80 years ago was born a “Little Dragon” who would change forever the perception of the martial arts in the world. Let’s remember the fighter, the philosopher, the instructor and the movie star that inspired and continue to inspire generations. Let’s remember Bruce Lee.
The birth of the Dragon
Lee Jun-fan was born in San Francisco, California the 27th of November in 1940. Raised up with his family in Kowloon, Hong Kong until 18 years old. The kid was introduced to the film industry by his father Lee Hoi-chuen, a famous Cantonese opera artist. Lee was not exactly a quiet boy, due his poor academic performance and conduct, he was transferred of school at 16 years old. Involved in several street fights, Lee Jun-fan’s parents decided to let him train with Yip Man, a very talented Wing Chun martial artist master. Lee trained also in boxing and was a very talented cha-cha dancer. After the umpteenth brawl, this time against a son of a feared triad family, Lee was sent to San Francisco by his sister.
Shining in the U.S.
Once in the United States, Bruce starts attending high school and working as waiter in Seattle. In the meantime he continues to train in martial arts and to develop his own fighting style, based on the teachings of Yip Man and various other styles. Bruce Lee’s passion and curiosity about the human body and its expression, led him to study philosophy, dramatic art and many related subjects in the university of Washington. Soon, he founded a martial art studio, where he taught his own fighting system, the Jeet Kune Do “the style of no style”, and continued to study and do research about martial arts, combat sports and fitness.
The Movie Star
Bruce Lee founds has to be demonstrated, so he started to organize demonstration in the most famous martial art tournaments of the country. His talent was noticed by some television producers who invited Lee to participate to a few auditions. Bruce Lee’s most successful role was in the series “The Green Hornet”, thanks to this show finally some Hong Kong producers proposed him to participate as protagonist for two martial art movies. Bruce Lee’s movies were a triumph of critic and audience, the characters of his films express Lee’s point of view to the world, and thanks to him the martial art movie genre popularity has been boosted forever.
Here are Lee’s 5 milestones:
- The Big Boss, Hong Kong movie of the 1971, Bruce Lee first movie set in Thailand.
- Fist of Fury, Hong Kong movie of the 1972, in here Bruce Lee plays the role of Chen Zhen, student of the really existed Chinese martial artist legend Huo Yuanjia.
- Way of The Dragon, Hong Kong movie of the 1972, co-produced and directed by Bruce Lee, who also stars in the lead role. The movie is set in Rome and includes the participation of Chuck Norris as the main antagonist.
- Enter the Dragon, Hong Kong / American movie of the 1973, the most influential movie of Bruce Lee. In this film, in addition to the participation of the movie stars John Saxon and Jim Kelly, there are many others background artists that will become the greatest martial art movie stars of the present. Among them: Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Bolo Yeung and many others.
- The Game of Death, Hong Kong movie of the 1972, this movie is particularly appreciated by the martial artist world, because of its elaborated fight scenes. The cast is an all-star martial artist actors, consisting in order of appearance of: James Tien, Chieh Yuan, Dan Inosanto, Ji Han-jae and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bruce Lee died during the filming, leaving it uncompleted.
In this 5 movies there is the successful attempt to promote martial arts founds and studies of Bruce Lee. Thanks to this popularity, soon the world would recognize that martial art and the action scenes in general can be used effectively as cinematic expression to communicate messages.
80 years ago was born a “Little Dragon” and his legacy was not given only to his family, friends and students, but also to everyone that has the heart to listen to him.
I am not teaching you anything. I just help you to explore yourself.
Bruce Lee