruce that may have crystallized Bruce”s direction in life, it was to interest his students in the philosophical teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Lao-Tse, and other great Chinese thinkers and philosophers. As a result, Bruce”s mind became the distillation of the wisdom of such teachers.”

The second major philosophical influence on Bruce Lee was the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. Bruce found that Krishnamurti”s way of looking at life was the same as his own, such as knowing that: “Seeking knowledge led to self-knowledge. Bruce emphasized this teaching. It was one of the most important concepts he derived from his study of Krishnamurti.

Something that Bruce Lee practiced throughout his life was self-motivation; he had several motivational books from which he drew his positive-daily thoughts. In 1969, when he was 29 years old, Bruce left behind the ideas of making money teaching martial arts; also, he was in a bad mood because he could not manage to unite his two artistic passions such as acting and martial arts, and therefore, he began to apply what he had read in the books of Napoleon Hill. Bruce Lee began to write down his goals in his diary (which he carried with him wherever he went), and mentioned to his wife Linda that he needed a plan to work with. One of the goals he wrote down was the following:

I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid oriental superstar in the United States. In return I will give you the most exciting performances and do the best quality, in acting capacity. Beginning in 1970, I will start on the road to becoming world famous and from then on, until the end of 1980, I will have in my possession the sum of ten million dollars. I will follow the path that pleases me and, I will achieve inner harmony and happiness.”

Jeet Kune Do

In 1967, Bruce decides to call the combat method he had been performing as “the way of the intercepting fist”; these words appeared for the first time in January of that year, in his diary and written in Chinese: 截拳道, which phonetically sounds like “zit kyun dou”. After a few months, exactly in July 1967, Bruce decides to correct the English phonetic translation of “zit kyun dou” (the way of the intercepting fist), to finally call it Jeet Kune Do. However, Bruce regretted having given it a name, since that turned it into just another martial art, something he did not want since his idea was to exist outside the parameters and limitations. Bruce insisted that Jeet Kune Do was just a name, as Jun Fan Gung-Fu (the name he gave to the combat method he practiced before calling it Jeet Kune Do) had been before. That is why he emphasized the “no style” or “no form”. In this sense he mentioned: “The difference between having no form and having the “no-form” is that the former shows incompetence and the latter transcends”.

Many of the concepts of Jeet Kune Do are extracted from wing chun, western boxing, eskrima, judo, kickboxing, western fencing, tangsudo, Greco-Roman wrestling and other martial arts that Lee trained throughout his life. With the experience gained in the training he had, Bruce realized that the classical styles were too mechanized and limited, that is why he created the Jun Fan Gung-Fu (“Bruce Lee”s Kung-Fu”), a system that has the basic training methods, techniques and strategies for combat, in addition to being used as self-defense. He also discovered that whatever the style, there are only five distances in which every fight is divided (long, medium, short, melee and ground) and five methods of attack (simple direct, simple angular, progressive indirect, by combination, by induction and by immobilization of the hand). This is something that differentiates it from being a fighting style or a martial art; because a style, whatever it is, marks a certain way of fighting according to the distance that style handles; on the contrary, a practitioner of Jun Fan Gung-FuJeet Kune Do, is not limited to one or two distances, since he handles all five and that gives him total freedom of choice. Bruce felt that his Jun Fan Gung-Fu was good but a little restrictive for a combat so, using the philosophy he studied and the system he created, Bruce began to apply what worked best for him in a combat and eventually it became a philosophy that was later called Jeet Kune Do. In other words, Jun Fan Gung-Fu was the basis for the Jeet Kune Do process to begin.

“I don”t teach only “karate” because I don”t believe in styles, I don”t believe that there is a Chinese style of fighting or a Japanese style of fighting or any other country… there would have to be humans with three arms or four legs for there to be another style of fighting. If there are no other human beings on Earth with a structure different from ours, there are no other fighting styles and why I say that, because we have two arms and two legs, the important thing is how to use them to get the most out of them…. With the arms you can follow a straight line, a curved line, draw circles, you can give slow blows but sometimes they don”t seem so slow, with the legs it”s the same, up and down… And after all that, you ask yourself how you can express yourself sincerely in every moment”.

Jeet Kune Do is an idea, but not a system; with its practice, the individual can find the cause of his own ignorance since he looks for his own way and takes advantage of everything that adapts better to his way of being, also uses all the means that one believes necessary in his life but is not limited to any in particular. It is a process of evolution and constant improvement without a determined end, and with a philosophy of total freedom for whoever uses it. In the words of Bruce Lee: “The art of Jeet Kune Do is simply to simplify…”. This was Bruce Lee”s personal expression of what worked best for him in combat.

So, let it be clear that Jeet Kune Do is not a new style of Karate or Kung Fu. Bruce Lee did not invent any new style, nor did he modify any existing style, nor did he put together different styles in a kind of composite style. His main idea was precisely to free his followers from styles, molds or fixed patterns, it is to return to the fundamentals, to the original concepts that give effectiveness to the martial arts.

Jeet Kune Do is not a process of accumulation or a daily addition of techniques and more techniques but on the contrary, it is a process of continuous elimination of what is useless, taking what is useful and discarding what is useless, but, even so, a person can continue practicing various martial arts as long as he does not pretend to cover the totality of it since one should only use what really works for him in the combat system he is practicing. That is why Jeet Kune Do is not a martial art because it does not seek elaborate, complex techniques and stylized movements that are actually unnecessary, but goes to the direct and simple, and also focuses on realism in combat. For Bruce, the complicated and showy techniques served to amaze the public in exhibitions and films, but they were not usually effective in the defense of a street fight, which is why he used with his sparrings a team of protections that allowed to get as close as possible to the reality of combat.

“For me, martial arts is about knowing how to express yourself sincerely, that”s very hard to do… for me it would be very easy to put on a show and show off, get drunk on that feeling and become a tough guy and all that. I could do a lot of fake things and dazzle or show very flowery moves but to express yourself sincerely, without deceiving yourself, to express yourself with all sincerity, that, my friend, is very difficult to do…. You have to train a lot, you have to have good reflexes to use them when necessary, when you want to move, to be able to move and do it with determination? If I punch with my fist, I punch hard, that”s the most important part of training.”

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Training

Bruce Lee kept a detailed record in his diary of the different workouts and the dates of each day to compare results and continuously improve. He trained daily for about eight hours and his activities, among others, were: calisthenics, exercises with weights and elastic bands, daily running about 16 km with intervals, and continuous improvement of a certain blow or technique, against the bags, the wooden dummy, various implements, and even against the Makiwara (punching board used in traditional karate), and work in pairs (sparrings). He wanted to be always stronger, faster, more flexible, coordinated and resistant, he was 1.72 meters (5 feet 7½ inches) tall and weighed 62 kg.

At a crucial moment in his life, he seriously injured his sciatic nerve and sacral bone, so he had to undergo a tedious rehabilitation process and remain inactive for a long time, about six months, which he dedicated to study and compose notes that would be edited after his death as The Tao of Jeet Kune Do. Although for some reason, despite later having the means to do so, he never published them during his lifetime. And although the doctor told him that he might not walk again, not only did he walk again, but his kicks returned to what they were before and he continued with his arduous training in search of perfection in the art of combat.

The hard training allowed him to perform without tricks proverbial and incredible physical feats, among which stand out: performing a large number of push-ups on two fingers of his hand, knocking down fighters twice his weight with his side kick, developing very close range punching power by means of the one-inch fist punch, performing an agile and flawless flying kick, develop tremendous instantaneous fist strike speed (thirty hundredths of a second) due to which his sparrings simply did not see the blow that knocked them down, plus a proficiency in such weapons as the nunchaku, the Bō (or long staff) with the Filipino technique, including the handling of the two middle sticks or “olisi”. As he said:

“I don”t represent one style but all styles. You don”t know what I am about to do, but I don”t know either. My movement is the result of yours and my technique is the result of your technique.”

In addition to Chinese wing Chun, and throughout his life, Lee also adopted some techniques and tactics from various martial arts and combat sports, such as: boxing, Judo, Eskrima, Greco-Roman wrestling, Western fencing, Muay Thai and Tangsudo in his style, although he did not want to pigeonhole it and call it a style, but said they were principles; based on distance, individual physical characteristics and opportunity. For him there was no predefined style of fighting, nor should there be. Likewise, Lee developed his own grappling techniques, and adopted several of the boxing movements based on the large collection of films he owned where he watched them over and over again, but above all he studied the way of fighting of the famous champion Muhammad Ali, whom he observed and studied meticulously through his recorded fights; these videos he would rewind and project them in order to be able to notice each of the details and nuances of his movements. He was not only going to apply these techniques to himself; Bruce had the intention of fighting a duel with Muhammad Ali, a fact that was never consummated.

Lee stood out for his technical perfection and balance, his coordination, the impressive speed of his feints and feints, his admirable physical development and body control.

His image, charisma and influence in the martial arts have transformed him into a classic. In life he had great movie stars and renowned martial artists as his followers and also as his students during his stay in the United States, among them are: James Coburn, Steve McQueen, Dan Inosanto and Chuck Norris, who were also his friends.

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Way of the Dragon trilogy

Before the release of Way of the Dragon, Bruce had the intention that his character, Tang Lung, would be the protagonist of two more films, giving rise to a trilogy, but he postponed this idea because his friends went on vacation to Hong Kong and he did not miss the opportunity to record what, at that time, would be his next film, Game of Death. Then he received a proposal from Warner Brothers to film Enter the Dragon, so he also left Game of Death for later.

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The Silent Flute y Southern Fist, Northern Leg

In 1970, Bruce suffered a severe back injury while lifting weights. During his recovery time, he decided to write the script for a movie that should have launched him to stardom, The Silent Flute, together with James Coburn and Stirling Silliphant. The script was sent to Warner Brothers and after a few months they accepted the project with the condition that they would look for filming locations in India, so Bruce, Coburn and Silliphant traveled to that country and chose the city of New Delhi for the filming. During the 10 days they spent looking for locations for the film there were problems. The night they arrived in India the staff of the hotel where they stayed decided to give Coburn a star treatment, something that bothered Bruce, so he asked Silliphant to go and complain, and also mentioned that one day he would be the most important movie star in the world, much bigger than Coburn, but Silliphant did not listen to him. Another problem was when Bruce began to give kung fu demonstrations, this bothered Coburn because he wanted privacy, but before Bruce”s demonstrations people came in quantity. It was because of these problems that the project was finally abandoned.

After a while, Warner Brothers tried to retake the project but Bruce decided to turn them down and fulfilled the contract he had with Golden Harvest, dedicating himself entirely to his next film Fist of Fury. Moreover, when the press knew about this project, Bruce did not want to film it.

In August 1972, Bruce Lee wrote a letter to his wife Linda in which he mentioned that he had been working on the script of a new movie entitled Southern Fist, Northern Leg and told her that: No doubt this film will have a place in the ninth heaven.

Bruce Lee wrote Southern Fist, Northern Leg as a way of doing the script of The Silent Flute his way. In the documentary Bruce Lee: The Man & The Legend (Golden HarvestConcord Productions), which came out right after his death in 1973, Bruce talks, in Cantonese language, about some of the plot. The meaning of the film is about the origin of martial arts. As in The Silent Flute, Bruce sought to play a hero who travels in search of an external object, in other words, a book that will show him the whole truth about martial arts. After going through various trials and fighting with several martial arts masters, he realizes that the answer lies within himself and has always been there.

Five years after Bruce”s death, Warner Brothers re-released The Silent Flute but replaced some violent and erotic scenes with comic content. The film changed its title to Circle of Iron, starring David Carradine and Christopher Lee in 1978. This film starred David Carradine and Christopher Lee in 1978. Even so, the philosophical content of Bruce Lee was maintained. The plot of this film is considered one of the best in martial arts although, according to critics, the choreography of the fights in this film was very poorly elaborated. Currently, it is not known why Southern Fist, Northern Leg has not been made, despite the existence of a script.

Game of Death

Game of Death was released in 1978, but the reality is that until Bruce”s death there was no original script, there were only ideas of what the movie would be, plus storyboards. The main idea Bruce Lee was working with was that of an international martial arts fighter named Hai Tien, who retires after winning the world tournament. The Korean mafia learns of his fighting skills and do everything possible to make him part of a group sent to a 5-story pagoda, heavily guarded by skilled martial artists, who are protecting something (not identified at all in any material relating to the film) lying on its top level. After saying no to the Korean mafia and being on his way back home, Hai Tien is informed of the kidnapping of his family by the Korean mafia, forcing him to get involved. Hai Tien is then accompanied by two more martial artists (James Tien and Chieh Yuan), and between the 3 of them they make their way through the pagoda, encountering different challenges on each floor. The location of the pagoda is the Peobjusa Temple in Songnisan National Park in South Korea.

“I”m currently working on the script for my next film. I haven”t really decided on the title yet, but what I want to show is the need to adapt oneself to changing circumstances. The inability to adapt brings destruction. I already have the first scene in my mind. When the film opens, the audience sees a large expanse of snow. Then the camera focuses on a group of trees as the sounds of a strong windstorm fill the screen. There is a large tree in the center of the screen and it is all covered with thick snow. Suddenly there is a loud crack and a large branch of the tree falls to the ground. It can”t support the weight of the snow, so it breaks. The camera then fixes on a willow tree that is bending in the wind. As it adapts to the environment, the willow survives.”

Bruce conceived his idea after a visit he made to India in 1971 with actor James Coburn and writer Stirling Silliphant while scouting locations for his project The Silent Flute. While there, Bruce noticed that the pagodas had ascending levels. This gave him the idea to do fight scenes in a pagoda, where each level would have a different and more difficult threat.

The fights in this film were made possible thanks to the availability of actors Dan Inosanto, Tse Hon Joi and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who were on vacation in Hong Kong, something that Bruce took advantage of. He planned to insert these fights throughout the film. Bruce also asked his friend Taky Kimura to participate in this film but the fight never took place because of his death. This film was not shot completely because Warner Brothers offered him to shoot Enter the Dragon (Operation Dragon).

In 1977 and in order to resume the unfinished project, the Golden Harvest production company hired 8 screenwriters to take Bruce”s idea forward and 3 American screenwriters to give the film an international look, and even contacted former soccer player Pelé to make a small appearance, but negotiations fell through. After half a year studying Bruce Lee”s character and giving the film a new plot, Game of Death was released in 1978.

Shaw Brothers

In early 1971, shortly before Bruce Lee”s return to Hong Kong, he decided to study his options and find a studio capable of giving him everything he wanted to become an international star. So, through his friend Unicorn Chan, Bruce met the owner and president of Shaw Brothers, Run Run Shaw, who offered Bruce a contract that included a salary of $2,000 per film, but Bruce did not accept and decided to go with producer Raymond Chow, who was going bankrupt until he took out a loan and began to make money shooting films with Bruce. Bruce did not accept and decided to go with producer Raymond Chow, who was going bankrupt until he took out a loan and started making money shooting films with Bruce. During that year, Run Run Shaw offered Bruce a blank check in order to leave Chow, but Lee did not accept as he had a verbal agreement and that was more important to him.

In 1972 and after the release of Way of the Dragon, Run Run Shaw accepted Lee”s conditions and prepared all the necessary details to present him with a new film project, in which he would give life to two characters, one good and one bad. One of the characters would be Nian Kan Yao, a military legend of the Qing dynasty, known to be one of the greatest and most ruthless war heroes of his era.

The last letter Bruce wrote to the owner of Shaw Brothers stated how easy it was for him to negotiate with Run Run Shaw:

“Dear Run Run,As of now, consider the months of September, October and November (1973). A three-month period, reserved for Shaw Bros. Specific terms (of negotiation) will be discussed upon my arrival.”

His legacy can be found in films, interviews, books and more objects that serve to learn a little of his way of training, as well as his philosophy. The fact of having created a combat method such as Jun Fan Gung-Fu and then applying his philosophy of life where he discards the unnecessary of a fighting style to make it evolve and give birth to Jeet Kune Do, makes him to be considered as the pioneer of contact combat and without rules such as mixed martial arts.

Another of the things that encompasses his great legacy is to have achieved the opening to the West of the Chinese martial arts and the dissemination of Kung Fu in its true dimension, which before him were unknown and only predominated in fantasy Chinese films with produced acrobatics, being Karate and Judo the only oriental martial arts known in the West in the 1950s.

It can also be said that Lee, because of his renown, was responsible for the international propagation of the wing chun system, which, together with tai chi chuan, is the most practiced kung fu style in the world. Many of today”s martial arts practitioners do at least some comparative revisionism of his and Lee”s fighting technique, so as to apply some of his concepts to their own style. After his explosive emergence through his schools and subsequent films, the trail left by this unique martial artist began to be followed.

Even so, the Chinese film industry exploited to satiety the unsatisfied commercial sales of a Western and Eastern audience eager to see films of the genre and style presented in the famous films in which Bruce Lee starred. After his death, the Chinese industry placed any martial artist who was physically similar to Lee and his technique to make films of dubious script quality and technical expression to overexploit with his figure the film market, and even came to place masks of Lee in natural size on the face of the actor.

The magazines dedicated to martial arts also fell into the overexploitation of Lee”s figure, revealing his techniques, training, personal life, punches, thoughts, etcetera. His ideas, philosophy and training methods have been revised and applied in many of the modern martial arts academies around the world. Today, it is still possible to find in many martial arts academies his portrait or posters of him.

I owe my present state of development to my previous training in wing chun, a great style. That art was taught to me by Mr. Ip Man, the current leader of the Ving Tsun System in Hong Kong, where I was raised.

There are monuments erected in his honor in various parts of the world; on November 27, 2005, a bronze statue was unveiled on the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong to commemorate the 65th anniversary of his birth, and on the same day another statue was unveiled in Bosnia. A few years later, another bronze statue was presented to the public in Chinatown, the Chinatown located in the city of Los Angeles; this was done on the 40th anniversary of Lee”s death, as well as the 75th anniversary of Chinatown.

Bruce Lee also earned a place on Hong Kong”s Avenue of Stars, as well as on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In March 1993, he was posthumously awarded the Hong Kong Film Industry”s Lifetime Achievement Gold Award. In 1999, he was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential men of the 20th century, as well as being considered one of the heroes and icons of history; in the same year he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Fellowship of Fellow Actors. In 2004, Enter the Dragon was honored by the Library of Congress as “culturally significant and important” and was selected to be preserved in the National Film Registry of the United States.

Bruce Lee”s life has been made into movies and television; in 1993 the film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was released, starring Jason Scott Lee as Bruce Lee (in 2008 the television series The Legend of Bruce Lee premiered in Hong Kong (this series was produced by Yu Shengli and Shannon Lee).

His first-born son, Brandon Lee, was also an actor and like his father participated in some martial arts films, but his career was cut short after an accident where he died due to negligence on the set of The Crow, when he was shot in a scene that was later burned. He is survived by his wife Linda Cadwell and daughter Shannon Emery Lee, who continues to maintain and promote her father”s legacy through the Bruce Lee Foundation.

Over the years, Bruce Lee”s unreleased material has continued to be released, and the material produced by this artist has been remastered; as a tribute, Lee has been mentioned and personified, as well as being taken as inspiration in some film and television productions:

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Video games

Due to the huge success of Bruce Lee”s films, numerous imitators emerged, among which three stand out: Bruce Li, Dragon Lee (also known as Bruce Lei) and Bruce Le. The films starring these imitators were mostly of low quality. This genre is known by fans as “Bruce-exploitation”. Of particular note is the 1977 film The Clones of Bruce, in which the various impersonator actors appeared together, along with some actors who used to appear in the films of the real Bruce Lee. The film is considered the ultimate expression of “Bruce-exploitation”.

Some of the most representative Bruce Lee impersonators are: Bruce Chen, Bruce Lai, Bruce Lau, Bruce Lei (different from Dragon Lee), Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, Bruce Liang, Bruce Lo, Bruce Ly, Bruce Thai, Dragon Sek (also known as Dragon Shek), Judy Lee, Jun Chong (also known as Bruce K. L.Lea, or Bruce Lea), Kim Tai-Jung (also known as Tong Lung, Tang Lung or Kim Tai-Chung), Li Hsiu-Hsien (also known as Danny Lee), Sammo Hung, Tang Lung (another, not Kim Tai-Jung), among others.

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