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Touchline • Issue 17 • 27
Last year was the 40th anniversary of his
death, and his legacy is once again being
re-evaluated. This edition of Touchline
will take a closer look at this modern
colossus.
His Life
Born in 1940, Lee spent his first year in
San Francisco’s Chinatown before his
family moved back to Hong Kong in 1941.
His father was a famous opera star and
opened the door to Bruce’s subsequent
acting career. He appeared in a number
of small roles over the years.
Schooling in Hong Kong saw mixed
results for Lee. He emerged as an
excellent boxer and dancer, but became
involved in gangs and street fighting.
Indeed, it was a particularly bad beating
that led him to pursue martial arts.
Having enough of her son’s fighting, Lee’s
mother encouraged him to return to
America, where he worked in a restaurant
and completed his high school diploma.
As a university student, he taught martial
arts in his spare time and eventually
nabbed a role in an ill-fated adventure
series called The Green Hornet.
Despite only lasting one season, it
brought him the attention of Hong Kong
producer Raymond Chow, who cast him in
the 1971 film Fists of Fury. The film was
a smash in Asia, and its follow up -The
Chinese Connection- was even bigger. Lee
had become a legend in the space of a
couple of years, and followed it up with
his own film The Way of the Dragon.
It was during the dubbing of his next
film, Enter the Dragon, that Lee first
passed out with swelling of the brain.
Within six months he would be dead.
His Death
The death of a young celebrity always
creates a monsoon of publicity, but
Bruce Lee’s was particularly wild. The
vagueness of the doctor’s report and the
implausibility of the death of the fittest
man in the world being due to an allergy
to aspirin was enough to give conspiracy
theorists something to chew over. The
autopsy showed that the painkiller was
the only drug in his body, though there
are strong rumours that it also contained
small amounts of marijuana. Like one of
his own choreographed fight scenes, the
rumours began to spin at a ridiculous
speed. There were claims that he died
from a reaction between painkiller and
marijuana. Then came the rumour that he
was stimulating his body with electrodes.
Then claims that he was taking sexual
stimulants. From there, it became
outlandish. The triads were named
because he wanted to shoot his films in
America, or the mafia because he decided
to stay in Hong Kong.
As recently as 2006, doctors have been
putting forward theories on how he died.
James Filkins of Cook County medical
examiner’s office in Chicago believes
that Lee died as a result of condition
called sudden unexpected death in
epilepsy (SUDEP). This condition has only
recently been isolated and is said to be
responsible for about 500 deaths a year
in Britain alone. It can be triggered by
stress; as Filkins says, “Lee was under a
great deal of physical and mental distress
at the time,”
Whatever the cause of his death, it
robbed the world of someone who was
truly unique: a genuine philosopher
warrior.
His Legacy
Bruce Lee’s impact on the way the west
sees the east cannot be underestimated.
With his American background, he was
able to transcend the cultural gap
between the two cultures. His movies
to a large extent brought the kung fu
movie into the mainstream, with many
imitations following his blueprint. He
was a friend of Chuck Norris, whose own
ultra-violent films were based largely on
his martial arts training. Audiences who
saw Fists of Fury and Enter the Dragon
would go on to enjoy the punchy antics
of Norris, Steven Segal and Jean Claude
Van Damme: a group of westerners
adopting an eastern art to take out the
trash.
Bruce Lee’s hybrid view of the world
led him into conflicts. In 1964 he was
challenged to a duel by Wong Jack Man.
The cause of the conflict was Lee’s
insistence that he would train white
Americans in techniques that many
traditionalists from China considered
sacred. According to the legend that
has grown up around the fight, if Lee
had lost, he would have agreed to stop
teaching non-Asians. According to Lee,
the fight was over in 3 minutes and saw
Man being chased around the ring. He
continued to teach Non-Asians but the
experience led him to reconsider the
practice.
This experience and his burgeoning
philosophical leanings led him to create
his own martial art, despite having
acquired his fame through the practice of
kung fu. Jeet Kune Do, or “the way of the
intercepting fist,” was Bruce Lee’s stripped
down, ferocious, patented martial art.
Every flowery, flowing move was cut
out of this code. The focus was to strike
hard, strike fast and not let up until
your opponent was out of the picture.
It is claimed that he said “Absorb what
is useful. Reject what is useless.” In the
case of Jeet Kune Do, this is exactly what
he did, taking from any martial art in an
effort to create the ultimate hybrid.
It is hard to imagine martial arts without
Bruce Lee. Even after 40 years, he still is
remembered.
HIS LIFE
HIS DEATH
HIS LEGACY