I Am Bruce Lee (2012) - full transcript

If someone says, "I can't watch a

Bruce Lee film," I
can't talk to 'em.

Bruce Lee is a worldwide
fighting icon.

He was a 130-something-pound
lethal weapon.

Bruce and his fighting
style changed the game.

In the beginning I
had no intention

that what I was practising,

and what I am still practising
now, would lead to this.

Bruce Lee, Bob Dylan, Ali,
Jay-Z, Tiger, Kobe, Jordan,

they all have the same spirit.

No stunt coordinator coordinated
his shit. He did it himself.



The guy you see in Bruce's films
is the way Bruce was in person.

He could lose his temper.

Bruce Lee is my idol.

He was directing, writing, acting.

I don't even look at him as
being Asian. He's my idol.

When you think of
Bruce Lee, you don't

think about the Asian karate guy.

You think about a legacy.

The moves that he could do,

you were wondering if they
were speeding up the camera.

Bruce Lee was like the superhero
of the Asian community.

You had Muhammad Ali.
You had Malcolm X.

Bruce Lee represented that
same kind of radicalism.

Technically brilliant
choreography.



You get mysticism,
hyper-masculinity.

This guy is like, bang.

He's put balls on Chinese men.

There's some cool stuff.

You're like, "Wow. That
super cool guy is my dad."

There'll never be
another Bruce Lee.

Baby, here I am, man.

How does a small
Chinese guy become the

greatest martial
artist of all time?

Production 263-05-224-10.
Test X1, take 1.

Bruce, just look right
into the camera

and tell us your name, your
age and where you were born.

My last name is Lee, Bruce Lee.

I was born in San Francisco
in 1940. I'm 24 right now.

There was controversy
about me taking

him back to the United States.

But he loved his
time that he lived

in Seattle before all of this.

It was important for my children
to know where their father was.

I just intimately
just started crying.

I think I literally
cried after the

funeral all the way from Seattle,

all the way to the
California border,

all the way up to Sacramento.

That was a very difficult
time to leave Hong Kong

and... take their
favourite son away.

Bruce's childhood is
interesting to look at

from the standpoint
of where he ended up.

First of all, Hong
Kong in the early '40s

was occupied by Japan
during World War ll,

and this had an
influence on Bruce.

It was very important
to him as a child

from the get-go to
be self-sufficient,

and in doing that,
you have to shoulder

a lot of personal responsibility.

There's bad blood
historically between

China and Hong Kong and Japan.

His mother used to
tell me how Bruce

would hang over the
side of the balcony

and shake his fist at the Japanese

planes coming to
land in Hong Kong.

If anyone said a word against
the Chinese, he would rebel.

And you work in motion
pictures in Hong Kong?

Yes, since I was
around six years old.

Bruce became a child actor
under his father's influence,

his father being an actor
in the Chinese opera

and then in Cantonese
films as well.

Tell the crew what time they
shoot the pictures in Hong Kong.

Well, it's mostly in
the morning because

it's kind of noisy in Hong Kong,

you know, around three
million people there,

so every time when
you have a picture,

it's mostly, say, around
12am to 5am in the morning.

A lot of people don't
touch on this,

but he was the biggest
childhood star in Hong Kong.

He made 20, 20-something
movies as a child star.

He was like the Macaulay
Culkin of that era.

And then you have
the fact that Hong

Kong was governed by the British.

They targeted the British.

You are crazy.

But there's a lot of
competition between

the British people living there

and the Chinese living there.

He's also part Caucasian.

I think he saw a lot
of adversity racially,

not only around him
but within himself.

And he had run-ins with English
schoolboys and that kind of thing,

so there was always that
feeling of resentment

of others dictating his future.

Then, of course, when he was 13,
he went to study with Yip Man.

As human beings, fighting's in our
DNA. We get it and we like it.

Yip Man trained
Bruce in Wing Chun,

and Yip Man was a
fabulous kung fu master.

Bruce had many
run-ins with the law

and other teenagers in Hong
Kong, and he had fights.

He loved the street
fights. He loved

other people who can street-fight.

Bruce's style is made
for street survival.

He grew up fighting fights
in Hong Kong on the rooftop.

Bruce had some of the films,
8mm, that he used to show us,

where they get into the
old traditional stance

and one guy would come in and
throw a couple of punches

and the other guy would back up
and fall down over the plant pot.

There were two clans usually,
the Choy Li Fut clan

and the Wing Chun clan

by Yip Man and his students,
and they would have battles.

Although this stuff about the Choy

Li Fut and Wing
Chun rooftop fights

is the stuff of
legend, it is true.

I was in Hong Kong.

The sentiment, the
animosity between

Wing Chun and Choy
Li Fut still exists.

So Yip Man was a great
influence on Bruce

and leaned him in the
direction of philosophy.

Yip Man would not be a
legend without Bruce Lee.

Wing Chun was a very, very
minor martial art style,

and now it's global, and that's
all because of Bruce Lee.

Ultimately, martial art means
honestly expressing yourself.

Now, it is very difficult to do.

A lot of that warrior spirit,
to me, it's really honourable.

It's really pure.

It breaks through
to every culture,

every language, every colour.

It's all about getting
respect back, you know.

If you're gonna hurt
me, you're gonna

have to earn it, motherfucker.

I was the youngest of three boys.

I got obsessed with Bruce
Lee and martial arts.

I wanted to kick my brothers'
asses and prove my worthiness.

When a good fight breaks out,
you can't help but be excited.

You can't help but show emotion.

It took a while, but as many times
as each of my brothers beat me up,

each one of them got
one ass-kicking

from me and that was it.

I didn't do so well
talking shit back,

so I don't see the
point in talking

about it. Let's just go there.

But then you feel
bad and embarrassed

afterwards, "That was childish."

"I could have handled that
better." But you also feel good.

If you couldn't get laid,
you got in a fight.

Let me punch this
ugly motherfucker.

In Youngstown. It was
a nice place to live.

Fighting has taken over
my mind and my being.

It's not what I do. It's who I am.

My father told me
fighters are born, not

made. Bruce Lee was
a born fighter.

When you do punch, now I'm
leaning forward a little bit,

hoping not to hurt
any camera angle.

I mean, you gotta put the
whole hip into it and snap it

and get all your energy in there,
and make this into a weapon.

When Bruce Lee was
a young boy, maybe

13 or 14, training in Wing Chun,

they found out that Bruce
Lee had Caucasian blood.

I believe it's one fourth German.

Well?

The other students
said he shouldn't

be allowed to learn Wing Chun

because he wasn't purely Chinese.

When you're by yourself and
no one wants to be there

because they didn't
wanna get beat up,

it's the loneliest
feeling in the world.

One thing I have definitely
learned in my life

is that I do have a bad temper.

A violent temper, in fact.

His whole life is sort of this
play between East and West.

He hated the oppression
of little people

which he saw everywhere, in
the Japanese occupation,

the Boxer Rebellion,

the foreign powers
going into China.

He just thought all
of that was wrong.

To live the life he wanted to
live, he had to fight for it.

He really had to put it out
there and really walk the walk.

I mean, it is easy for
me to put on a show

and be cocky and be flooded
with a cocky feeling

and then feel like pretty
cool and all that.

Or I can make all kinds of phoney
things, you see what I mean?

Blinded by it. Or I can show you
some really fancy movement.

But to express oneself honestly,
not lying to oneself,

and to express myself honestly,

that, my friend, is...

In some ways it's the
total opposite of anger.

It's beauty, it's
passion, it's art.

It's painting a picture
without tools.

It was a surprise, but
an understandable one,

when I found out that Bruce
Lee was a cha-cha champion,

because you could see that
reflected in his fighting style.

He was the 1957 Hong
Kong cha-cha champion.

People don't know that.
His footwork was

impeccable. Incredible
samba dancer.

He didn't move like anybody
else. He moved like himself.

In a fight you have
footwork and you have form

and you have stance and
power that you interject,

and that's the way that dancing
and martial arts go hand in hand.

For him to be steeped into that
rhythm reinforced why black people

have always identified with
Bruce and his fighting style.

So what I got from Bruce
as a performer is...

You know, most performers perform
like this, right? Straight up.

Me, perform from the side,

sort of like how Bruce
used to always, you know,

be ready for combat like this.

Honestly expressing yourself,
like me being a dancer,

that's what it's all about.

That's another big,
big philosophy from

him that I take with
me to this day.

So I'll be performing like,
"Bah, bah. Bah, bah, bah, bah."

I keep trying to dig deeper
and deeper within myself

and find that fluidity
that no one can replicate.

That's the vibe that
Bruce Lee taught me.

It's to always bring it.

That's what I get from Bruce.

And when did you leave Hong Kong?

1959, when I was 18.

It had gotten a little difficult
with the police on one side

and with gangs on the other side.

He beat this kid up, but he
didn't know that the kid

was the son of a high-ranking
police officer in Hong Kong.

He got into so many street fights

that by 18, his
father gave him $100

and sent him off to America.

If he wanted his immigration
status to be US citizen,

then he had to return
by the time he was 18.

To go when you're still
a star is very strange,

because he could have kept doing
films, but they wanted him to go,

to make the right decision
of where he's going next.

In Seattle, my father started
teaching martial arts.

He didn't ever look
at people because

of their race or their
stature in life.

If you had a sincere interest in
martial arts, he would teach you.

Taky Kimura was really
his best friend.

Taky became his first assistant
instructor in his first school,

the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute,
in Seattle, Washington.

Bruce used to come
to my high school

and he used to teach in the
Chinese philosophy class.

He was five years
older than we were

and I do remember my heart going,

"Pah, Pah, Pah," you
know, "He is sure cute."

It wasn't long after
that that I started

taking gung fu lessons from him,

and my relationship with him
changed more from just a student

to actually feeling
that maybe, maybe

there could be a
connection between us.

We both attended the
University of Washington.

We would get together on campus

and attend our classes,

occasionally, when we weren't
doing gung fu or something else.

And then when we were both
done with our classes,

we would rush back to his studio,

which was just right there
in the university district,

and we'd turn on the TV and watch
General Hospital every day.

And it was like, "We have to get
there. It's almost three o'clock."

In the '60s, marriages were
happening in California.

In the rest of the
country there were no

interracial marriages.
It was difficult.

My mother was not thrilled
when we decided to get married

and didn't want her
daughter to have

to suffer any
negativity from others.

The ban on interracial
marriage was lifted in 1968.

That didn't mean the ban
lifted in people's hearts.

Bruce was very strong in saying,

"I want to marry Linda. I know
that we are a good match."

And so we did get married. It
was really hard on my mother.

But it wasn't long before she
came to love Bruce very much.

It's so important
to know that it was

his wife Linda that grounded him.

She was his rock.

As a couple, we really did not

suffer any prejudice
from outsiders,

and I think this had
a great deal to do

with Bruce's overwhelming
personality.

I absolutely recognise that
my uncle was a gorgeous man.

He's got swagger.
We love his style.

He had style the way Muhammad
Ali had style in the ring.

He was like the Elvis of martial
arts. He looked like a movie star.

He was always such a snappy
dresser and so handsome.

I've heard the term that he's
put balls on Chinese men.

He's shown that the
Chinese man can be,

you know, sexy and
hot and enticing.

I'm trying to copy his hair.

That's why my hair is long.

After Bruce Lee, my
God, Chinese men,

they're a force to
be reckoned with.

They're invincible. So that's
an amazing transformation.

He's one of a kind and
extremely attractive.

That would be for
both straight women

and a lot of gay men
that I know too.

Let's just put it this way.

I think the one thing
that's missing

in my life right now is Bruce Lee.

A man like Bruce Lee.

The first internationals
were in Long Beach.

I was instructed to take out
Bruce Lee. He was the guest.

So I was sort of like
the tour guide for him.

He demonstrated his art
before he even demonstrated

in front of the
black-belt audience.

In the hotel room
he says, "You can

use everything, you can side-kick,

you can round-kick, and
I'll just use my jab."

When he knocked me out,
it was more like a hook.

It sort of came off the side like
that. The ease in which he did it,

and explaining while
he was doing it to me,

that was mind-boggling for me.

It was like a bad dream, like
the dreams where you can't run.

When Bruce Lee came up and did
his performance of his gung fu,

it was something I had
never seen before.

He said, "The individual is more
important in any style or system."

I said, "I need to train
with a man like this."

He was just so ahead of the times.

He'd go to Ed Parker's
events in Long

Beach and they treated
him like a god.

When he did his
one-thumb push-ups,

you could hear a pin drop.

He showed his speed,
showed his power,

showed his one-inch punch.

People say, "Bruce Lee is the
fastest person on earth."

He did these things
so realistically

that people didn't know if it was
show business or the real McCoy.

When Bruce did the
demonstration in 1964,

before he had even come back to

Oakland where we
lived at the time,

I had received a phone call
from William Dozier's office.

Jay Sebring, the famous hair
stylist, happened to see my father

at the Long Beach
internationals, and

he cut the hair of William Dozier.

He said, "You have to see
this guy. He's amazing."

When Bruce came home,
I said to him,

"You need to call this guy
back, William Dozier."

"He's a producer in Hollywood
and he wants to see you."

That was the first inkling that,

"Wow, I might be able to do
something in Hollywood."

Look directly into the camera.

Very dapper. He's got the suit and
the tie, you know, white shirt.

He's so elegant.

But he feels like a coiled cobra.

- You've just had a baby boy?
- Yeah.

And you've lost a little
sleep over it, have you?

Three nights.

He was 24, and he went in
there, it's almost like,

"You're lucky that I'm
here auditioning for you."

There is the finger jab
There is the punch.

Just the poise he had said it all.

There is the back fist and elbow.

Even in conversation, you could
feel his explosive nature.

Of course, then they use legs,
straight to the groin or come up.

That's a special
kind of star power.

Or, if I can back up a little bit,

we stop at the...
and then come back.

- Alright.
- This kind of works.

He never had any intention
of going into show business.

His passion was his martial arts,

so he had a school in Seattle
and a second school in Oakland.

His plan was to open many, many
schools all over the county.

Obviously he started
with the classical

Chinese arts, which is Wing Chun.

And then everyone knows about
the fight in 1964 in Oakland.

There's the famous story
about how he was challenged

by the Chinese
community in Oakland,

and he had to defend the right to

teach his art to
non-Chinese people.

You and this entire
society are useless

in this country. You are archaic.

And you're a fool to think that
you can break away from us

merely because you choose to.

To prove Bruce Lee was wrong,
he was a fake and a fraud,

the Chinese traditionalists sent
somebody over to fight him.

The Chinese sent someone
to shut down the school.

Shut down or thrown down,
and Bruce chose throw down.

The fight was to be
held at Bruce's school.

If Bruce lost the
fight, he would have

to stop teaching
non-Chinese people.

Anything that forces you
to review your dogmas,

most people don't
respond too well to it.

I was there, eight months
pregnant with Brandon,

and these elders arrived
from San Francisco,

led by Wong Jack
Man, who was going

to be the opponent
in this challenge.

They came and they
had this big match.

I didn't have a shred of a doubt
about how this would come out.

Wong Jack Man started
to run around the

room trying to get
away from Bruce,

and it took three
minutes for Bruce

to get him down on the ground

and say, "Do you give UP?"

So Wong Jack Man and
those people all left.

And I remember so clearly
in my mind's eye

Bruce sitting on the steps
in the back of the studio

with his head in his hands.

And she said, "What's the matter?"

That was the fight
that he realised the

classical arts were
not working for him.

He should have put
that guy down sooner.

Bruce Lee doesn't
beat him fast enough,

so he goes off to rethink it all,

and these tales all had the
structure of myth and fantasy.

Little parables about the master.

He said, "My training in
Wing Chun, my classical art,

didn't prepare me for
this kind of a battle."

That was the beginning
of the evolution

of his own way of martial arts.

If you read the notes that he left
behind, 1965 he starts to write,

"My style is Western fencing,

Western boxing and Wing Chun."

He said he owe our knowledge
to the Wing Chun,

but we're gonna go
beyond the Wing Chun.

Bruce Lee took a lot from boxing.

He felt boxing was more realistic
in that you were trading blows.

He likes the boxing footwork. It's
alive, it's moving and it changes.

He was totally invested
in watching boxing films,

going way back to Jack
Johnson, Gene Tunney, Dempsey.

What he took from Dempsey
was the kinetic chain,

how to generate power, the
importance of a good jab.

There's a lot about the
alignment of the body.

Bruce had a huge
collection of boxing films

and he thought the
world of Muhammad Ali.

What he would do
was very unique. I

once came in, lights were all out.

And he's watching this 8mm film
and he's watching it backwards.

Ali had a left-foot forward stance
and Bruce a right foot forward.

So he would run the films
backward in the film editor

and study them meticulously.

He would stretch and read

and review on 8mm film of
a boxer at the same time.

According to John Saxon, his
co-star on Enter the Dragon,

John asked him, "Why do you have
all these boxing films on Ali?"

And Bruce said, "Because one
day I'm gonna fight him."

If I was to fight Bruce Lee, Bruce
Lee was so quick, so smooth,

but the one thing that negates
speed on a fighter is pressure,

and I was a pressure fighter.

With Bruce Lee, you gotta
go inside, smother him

and outmuscle him. But you can't
fight a dude like that outside.

I see Bruce leading off
with some long-ass kicks

and Boom Boom gets pissed off and

tries to give him
some body punches.

And when you get close,
then Bruce, I'm sure,

would be trying to bring
knees and high head kicks,

and I'd throw an upper cut,
bring the elbow across.

And he's gonna be
trying to counter me,

so I have to bob and weave inside.

Bruce gets it to the ground and
arm-bars him or guillotines him.

It would have been a good time.

People are watching
this going, "He

took more shots than we thought."

"He absolutely has lost his mind

thinking he can do that
against Bruce Lee."

Ray was good to the
body. Then he'd

eventually get that hook on you.

Bruce wouldn't know how to stop
it. Why? Because he never did it.

(Bruce Lee)

People bring up the question:
Was Bruce Lee a real fighter?

Bruce was a brilliant
fighter. I saw

him beat up a guy on
Enter the Dragon.

It was a gang banger,
a tong member,

who started giving him a bad time.

Pound for pound, I think he's
probably one of the best fighters.

He had tons of street fights and
with that speed and footwork,

he'd be a hell of a 135-pounder.

He was a 130-something-pound
lethal weapon.

He has all the attributes
that make a good fighter:

The agility, the balance, the
coordination, the dexterity.

People say was he the
toughest man that ever lived?

He was 130, 135 pounds.

You'd grab him and, you
know, out the window.

And that isn't to put him down.

He was an entertainer,
and the best.

If he wanted to become
an MMA fighter today,

he would easily have been that
fighter that everyone fears.

His technique was beautiful,
perfect technique.

I don't care how good you
are, 135lb wrestler,

you fight Brock Lesnar,
you're gonna lose.

The bigger guy equally trained is
always gonna beat the littler guy.

But the fact is, it
wasn't about mass.

He would just put it down
no matter how big you were.

But, then again, everybody's
chin is different, you know?

Whether Bruce Lee was a great
fighter or wasn't a great fighter

doesn't make any difference to his

cultural and
historical importance,

because his films
changed the world.

You got the job on
The Green Hornet,

where you played
Kato, the chauffeur,

mainly because you're the
only Chinese-looking guy

who could pronounce
the name of the

leading character, Britt Reid.

I made that as a joke, of course.

And it's a heck of a name, man.

Every time I said it at that
time, I was superconscious.

Mr Reid's residence.

As a kid, we watched
Green Hornet for him.

We could care less
about Green Hornet.

He had a fly car, I'll give
him props for the car,

but Kato was incredible.

Everybody in the neighbourhood
was fighting to be Bruce Lee,

not the Green Hornet.

A lot of stunt guys
didn't know how to react.

You do the old John
Wayne, you throw

a punch and the guy goes down.

With him, it's boom, boom,
boom, boom, lightning fast.

There's a shot of Bruce
and he's doing a kick,

and his thigh, his inner thigh,
is flat against his chest.

And we would just look at that
kick like, "Are you kidding me?"

"Look how incredible
this guy can kick."

I think about what
my dad said about

his first foray into Hollywood.

There were all these seasoned
actors doing their thing,

and he felt like the
only robot in the room.

That's something I
can really relate

to in my life, back
when I was acting,

and I was trying so hard to
impress the right people.

When I did The Green Hornet,
I was not being myself

and I'm trying to accumulate
external security,

external technique,

but never to ask what Bruce
Lee would have done.

The beauty was that
he immediately said,

"I'm not gonna do that any more."

Sort of an awakening
moment for him.

By the way, I did
a really terrible

job in that, I have to say.

Really? You didn't like
yourself? I didn't see it.

He was always trying to
be a holistic person,

the fight, the philosophy,
the better human being.

Martial art has a very, very deep

meaning as far as my
life is concerned.

And he was a very literate guy.

He really did read

and really did study
and really did think.

All type of knowledge ultimately
means self-knowledge.

He had a huge library
of books in his

den from the ceiling to the floor.

Any book I'd pick up, there were
notations about what was good,

what was functional,
what was no good.

As an actor, as a martial
artist, as a human being,

all these I have learned
from martial art.

Most of the writings in the Tao of

Jeet Kune Do are
Western influenced

and they come directly from
fencing and boxing books.

And you can take most of
the passages in that book

and trace them to their
roots, verbatim.

He might have changed
"fighter" from

"fencer," but pretty
much it's intact.

People will say, "Hey, that's
not Bruce's philosophy."

"That was this author
or that author."

That doesn't matter. These
people are missing the point.

Bruce Lee's writings are very fun
to read, but they were notes.

You get these quotes where
he may change one word

and substitute Jeet
Kune Do for Tao.

So therefore it's not pure
naturalness or unnaturalness.

The ideal is unnatural naturalness
or natural unnaturalness.

- Yin yang.
- You're right, man, that's it.

Because of Bruce Lee, now
I read up on Alan Watts.

JD Krishnamurti,
of course Lao Tsu,

Tao Te Ching.

Bruce Lee dissected
those philosophies,

making them straight and
direct and to the point.

That's what real
philosophy's about,

something that you can apply
to day-to-day living.

That's what Bruce Lee did.

This is where he was a genius.

It might sound too philosophical,

but it's unacting acting or
acting unacting if you...

- You've lost me.
- I have, huh?

So Bruce Lee as a philosopher
introduces nothing new

but introduces a radicalism
into martial art.

He's speaking the ideology
of the counterculture.

He speaks the zeitgeist.

So you get an
interest in Buddhism,

in yoga, in all things Eastern.

Bruce Lee shows you
meditation in movement.

You set up a school in Hollywood

for people like James Garner,
Steve McQueen and the others.

Why would they want
to learn Chinese

martial art? Because
of a movie role?

Not really.

Most of them, you see, they are
coming in to ask me to teach them

not so much how to
defend themselves,

they want to learn to
express themselves

through some movement,
be it anger,

be it determination or whatsoever.

He is paying me to show
him in combative form

the art of expressing
the human body.

Our back yard was always
a back yard school,

so for Jim Coburn to come over

or Steve McQueen to come over

was like not that big a deal.

Of all your students, famous,
James Garner, Steve McQueen,

James Coburn, Roman Polanski,
which was the best?

Depending, ok? Now, as a fighter,
Steve McQueen, that son of a gun,

got the toughness in him.

Now, James Coburn is
a peace-loving man.

- I've met him.
- You've met him.

He's really, really nice.

Super mellow and all that,
you know what I mean?

Now, he appreciates the
philosophical part of it,

therefore his understanding
of it is deeper than Steve's.

He often told me, "I would
like to see Steve McQueen

be a little bit more like Coburn

and Coburn to be a little bit
more like Steve McQueen."

Actually, you see, it's
a combination of both.

I mean, here is the natural
instinct and here is control.

You are to combine
the two in harmony.

Not if you have one
to the extreme,

you will be very unscientific.

If you have another
to the extreme,

you become all of a
sudden a mechanical man.

All the big, big names in
tournament fighting came to Bruce

because they wanted to
refine their skills.

Joe Lewis, Bob Wall, Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris was probably the
greatest kicker I've ever seen.

Chuck Norris is unbelievable.

Bruce didn't want
to teach beginners.

He did have some in
his own schools.

But he took the top
martial artists and

he felt he could make them better.

"One more time. You don't get
it, we move to something else."

"You gonna get it?" That's
how he would teach.

He knew a lot. He
taught me gung fu.

Joe Lewis was highly
influenced by Bruce Lee.

Joe Lewis was a world
champion when he met Bruce,

but it was a lot more of Bruce
being the instructor to Joe.

I don't think he had boxing
hands until he met Bruce Lee,

but his side kick was phenomenal.

Joe would throw 1,000
side kicks a day.

Listen, Joe Lewis,
in today's world,

he would have learned
all that shit

and been just as bad as
he was back in the day.

Bruce didn't think point karate,
point martial arts competition,

was valuable at all, and I
totally disagreed with him.

Bruce watched it but
didn't believe in it.

He always advocated
full-contact sparring.

Bruce Lee looked
at all of that and

said, "This is not martial arts."

"This is nonsense. Let's
get rid of these rules."

I respect that he didn't feel
like he wanted to compete

because it wasn't real combat.

He says you're not fighting for
yourself or expressing yourself.

You're fighting for the judges,
the referee, the rules.

What's the reality
of combat? There's

someone who wants
to beat you down.

He said to learn to swim,
you cannot swim on land.

You gotta get in the water.

To learn to fight,
you gotta fight.

Can you break five
or six pieces of

wood with your hand or your foot?

Boards don't hit back.

I'll probably break
my hand and foot.

He had high regard for those
martial artists of the day

that were winning tournaments.

He just had a different
philosophy about

martial arts and actual fighting.

I do not believe in
styles any more.

I mean, I do not believe
that there is such thing

as like a Chinese way of fighting

or the Japanese way of fighting
or whatever way of fighting.

Because if you don't have styles,

if you just say, "Well, here I
am, you know, as a human being,

how can I express myself
totally and completely?"

Now, that way, you
won't create a style,

because style is a
crystallisation.

I mean, that way it's a
process of continuing growth.

He called his institute
Jun Fan Gung Fu.

We were riding in a car and he

mentioned what he
enjoyed in fencing

was the stop hit.

Bruce didn't have any passive
blocks. His blocks were a strike.

Bruce took the stances
from the stances

that you see in Western fencing.

Instead of just block and then
hit, it's done simultaneously.

He says we wanna intercept his
physical motion and his thought.

It's almost like fencing. You see
this capture? That's the capture.

And that's why he
said, "I'm gonna call

my new method the intercepting way

or the intercepting fist."

Come on, touch me.
Any way you can.

To reach me, you must move to me.

Your attack offers me an
opportunity to intercept you.

And they said, "What
do you call that?"

He says, "We call
that Jeet Kune Do."

In Cantonese, Jeet Kune Do.

Then it was Dan who says,
"Acronym would be JKD."

And Bruce Lee said, "I like that."

The way of the intercepting fist.

Intercepting fist?

It sounds Chinese, but it's very
much an American martial art.

Jeet Kune Do

was how can I most efficiently

directly end a moment of combat?

The philosophy Bruce Lee had was:

The simpler the better, the most
effective, the direct line.

- The other stuff was Hollywood.
- It can be taught.

Do you understand?

But it cannot really
be standardised.

And that's not to say that
it can't be passed on.

But it was very personal to him.

All the wannabes,
all the imposters

who put up Jeet Kune Do signs
on their school building,

and they have no idea
what Jeet Kune Do is.

They think it's a style.

I don't know if he'd
be dojo-busting in

his days, but that
would upset Bruce.

(Bruce Lee)

Bruce Lee has the
big middle finger

raised toward any
form of authority.

All kinds of dogmas, all
kinds of traditions.

He's saying a big "screw
you" to all of them.

This guy was preaching back in the

'60s you shouldn't
stay to one style.

No one style is the best.
Have a piece of everything.

In 1968 he says, "JKD in
'69 will be different."

I said, "This is really good
stuff we're doing now."

He says, "JKD in '69
will be different.

JKD in 1970 will be different."

Martial arts has evolved
more in the last ten years

than it has in the
last 10,000 years,

because all the stuff that
Bruce Lee talked about

and his philosophies
and things that

he believed were finally proven

and now this new martial art was
able to start to grow and evolve.

Our main event, for the
light heavyweight title,

here we go.

You talk about Chinese
boxing. How does

it differ from, say,
our kind of boxing?

Well, first we use the feet.

Second to none.

And then we use the elbow.

Oh. Beautiful elbow.

- Do you use the thumb too?
- You name it, man, we use it.

- You use it all.
- You have to.

Because that is the
expression of the human body.

I mean, the... everything,
I mean, not just the hand.

The crazy thing about
martial arts is

people debate and fight
over this stuff.

There's no debate.

Bruce Lee is definitely the
father of mixed martial arts.

I do think there's a
correlation there,

but it's not that Jeet Kune
Do is the same thing as MMA.

If Dana White says Bruce Lee is
the father of mixed martial arts,

I would say he's one
of the earliest ones,

but Gene LeBell is the father
of mixed martial arts.

In 1963 you'll see Gene defeating
Milo Savage, a professional boxer.

Well, Bruce wasn't into
mixed martial arts in 1963.

As I was choking him, he grabbed
my hand and started to bite,

and I said, "Milo,
you bite my hand,

I'm gonna take your eye out."

He opened his mouth, I pulled
my hand out and I choked him.

And he was out, like,
for 22 minutes.

Gene LeBell taught Bruce
Lee grappling moves.

I'd throw him and flip him
and he'd land on his feet.

Then he'd spin, do a
crescent kick on me

or do a Judo throw.

And he was a magnificent athlete.

If you're gonna say
father of mixed

martial... it's gotta be Bruce.

He's before anyone else.

He's the first one who decided
to put it all together.

He had the little shorts on, too.

That's as close as
he could get to what

the UFC and the MMA
was 25 years later.

In 1947, Kajukenbo was the first

to put all these different
martial arts in one title:

Karate, Judo, Kenpo, Boxing.

Like Bruce Lee, they put all
these practical things together

but Kajukenbo had it first.

I agree with Dana White.

He is one of the pioneers
of mixed martial art.

The reality is, everybody has
been a part of this evolution,

from Benny "the Jet" Urquidez
to Joe Lewis to all these guys,

to Joe Lewis the boxer, too, and
the list goes on and on and on.

When the UFC came in, they
weren't talking about Bruce Lee.

They were talking
about Royce Gracie.

Royce Gracie.

The Gracies were a
piece of that too, a

piece of the history
of not only the UFC

but of the martial arts evolving.

For a while they owned
those competitions.

There's the tag.

What the Gracies did
was they took the

ground game, the submission game,

and really refined it
to a whole other level.

Bruce would have loved
Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.

I think if he saw the Gracies,
he would have studied.

He really embraced wrestling
and he really embraced Judo.

The difference between the
Gracies and Bruce Lee

is Bruce Lee was never stuck
and married to one thing.

I think once everybody
started to learn Jiu-jitsu

and then people started to
do more stand-up in there...

My goodness.

Then I think they started
talking about Bruce Lee.

Oh, man. That is the Karate Kid.

And when you're talking
about combat...

Well, I mean, if
it is a sport, now

you're talking about
something else.

You have regulations.
You have rules.

But when you're talking
about fighting as it is...

- No rules?
- With no rules.

Real fighting.

Well, then, baby, you'd better
train every part of your body.

Mixed martial art in the cage
is for a contest. It's a sport.

I don't know that I would call him

exactly the father of
mixed martial arts

because, again, it is still
sport, there are still rules.

Bruce Lee was strictly
for the street,

taking guys out, not
for competition.

When they had these
Vale Tudo fights in

Brazil, there were
barely any rules.

You could head-butt,
you could kick

in the groin, all kinds of things.

Bruce's favourite weapon in the
street fight was the finger jab.

This hand would block the vision,
so when he came up, like that.

If you do that, it could be very

serious damage to his
vision for life.

Mixed martial art is the
purest form of combat

that you can possibly
have in civilisation.

Oh. With a kick.

I just always felt like it
was such a real raw sport

and that it was gonna
overtake boxing one day.

It seems like that day's here.

Let's fight.

It's the most
hardcore real form of

competition and
honesty I could find,

and that's the kind
of thing I crave.

Carano, a big-time puncher.

There is fear. Sometimes you
don't wanna go in there.

It just teaches you
to face the music,

that fear's something that
needs to be devoured.

My biggest fear is not
that I'm gonna get hurt.

Carano getting pounded.

My biggest fear is
that I'm not going

to be able to make it authentic

and honestly express myself.

You're not trying to
express yourself in

real fighting. You're
trying to survive.

And you ask yourself how can
you honestly express yourself

at that moment?

If I want to punch, I'm gonna do
it, man, and I'm gonna do it.

Not you want to punch because
you're trying to avoid getting hit

but to really be in with
it and express yourself.

So that is the type of thing you
have to train yourself into it,

to become one with the...

This might sound different.

I feel as if I'm helping people
as I'm punching them in the face.

- Shogun's badly hurt.
- Jon Jones.

I'm beating weakness out of them,
making them a better person.

In my opinion it's the
highest art of expression

and that's what honestly
expressing yourself is.

To the body.

And it is all over.

Jon Jones, look, guys like this,

it's important for them to
have this kind of confidence.

I don't look at it as if I'm
hurting my opponent, my enemy.

It's like we're brothers
painting this picture together.

It helps them, until,
of course, it doesn't,

which, as we know
historically, always happens,

where they run into that guy
where, "Oh, this isn't fun."

"This is reality. You
can get hurt in there."

What happens is after
several years of that,

it takes its effect, you know?

Like when I had to go
take my neurological

and my hands were going,

and I couldn't remember where I
parked my car in the morning.

It should be regulated.
There should

be judges and medical staff there.

You don't wanna see
people get injured.

I think my father, from a
pure martial arts interest

and combat interest standpoint,
would have loved to watch the UFC.

I believe that Bruce Lee
was a huge fight fan.

He'd have been jumping
out of his seat,

getting as excited as any of us.

I think he'd have been proud to be

called the father of
mixed martial arts.

Ok, there's people out
there, they got it.

They say that Bruce Lee was the
father of mixed martial arts.

That bothers me.

If he's the father of
mixed martial arts,

I'm the grandfather of
mixed martial arts,

And if you don't believe
me, I'll choke you,

cos you got a nice
neck for choking.

When you get into this
whole martial arts thing

and you start talking about Bruce
Lee, a lot of people get offended.

People get pissed off and
bombed out and everything else.

But Bruce Lee is 100 percent the
father of mixed martial arts.

He was so directed and so concrete
about his thoughts and his beliefs

that he actually went out
and had his friend George

make a little miniature tombstone.

It's really heavy and it says,
"In memory of a once fluid man

crammed and distorted
by the classical mess."

The classical mess
meant that all these

traditions were a classical mess.

"Right punch comes. I'll move
out to a 30-degree angle."

"Then I'll bend my..."
It's too complicated.

It's not gonna work in real life.

So here was this
tombstone he created

to essentially remind himself
to go back to fluidity.

Bruce had a vast library
of motivational books

and wrote motivational
thoughts every day

and had a little diary
that he kept every day.

Always they would say you've got
to have the plan and work the plan

and write down your
goals, which he did.

You know, his famous paper he
wrote, My Definite Chief Aim.

1969 was a very
difficult time for him.

A lot of things were
going through his life.

As I recall, money was short.

Bruce was very
traditionalist and very

ashamed that I had to go to work.

This was not in his
way of thinking.

He contemplated maybe going back
to Hong Kong at that time period.

And then in the summer of '69
these horrific murders happened.

We have a weird homicide.

When the Manson murders happened,

it was horrible,
it was horrifying.

The scene described
by one investigator

as reminiscent of a
weird religious rite.

Bruce was a very good friend of
Jay Sebring and of Sharon Tate.

Five persons, including actress
Sharon Tate, were found dead

at the home of Miss Tate and her

husband, screen director
Roman Polanski.

My father worked with Sharon Tate
the summer before the murders

on the film The Wrecking Crew.

Miss Tate was eight
months pregnant.

Among the other victims
were Hollywood

hair stylist Jay Sebring...

Jay Sebring introduced my
father to William Dozier,

who was the producer of Batman and
also produced The Green Hornet.

The murders were
then followed up the

very next night by more murders.

It was just a nightmare and
very scary for Bruce, too,

because Bruce's
whole mentality was

protection, to take care of us.

One officer summed up the murders:

"In all my years I have never
seen anything like this before."

Those were tough times, going out
of the '60s and into the '70s.

And every day, I
practise martial arts.

We were really struggling
financially to make it,

and we had bought our
first house which

we ended up not being
able to afford.

And right in the middle
of that he hurt his back.

He was doing a good
morning stretch

exercise which can
be very dangerous.

Chiropractors like that exercise.

- You see?
- Watch out.

For whatever reason, he did not
warm up and just... that was it.

He was in excruciating pain.

I said, "Where's
Bruce?" They never

wanted to say he hurt his back,

because I knew he was working
on the screen scripts.

They told him that he was
never going to walk properly,

and forget doing any gung fu.

On the back of his business card
he wrote the words "Walk on".

He used to put the
card on his bathroom

mirror and his doors and walls,

so everywhere he went in his
room, he'd see "Walk on".

So he'd get down and start
doing his stretching.

Bruce brought himself back
through rigorous rehabilitation.

I had a similar expression

when I would drive
down to Torrance

to do my Jiu-jitsu
class every week.

His expression was "Walk on" and
mine was "Walk in the front door".

I had every excuse on the
way down to go back.

My stomach hurts. My arm
hurts. My knee's aching.

And I used to say,
"Walk in the front

door. Walk in the front door."

The end result of
walking in that front

door 16 years was I
got my black belt,

which I consider the greatest
achievement of my life,

apart from my children.

The back problem was a constant
problem in his filming

from day one after the injury.

Something he had to
be careful about

and nurse each day when
he finished working.

And you push it out,
but all the time

you are keeping the
continuity going.

Bending, stretching.

He worked extremely hard.

Most of us, I think, don't know
what it is to work that hard.

My father went to India

with James Coburn and the
writer Stirling Silliphant.

They were scouting locations
for a film, The Silent Flute,

that my father had written
the treatment for

that he was really hoping
would come together,

because he was struggling at that

point in time to get
a project going.

The Silent Flute
could have blasted

Bruce into Hollywood big time.

This was going to be the
big breakthrough project.

This was going to put money in the

bank to pay the
mortgage and all that.

But they couldn't find the
locations that they wanted.

Stirling and Jim came
back to Warner Bros

and said, "This is just not what
we're looking for in location."

And then it all
came crashing down.

That was such a
disappointment to Bruce

because we were banking
on it, literally.

(Bruce Lee)

Bruce took a trip back to
Hong Kong to help his mum

with immigration into
the United States.

He took Brandon took with him.
Brandon was five years old.

He wasn't working, had no
money. He dropped everything.

Closed his schools. "I'm
going to Hong Kong."

The Green Hornet was at that
time showing on TV in Hong Kong,

only the people were
calling it The Kato Show.

They didn't care
about Van Williams.

He was the biggest thing there.

He was greeted there
as a returning star.

That was the first
time he thought,

"Wow. People recognise me here."

"They remember me."

He did a couple of interviews
on television shows.

Oh, yeah, that kid. Now he's
a big star in Hollywood.

So that was the first inkling

that maybe there would be a
future there in Hong Kong.

But he wasn't quite ready
to follow up on that.

Bruce Lee had a bit part,
or a supporting role,

in the Longstreet series.

And this had an enormous effect
on the audience. What was it?

I think the successful
ingredient in it

was because I was being Bruce Lee.

- Yourself?
- Myself, right.

And did that part, just
expressed myself, like I say,

honestly expressed
myself at that time.

He was very proud of Longstreet,
and it was very much from him

and his art and his thoughts.

Can you remember the lines
by Stirling Silliphant to...

- He's one of my students.
- Was he, too?

Yes.

You've had everybody
as your student.

But some lines there
expressed your philosophy.

I don't know if you remember them.

I remember.

I said... This is what it is, ok?

If you try to remember,
you will lose.

I said empty your mind.

Be formless, shapeless.

Like water.

Now, you put water into a cup,

it becomes the cup.

Put water into a bottle,
it becomes the bottle.

You put it in a teapot,
it becomes the teapot.

Now, water can flow or
creep or drip or crash.

Be water, my friend.

- Like that. You see?
- I see. I get the idea.

- A-ha.
- I get the power behind it.

The thing that I got off
him the most is the trust,

being able to trust your
abilities in each situation.

A lot of times the game
becomes too scripted.

When it's too scripted

and you start planning for
certain things to take place,

that's when I believe you're weak.

What he's saying is
that you have to adapt

to your surroundings,
your environment.

James Coburn said, "Look, man,
the best thing you can do,

go back to Hong Kong,
do what you do

best, come back, rock the world."

James Coburn did tell Bruce that
he shouldn't keep doing TV,

that it would eat up his genius.

He had much more to
offer the world and

he should hold out
for starring roles.

Jimi Hendrix had to break away and
go to England to be recognised

as the rock star that he was.

Clint Eastwood, he had a
career out of Rawhide,

but it was the Italian Westerns
that really made his career.

Bruce ultimately had to
go back to Hong Kong

to be recognised as the
movie star he was.

Here's a plane ticket. Just go
back to Hong Kong for a few years.

You wouldn't want
any trouble, huh?

That's one of the things
I admire most about him.

He said, "ok, the institution's
not gonna work for me."

"I'll figure something else out."

He just went to through back door.

Bruce made the first
two pictures with

independent producer Raymond Chow

for $15,000 each.

That was... It was
made in Thailand

in a small village in Thailand.

Bruce Lee plays a
working-class hero.

He's from the land.
He's one of the folk.

But at the same time as that,
he's never one of the guys.

And this is why it
was so successful,

as well as the brilliant
choreography.

Bruce Lee completely
changed the way

action scenes look
today in cinema.

It's about making
violence look beautiful,

which may sound like a
paradox, it probably is,

but a director like John Woo, he

shoots a gunfight
like martial arts.

It's a ballet. In
terms of the craft

of film-making,
that's a huge change.

But the Western movies really piss
me off. They chop 'em up so much.

Most of the scenes overzoom, so
you can't see what's going on.

Those guys have to go back
and watch Bruce Lee movies.

You can see these awesome moves
he's doing in their entirety.

You can have a shot
that doesn't have

to last only a half-second long.

I never even thought about it
until I did this movie Haywire.

Now every time I see a movie,
I'm like, "Stop cutting away."

"Oh, that's a stunt double."

They were wonderful to watch. No
wires, no gimmicks, no quick cuts.

You get an actor to portray that,

you're gonna have
to do quick cuts.

Bruce Lee set a new baseline.

Every piece of film
fight choreography

has been influenced by Bruce Lee,

whether the people
involved know it or not.

- A motion picture is motion.
- Yeah.

I mean, you gotta keep
the dialogue down.

We came over to Hong Kong

and that was when they showed
the premiere of The Big Boss.

The theatre was packed.

Bruce and I sat there
towards the back.

When Bruce Lee's first
movie showed in Hollywood,

I was so elated, I
was so emotional,

seeing my friend, my
teacher, on the screen.

When the movie finishes,
it is so quiet...

you could hear a pin drop.

And Bruce is like, "Oh, no.
They hate it." You know.

And all of a sudden...

a huge roar goes up.

And they're cheering and laughing
and clapping. It was wonderful.

Every time he came on and did his
fight scene, everybody applauded.

That's when we knew he
was a movie star now.

And then they started to
spot Bruce in the audience.

They carried him out
on their shoulders.

Oh, it was thrilling. It
was thrilling to him.

"Finally I have been
appreciated in my work."

It was wonderful, a very
high moment in his life.

It's The Pierre Berton Show,

the programme that
comes to you from

the major capitals of the world.

This edition comes to
you from Hong Kong.

And Pierre's guest, the
newest Mandarin superstar.

His name is Bruce Lee and he
doesn't even speak Mandarin.

Here's Pierre.

There's a pretty good chance

that you'll get a TV series in
the States called The Warrior

in which you use,
what, the martial

arts in a Western setting?

That was the original idea.

Bruce Lee had an idea for a
TV show called The Warrior,

which later became the series Kung
Fu, which we all know and love.

David Carradine did a good job,

but Kung Fu, the TV series,
was Bruce Lee's role.

The better guy doesn't always get
the job in the movie business.

There's a lot of
politics involved.

Have people come up in
the industry and said,

"We don't know how
the audience are

going to take a non-American?"

Well, such question
has been raised.

In fact, it is being discussed,

and that is why The Warrior
probably is not gonna be on.

- I see.
- You see?

Because unfortunately such thing
does exist in this world.

Bruce Lee was a bigger star,
both in Asia and America.

He was a world-class
martial artist.

He had already done
The Green Hornet.

And then he did not get the
role for being too Asian.

He had such disdain for Hollywood

and all those old movies

having Caucasian people play the
parts of Chinese characters.

I have already made up my mind

that in the United States I think
something about the Oriental,

I mean, the true Oriental,
should be shown.

- Hollywood sure as heck hasn't.
- You better believe it, man.

It's always the pigtail and
bouncing around, chop-chop,

with the eyes slanted
and all of that.

There's nothing worse in a movie
than when all of a sudden

some horrific stereotype shows up.

You're like, "Why? Just leave
us out. Just leave us out."

"We'd rather not
exist in your world

than exist in your world in
some buffoonery coonery."

He had a lot of celebrity students

and he was teaching them
philosophy and martial arts,

so he sold them.

But when it came
down to it for Bruce

and Hollywood, they didn't get it.

They didn't take the time
to know who Bruce was.

This was his struggle.

You want to get ahead?

Here you have a bright future,
if you apply yourself.

I will, sir.

Hollywood was a terrible
disappointment to him,

especially because then you throw
in the racial factor as well,

that studios did not want to
back a major Chinese star.

Asian stereotypes for women are

pretty bad. For men
it's much worse.

And I think he was railing
against that his whole life.

When that little
thing of disrespect

crept into my life again,

which was the movie business,
I got really angry.

It is kind of shocking, isn't it,
that that much time, 40 years,

has passed and there hasn't been
one Asian-American romantic lead,

or even just a movie star on that

scale, an Asian-American
movie star?

Not one.

I don't think

I could name an Asian
romantic lead male.

There hasn't really
been anyone since my

uncle here, particularly
in Hollywood.

Obviously out of China you have
Jet Li, you have Donnie Yen.

There have been no
great Asian male

leads in Hollywood who are sexy.

Er, a lead male, Asian-American?

Erm...

I don't even look at
him as being Asian.

He's like Bruce Lee.
He's like my idol.

And that's something
I guess I don't

think of so much,
but I guess, yeah.

A Chinese nationalist

watching Bruce Lee films will
see Chinese nationalism.

A white Westerner may not
even notice the ethnicity.

Maybe Dean Cain, right?

Isn't he part Asian?

At certain times there were
prejudices against my skin,

but I never let it
bother me, because

in the back of my
mind I used to think,

"I'll take care out in the parking
lot and I'll beat your head in."

Bruce Lee became a complete star
making films in his own country.

40 years later, things
haven't changed.

So if you wanna see
another star like that,

it has to happen in films
made outside of the system.

My first memory of Bruce Lee is
in the movie Chinese Connection.

The last scene in the movie
there's a firing squad.

When he came out and ran up
and jumped and they froze it.

I was like, "Mum, what happened?"

And she said, "He
wanted to go that way."

And that just... that
just stuck with me.

If you look at Chinese Connection,

it's a movie about
cultural nationalism,

as expressed through
action sequences,

but that's no different
than Swan Lake.

There's no difference between
a ballet and a kung fu movie,

expressing the ideas and the
emotion through movement.

When the Japanese bring the sick
man of Asia framed picture,

this is speaking to
a long period of

Chinese suppression
and subordination

that was within living
memory of those

1970s Hong Kong Bruce Lee films.

If you play the film
with the dubbed English

and then in the
original Cantonese,

you see that they're
essentially different films.

So, for example, one
of the characters

goes up to Mr Wu, the translator,

and in the English
dubbed version he says:

Look, here, now what's
the point of this?

The translator goes:

In the Cantonese version he says:

So in the English version
he's not Chinese,

but in the subtitled Cantonese

version, he says,
"Yes, I'm Chinese,

but I've chosen to go with
the Japanese, the powerful."

So there's a world of difference.

We're consuming different films

depending on the nature of the

decisions they make
in translating.

Westerners have thought
that they're slapstick,

but the Chinese
audience are watching

highly politically charged films

with quite recent
history, animosities

and resentments
coursing through them.

Now, you listen to me, and
I'll only say it once.

We are not sick men.

What he gave was
so real and so raw

because he lived it
every day of his life.

Bruce did not get
along well with the

director of the first
two films, Lo Wei.

Lo Wei thought that he could
put his thumb on Bruce

as one of his simple actors.

Well, he was old
school and wouldn't

listen to any ideas Bruce had.

The bottom line is
Bruce still didn't

feel the freedom that he wanted.

He said to Raymond Chow,

"I want to make this film,
The Way of the Dragon."

I want to write it, I want to
produce it, I want to direct it

and I can do this and act in it.

It's really a simple
plot of a country boy

going to a place where he
cannot speak the language

but somehow he came out on top.

He goes to Italy and the
mafia can't beat him,

so they call America and
America sends over Colt.

We must call America for Colt.

- Is this Colt good?
- Is Colt good?

And Colt is Chuck Norris.

Bruce Lee is fighting a
real American, you know.

He's strawberry blond. He's
got hair all over his body.

In fact, he uses that
hair against him.

So when he fought Chuck Norris...

He represented all
people of colour

fighting the Western oppressor.

(speaks Spanish)

If you're a non-white
viewer, this is a big deal.

The little guy is beating the
best that America can provide.

I can tell you, at the
Fox Theatre in St Louis,

which was 100 percent all
black, we cheered for him.

Some of us were more
politically aware than others,

but everyone got the joke.

He was very appealing to anybody
who's ever been oppressed

because of ethnic reasons
or other reason.

That time when Bruce
was on the rise, we

were looking for
countercultural heroes

to fight the establishment.

It's 40 years. Wouldn't have
people forgotten him by now?

No, I think a lot of cultures have

picked him up as
sort of their hero.

You had Muhammad
Ali. You had Malcolm

X. You had the Black Panthers.

You had a lot of
radicalism going on.

Bruce Lee represented that
same kind of radicalism.

Bruce Lee emerges when America is
having a very bad time in Vietnam

and cannot beat the Viet Cong,

these little yellow
guys in pyjamas,

so Bruce Lee speaks to that.

Anywhere you go,
everybody is about

Bruce Lee and rallies behind him.

He's the underdog.

You don't have to start
shouting political declarations

to be culturally and
politically significant.

That Colosseum fight
was very accurate.

Taking nothing away
from Chuck Norris,

but I think Bruce Lee
would be victorious.

That fight scene gave Chuck
Norris pretty much a career.

If they said Bruce could
have beat Chuck Norris,

I'd say, "How much
do you wanna bet?"

I got a fistful of green
backs in my pocket.

Chuck got chucked out right
there in that movie.

That's one of my favourites. Boom.

Guillotine choke in
the '70s. Hello.

That's being ahead of your time.

When Bruce started doing
the film Way of the Dragon

and he was this huge
star on the rise,

things were changing.

I think he started having a hard
time trusting people around him.

You bastard.

Fame is a killer, literally.

Put money on top of that.

Suddenly you distrust people's
motives, for very good reason.

He had told me that he doesn't
know who his friends were.

He says he doesn't
know who to trust.

It was eye-opening to know
what the price of fame was.

(Bruce Lee)

You can't go to school for it. You

deal with it on a
day-to-day basis.

(Bruce Lee)

Fame took over my mind.

It almost destroyed
my career, my family.

I was caught up in my own hype.

I thought the only way to
save myself from myself

was to do something where I
could get hit and hit back.

And I thought I'd
made a healthy choice

because it was
better than a whisky

bottle or, you know,
whatever the fuck.

It got to the point

where he could
hardly go out of the

house without people
following him.

He craved on sort of a soul level

to be a little bit more peaceful.

(Bruce Lee)

Well, you can't have a normal life

or make normal mistakes

because everybody's constantly,
you know, looking in.

And it was just
like a smorgasbord.

He could have had ten at a time
if he even remotely wanted to.

The word superstar really turned
me off and I'll tell you why.

Because the word star,
man, it's an illusion.

It's something what
the public calls you.

I really loved... I might get

a lot of crap for this,
but Game of Death,

and to have like
no way is the way.

He's fighting each
opponent that brings

a different problem to the table

and he's gotta adapt.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
came to Hong Kong

to visit and Bruce
had this great idea.

"Let's do a scene
together. It'll be

great, a great fighting sequence."

I'd speak to Kareem about his
sessions with Bruce and he said,

"I sparred with him and
like he was just so quick."

"I'd turn this way and
then he's not there."

"He's kicking you in
the back of the head."

"Then I turn this way
and he's over here."

He said he couldn't
catch him. There was

just no way he could
lock in on him.

He was just like a rabbit.

I really love the
idea of the levels

and getting to the next level,

and fighting different styles.

As a dancer who battled
other dancers,

that was like the whole mentality.

And on the third level,
it's supposed to

be a person who is
trained in weaponry,

and so he chose me to do the part.

Dan Inosanto, being one of the
freshest Filipinos on the planet,

was actually the
person that brought

the nunchucks to Bruce Lee.

1964, I introduced the
nunchucks to Bruce Lee.

And at the time he thought this
was a worthless piece of junk.

When he moved into the LA area,
I taught him how to use it.

He said, "I'm gonna use
this on The Green Hornet."

Nunchucks was always some mother's
broom getting sacrificed,

which would then turn into
someone's groin being sacrificed.

In three months he
was swinging it like

he had been doing
it for a lifetime.

I was living in Miami
when they came out.

Every gangster in
town had nunchucks,

and couldn't use 'em worth a shit.

I would spend hours whipping 'em

around and trying
to learn the moves,

trying to copy how he'd have it
under his shoulder right here

and have the hand out.

In a short time I think almost
every child is using this.

It became like a
household product.

It's outlawed now in California.

After I watched this
movie, I used to use that.

But I always hit my elbow.

Right out of the gate
I swung real hard

and I even made the
Bruce Lee noise.

I went, "Whoo." and I hit my head

and there was this big nut
that came out maybe an inch.

And after that I stopped
making the noise

and I stopped playing
with the nunchucks.

I tried to make my
parents buy me some

real ones. Thank God they didn't.

I'm nunchucking, I'm busting
myself all in the head.

I had the rubber
ones, so I'm good.

I got into it because
I stopped carrying

a gun. I carried a gun for years.

I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I think I went into therapy and I

thought, "Let me carry
something else."

This one particularly
is sentimental for me.

These are the same nunchucks that
we used in The Game of Death.

He gave me these to
keep in the house.

It brings out really
fond memories for me.

Fred Weintraub, who was an
executive at Warner Bros,

comes to visit him in Hong Kong
on the set of Game of Death,

says, "Hey, man, we've
seen what you can do."

"We wanna do a film
with you and we

wanna do it with
Warner Bros." Boom.

It was a time when Bruce
had so much opportunity

and he was so thrilled to
co-produce Enter the Dragon.

He said, "This is my opening
back into Hollywood."

They were all there in Hong Kong,

the producers, Fred
Weintraub, Paul Heller.

They're ready to
film, have all this

crew, Western crew, Chinese crew,

which was a very difficult
situation in itself,

and sets are built, and
Bruce won't come to work.

He wants to put a
little more Chinese

philosophy that fits
in with the story.

Bruce knew what he
wanted Dragon to be,

but had problems with folks
who didn't share his vision.

And he was adamant he was
not going to the set.

It was kind of hard
around our house

because was Bruce
was so frustrated.

He could lose his temper.

If he didn't like anything
you did, he would tell you.

Linda was that fabulous wife.

She knew how to talk to
him and counsel him.

I was talking behind the scenes to

Fred and Paul and
the other people,

saying, "You need
to listen to what

he has to say because
he is right."

He was fighting for his career.

It was a coming
together, and, yes,

Bruce did get things in that film.

Let me think.

Don't think. Feel.

And they're all better off,
the world is better off,

for the stand that
he took that time.

Action.

Enter the Dragon was Hollywood's
first dipping its toe

into the water of the
martial art genre.

Bruce Lee is explosive in a way
that no one had seen before.

The opening scene,
Bruce Lee basically

put the mixed martial
arts in his film.

Fighting in the Kenpo gloves.

The mixed martial arts gloves
with the open fingers.

And he used arm bars.

There's not a lot of charisma
in a straight arm bar.

He was the man.

When he stomps out Bob
Wall and kills him...

you see a lot of complex
emotions all going on at once.

I haven't seen any actor
in an action film

match all those levels and nuances
in the middle of a fight scene.

The mirror scene was just, you
know, when he's walking around

and he's cut up and
all of a sudden

he hears his master in his head

saying if you destroy the image...

Destroy the image and you
will break the enemy.

You defeat the enemy,

he was just... It had a tension

that to me resonates because it's
cutting through all illusions.

This is the moment that
he was waiting for.

This was Bruce Lee's
film in Hollywood.

Bruce was in a studio doing
dubbing for Enter the Dragon

and he went to the
restroom and he collapsed.

I was called and came
to the hospital.

And he was unconscious and
I was talking to him,

and he told me later that he was
like in the bottom of a well

and he could hear me calling
him, "Come back, come back."

And he did recover from that.

It was a cerebral oedema, a
pressing of fluid on the brain,

but they never found
the cause of it.

Ted Wong used to
always tell me, "Bruce

Lee was never afraid of anything,

except one thing, and
that's getting older."

He came to the United States
and had a complete physical

and they pronounced
him in perfect health

with the body of an 18-year-old.

The doctors were very reassuring.

He had just had a collapse. He
didn't have frequent headaches.

Of course, they
didn't have MRIs then

to see what his brain
tissue was looking like.

I had seen him in June.

He told me that he'd had an ok
from UCLA that his body was fit.

He was not worried
about himself and

he was taking good
care of himself.

Bruce Lee faces a real dilemma.

He's on the verge of stardom
in the United States,

but he's just
achieved superstardom

as a film actor here in Hong Kong.

So what does he chose,
the East or the West?

It's the kind of problem most

budding movie actors
would welcome.

I was called and told
by Raymond Chow,

"You should get to the hospital."

"They're taking Bruce
to the hospital."

And I was there way
before Bruce got there.

So eventually the ambulance
arrived. It took a long time.

Everything took too long a time.

He got to the hospital and
I saw him laying there

and I saw them do a big injection
of something right into his heart.

And I remember
turning to a medical

person standing
there and saying...

I couldn't say, "Is he dead?"

I said, "Is he alive?

And they shook their
heads and said, "No."

And that was just unbelievable.

It must be a mistake, you
know, it's not real.

What can I say? It was.

You can see how when he
passed away, you know, how...

how difficult that
was and, you know,

how difficult that was for my dad.

It's the first time I
saw my dad ever cry.

Yeah, that's true.

It was really rough.

Well, yeah.

I said, "Dan, is it true?
Is Bruce Lee dead?"

"I got a lot of calls." And
he says, "Yeah, Rich."

Linda called him from Hong Kong,

and he was in a trance on his own
and talking about Bruce Lee.

He was so in grief, so in
mourning about Bruce's death.

He was just really uniquely
different from everybody else.

My memories, they're
more like glimpses.

But I remember primarily
the funeral in Hong Kong,

because it was so
massive, and sort

of being dragged through that,

because it was chaotic.

And I remember my dad's mum
taking us to get candy

and feeling really
happy about that.

I was in class, actually,
when Bruce Lee died.

There were guys in there
crying, sobbing, just...

I mean, Bruce Lee, you know...

He was just... he was it.

Will you tell me what
Teacher died of?

Forensic scientists
from around the

world came up with the conclusion

that he had had a
hypersensitive reaction

to this medication that he had
been given for a headache

and that that had caused
the fluid on his brain

and that he had succumbed to that.

It's still something that
people cannot believe.

He was well. There was nothing

wrong. How could a
healthy man die?

And then there's all this stuff
about, you know, how he died,

the sinister way in which he died.

He had an aneurysm

or the death hands got
him or, you know...

He was murdered.

They gave him the dim mak,
they gave him a death touch.

There's absolutely positively
something a little shady

about the way that
it all went down.

How he could pass away at that
age, you know, but it does happen,

so I've learned to cope
with it and deal with it.

But it always puzzled me.

The fact that my family is cursed

and the very sad and tragic
circumstance that my brother died,

those are sort of the
themes that pop up.

They wrote so many
stupid stories, the

tong killing him and
all that bullshit,

and he died of drugs,
that sold magazines.

He died in Betty Ting
Pei's apartment,

so there's no denying that.

The decision was made
by the producers

to say that he had died at home.

When that news got out that
he had not died at home,

the tabloid press went crazy.

But my mum knew he had been at
a meeting and doing his films.

She was dealing with his death
and taking care of her kids,

and all of that gossip was
just the tabloid press

trying to make it bigger and
crazier than it needed to be.

It is my wish that the newspapers
and the people of Hong Kong

will stop speculating
on the circumstances

surrounding my husband's death.

Please remember him for
his genius, his art

and the magic he brought
to every one of us.

Of course I was going to go and
see his film and applaud him

and be with people
who admired him.

That was always my
thought in my head,

is, "I need to do this for Bruce."

She really is this
incredible woman

with just great dignity
and grace under fire.

It was great to see Bruce again,

but only a month later my memories
were very fresh anyway, you know.

It was more pain than
joy at the time.

Everybody said all
these years, you know,

he had an allergic reaction to

marijuana, he had
a brain aneurysm.

The most important
thing is how he lived.

Every time you see him,
it's still emotional.

We miss the friend.

I'm now 74, but there really
has not ever been a day

that I haven't thought about
him at least once, maybe twice

or three times or four times
or five times through the day.

There's nobody who's
gonna replace Bruce

Lee, not while you or I are alive.

It just ain't gonna happen.

This genius passes away
way before his time.

We have to be thankful
we had him for 32 years.

Bruce Lee was just a symbol

of everything that every
little boy wanted to be.

You have offended my
family and you have...

Disgraced the Shaolin temple.

Whoo.

The most important thing he's
ever done and accomplished

is bringing people together.

Bruce brought... he brought
cultures together.

People remember him for being
powerful beyond measure,

you know, for being limitless,

for standing for things
when people crucified him.

It didn't matter what colour you
are, what country you came from,

you were a Bruce Lee fan.

He's the man. He's the truth.

And it was amazing how he
connected so many people.

Not just martial arts, but
people from all walks of life.

If Bruce was here today, he'd
be on Dancing with the Stars

and he'd win it, hands down.

Doggone it, such is the basic
need of a human being,

I might as well enjoy it
before I kick the bucket,

like that type of an attitude.

We remember Bruce
Lee today because

he was so much fun to watch.

He was like a mythological hero.

My strength flowed through
Bruce to me, so...

He left me with that gift.

The idea is running water
never grows stale,

so you gotta just keep on flowing.

He didn't compromise.

People really felt
that presence about

him and felt that
influence from him

and they just wanna
somehow connect with him.

When people try to relate
to him, they do say,

"That's my Bruce Lee. That's
what I connect with."

When I watch Bruce
Lee, I am Bruce Lee.

- Dragon whips his tail.
- Dragon whips his tail.

I watch Bruce Lee, you watch Bruce

Lee and we're both
being Bruce Lee.

Bruce would want us to recognise

that he honestly
expressed himself,

that he did not bow down
to any sacred cows.

To express oneself honestly,
not lying to oneself,

and to express myself honestly,

that, my friend, is
very hard to do.

He would urge others to
examine your life, you know,

see how things fit you personally,

find your strength,
take a stab at life,

don't just sit back and
take it easy, you know?

That's not what life is about.

It's even more fun to see him
now when I look back, you know.

Oh. What an amazing
young man he was.

Do you think of yourself as
Chinese or North American?

You know what I want
to think of myself?

As a human being.

Because, I mean, I don't wanna
sound like "as Confucius say,"

but under the sky,
under the heaven,

man, there is but one family.

It just so happened, man,
that people are different.

Empty your mind. Be
formless, shapeless.

Like water.

Now, you put water into a cup,

it becomes the cup.

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.