The Legend of Bruce Lee

Just look right into the camera lens right here and tell us your name, your age and where you were born. My last name is Lee, Bruce Lee. Where do you come from? America was not ready for an Asian hero. I never met anybody in my life ever that I felt wanted to be a star more than Bruce. You have offended my family and you have offended the Shaolin temple. But he was underneath a very deep person rooted in philosophies that went back thousands of years. So how does a skinny delinquent end up with his face tattooed on thousands of people? Star Wars, no disrespect. When Bruce Lee hit the motherfucking silver screen, **** everything. 1940, a child is born on the hour and year of the dragon to a Chinese opera actor. He literally grew up on the set of the Hong Kong cinema and the backstage of the Cantonese opera. They all said that he was a natural. Growing up on the streets of Hong Kong is what sent Bruce to get an education in martial arts. There was a group of students, classmates that didn't quite like him. So one day when he walked out of school, they just jumped him and beat the heck out of him. Bruce began studying the Chinese martial art Wing Chun under Ip Man at 13 years old. He'd fight against rival martial arts styles on rooftops. Bruce, I think he would describe himself as grown up street fighting. He was not a real good and serious student in school in Hong Kong. But his love for fighting was under threat. When it was revealed to Wing Chun members, he was not purely Chinese. There was a long-standing rule in the Chinese martial arts world to not teach foreigners. So Ip Man removes Bruce from class, but has him taught discreetly in private sessions away from everyone else by a senior student. Meanwhile, Bruce's parents only grew more concerned about his love for fighting. And then the police, I remember it was a detective or somebody, talked to my mom and said, hey, either your son stop what he's doing or we'll have to arrest him because, you know, we can't let him just go out there and pick fights all day long, you know, can't do that. Unable to stop him from fighting, his parents sent him to America along with a hundred dollars to study and stay out of trouble. I was, I remember I was about to go to sleep and he came by my bedside and he was telling me that, hey, Robert, I'll be leaving tomorrow. And the emotion was very, very deep inside, you know, and that love between us, I could feel it then. My father was a very old fashioned man, OK? He never hugs anybody, nobody, you know. My father actually went over and hugged him and that really took us all by surprise, you know. Bruce studied philosophy at university by day and worked at a restaurant by night. But he had much more valuable skills to offer, so he began teaching Wing Chun. He didn't have any barriers of color or anything like that. He said, if your heart is right, he said, I'm going to teach you. Joining one of his classes was Linda. Was demonstrating on me and he threw me down to the ground gently, of course. So as he was showing the others how to do this, he said to me quietly, would you like to go to the Space Needle for dinner? And I said, all of us go to the Space Needle? And he said, no, just you. We were dating. We did go to a lot of films and one of them was Breakfast at Tiffany's. Mickey Rooney just looked ridiculous. Bruce was just ashamed that his Asian culture would be represented that way. The fact that Bruce chose to marry a Caucasian person was an expression of how he felt about America already. Bruce would showcase his martial arts at karate tournaments. This is where he'd demonstrate two finger push ups and his one inch punch. That was his dream, was to teach martial arts, to bring the beauty of his martial arts, Chinese Kung Fu, to the American people and to the world. Not everyone took a liking to Bruce, perhaps because he issued an open challenge in which he claimed to be able to defeat any martial artist in San Francisco. Oftentimes people come up and say, hey, Bruce, are you really that good? I said, well, if I tell you I'm good, probably you will say I'm boasting. But if I tell you I'm no good, you know what I'm like. He receives a challenge from Wong Jackman. And he said, you're to close your school down because we don't want you teaching non-Chinese. And Bruce Lee told him, he says, I'll teach anybody who I want to teach. So he'd come in, he said, well, if you beat me, then you can teach non-Chinese. But if I beat you, you got to close your school down. The fight lasted three minutes. So Wong Jackman turned around, started running from one door to the other. I think he ran around two or three times. He stumbled and Bruce got on top of him. He was getting ready to lay him out. And he yelled in Chinese, couldn't speak English. I give up. I give up. Bruce was so despondent, so disappointed in his performance. And actually, this was a real turning point. Anoity didn't win in seconds. He begins refining his approach to martial arts. He believed that he could take the best of many different kinds of fighting. A piece here and a piece there from boxing, wrestling, martial arts, all sorts of different physical activity and incorporate it into a simple philosophy. 1965, Brandon Lee is born. He had a very, very, you know, keen sense of love for his son. And he used to always brag and say he's the only blonde haired blue eyed German in the world. But less than a week later, his father passes away back in Hong Kong. He was crying, you know, he was crying real hard because at that point, he knew that even though his father sent him, you know, to the United States with only $100 in his pocket, it was good for him. After the funeral, Bruce trains even harder. And while he's out, his wife receives a phone call. At that 1964 Long Beach tournament, there was someone in the audience by the name of Jay Sebring, a hairdresser to the stars in Hollywood. Jay saw my father give this exhibition and he was really, really impressed. This was his ticket into Hollywood. Just look right into the camera lens right here and tell us your name, your age and where you were born. The first role was in the TV series The Green Hornet. The thing that impressed me about him then is, as always, was his intensity. We were 50-50 partners and he understood that. Despite this, Bruce was paid considerably less than the rest of the crew. We had to slow up his action because we found in the test that he was moving too fast for the speed of the motion picture film. People may not realize he could have been faster than he was. Unfortunately, the show was overshadowed by the success of a novel. And I heard this scream, bang, wham. And you could hear the progression of him. Bruce, I found out later, leaving the sound stage. And I said to my stand, and I said, what in the hell is all that for? He said, that package is where you're going over and being guest stars on Batman. And you get into a fight with him and you both lose. Burt Ward had let everybody know that he could wipe Kato's butt, that he was this big karate expert. And he knew a lot more about it than Bruce did. I said, hey, I'm with Bruce. He sat down and he stared at Burt. I tell you, I think Burt wet his pants. I really do. The word was out that he did. Holy guacamole. They finally talked him out of it, that Mr. Mr. Lee was not going to hurt you, but Bruce just intimidate the heck out of him. And he, I don't think he ever lived that down. It was agreed the fight would end in a draw and the Green Hornet would be cancelled. Now in need of money, Bruce would teach famous Hollywood actors such as Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Sharon Tate and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But Bruce had much greater ambitions. He once told me I can educate people faster to film than I can by writing a book or opening 100 schools here in America. And in 1969, Shannon Lee was born. Shannon just had Bruce around her little finger. Daddy's little girl. It was like an angel had come to live at our house when Shannon was born. With greater responsibilities and children looking up to him, he writes down his definite chief aim to become the highest paid Oriental superstar in the United States. He trains harder, improves his acting and finally auditions for the perfect role. A TV series called Kung Fu about a Chinese immigrant and Kung Fu expert going on a journey in the American Wild West. He was rejected. An executive at the network actually said, who wants to see a five foot six inch Chinese actor? And that was a painful thing to do to Bruce. So Kung Fu, which was written for Bruce, the people at the studio decided that America was not ready for an Asian hero. They never apparently considered him at all for the lead, because in their words, he was too Chinese looking. And what happened was they ended up giving the role to a Caucasian actor, David Carradine, who they tried to make up to look half Chinese. Unfortunately, such thing does exist in this world. You see, like they think that business why it's a risk. And I don't blame them. I mean, in the same way, it's like in Hong Kong, if a foreigner come and be and became a star, if I were the man with the money, I probably would have my own worry of whether or not the acceptance would be there. Rejected from Hollywood, Bruce returns to Hong Kong, to which he receives an unexpected welcome. He couldn't walk down the street without being mobbed the way that Tom Cruise, I guess, today might be mobbed if he walked down the street. He's approached by Hong Kong producer Raymond Chow for a low budget film. Opportunities were not open to him in Hollywood. And so he went, you might say, out the side door to Hong Kong, where he began to make films. After working hard on his first martial arts film, Bruce attends a premiere screening with his wife. Hong Kong moviegoers are renowned for being very vocal, and they have even been known to cut the seats with a knife or something if they didn't like the movie. We're sitting there. The crowd is hushed. And he thinks for a second, he thinks, oh, my God, they hate it. Until everybody broke out into thunderous applause. To say it was a commercial success is an understatement. So Bruce gets to work on his next film, this time with a higher budget, better acting and more fight scenes. But it was his next film where things really took off. By the time we were doing Play of the Dragon, Warner Brothers had realized that there was more to Bruce Lee than they'd originally imagined. The approach is a world champion martial artist. He says, Chuck, I've done two movies in Hong Kong and they're very successful. I want to do a movie now with a fight scene that everyone will remember. And I want to do it in the Coliseum in Rome. Bruce stars in one of the most iconic martial arts films, and he was only just getting started. How do you like that? In Game of Death, he brings his ex-student Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and films the first few fight scenes. And this is where he gets the phone call from Hollywood. Mr. Lee, I've come to speak to you about a tournament of martial arts. Enter the Dragon is to be a high budget Hollywood blockbuster. Entry the Dragon was not just another film for Bruce. It wasn't just, oh, this is the next project. This was the dream of his lifetime. Any time in the film, if that is a little bit philosophical, that is something that Bruce put into the script. It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory. On May 10th, 1973, Lee collapses while working on the final touches event of a dragon and is rushed to hospital. Strangely, the doctors find nothing wrong. He said, you know what? The doctors tell me I got a body of an 18 year old. I say, wow, I'm impressed. But two months later, looking forward to the release of his first major Hollywood film, Bruce visits Betty Ting Pei, who he intends to make a film with. He complains about a headache and is given the painkiller equagizer before going to lie down. When Betty and Raymond are unable to wake him up for dinner, an ambulance is called. I rushed to the hospital and Bruce was unconscious and they didn't know what was wrong. I couldn't say is he dead. I said, is he alive? And they shook their heads. No. Ultimately, martial art means honestly expressing yourself. I mean, it is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky, but to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself. And my friend is very hard to do. You still think of yourself Chinese or do you ever think of yourself as North America? You know, I want to think of myself as a human being, because, I mean, I don't want to sound like, you know, as Confucius saying, but under the sky, under the heaven, man, there is but one family. It just so happened, man, that people are different. Oh, don't hit back. It produced a new generation of people who were not direct disciples of Bruce Lee. They were not people trained by Bruce Lee, but they're people who ripple out from Bruce Lee. I said, empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Now, you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.