Bruce Lee was born in Chinatown
in San Francisco in 1940. The nurse present at the time of his birth gave him
the name Bruce, but his family initially never used that name. His family named
him Lee Jun Fan. His parents who were from Hong Kong stayed for sometime in the
US when he was born. They returned back to
Hong Kong along with him when he was just 3 months old.
Bruce Lee’s father was a famous
Cantonese Opera star in Hong Kong. So Bruce Lee appeared as a child star in
about 20 Hong Kong movies by the time he reached 18 years of age. In his first
film Bruce lee was carried on to the stage as a small 3 month old baby.
In Hong Kong the British showed
discrimination against the Chinese and used to look down on them. In this
process Bruce Lee got himself into many fights with white gangs. After Bruce
Lee involved himself in many street fights, his parents thought he should learn
martial arts. Initially his father taught him the Wu style of Kung Fu. He began
studying the style of Wing Chun under instructor Yip Man when he was 16 years
old.
At that time, Chinese never
taught Kung Fu to non Asians. When Yip Man’s other students came to know of
Bruce Lees mixed ancestry (he is partly English, partly Dutch- Jewish and
partly Chinese), they refused to train with him. But since Bruce Lee had a keen
interest in Win Chun and lots of talent, Yip Man trained him privately.
Bruce Lee joined the primary
school at the age of 12 in 1956, but due to poor performance and conduct he was
transferred to another school. There Brother Edward, a teacher and coach of the
school boxing team became his mentor. During that year he won the Hong Kong
schools boxing tournament knocking out the previous champion in the final. Bruce
Lee learnt Cha Cha dancing and won the Hong Kong’s Cha Cha competition. He also
wrote poetry.
In 1959, Bruce Lee got into one
of his many street fights and the Police were called. Till he was into his late
teens, his street fights became more frequent. In one such fight he beat the
son of a feared Triad (Chinese Mafia) family. The Police feared that a contract
was out for his life and his parents too feared the same. So his parents
decided to send him to Agnes Lee his older sister who was living with family friends
in San Francisco. After some months he moved to Seattle and worked as a live in
waiter in a restaurant run by Ruby Chow.
The same year Bruce Lee started
teaching martial arts. He opened his first martial arts school known as Lee Jun
Fan Gung Fu Institute.
In Dec 1960 Lee completed his
education and received his diploma. In 1961 he enrolled at the University of
Washington and studied Dramatic Arts, Philosophy, Psychology and other
subjects, his major subject being Drama. He dropped out of college in 1964, and
moved to Oakland with James Yimm Lee who was a known martial artist of that
area. Together they opened the 2nd martial arts studio in Oakland.
In the 1964 Long Beach
International Karate championships Bruce Lee displayed the 2 finger push ups.
He also displayed the 2 inch punch, in which he delivered a punch by keeping
his hand only 2 inches away from a person which sent him reeling backwards and
made him fall.
He fell in love with his martial
arts student Linda Emery and married her in 1964.
Also in 1964 Bruce Lee had an
encounter with a Shaolin Karate master Wong Jack Man. There are some precedent
events that finally lead to this fight. When Bruce Lee arrived at San Francisco,
Chinese traditional karate dominated the scene in the bay area of Chinatown. This
area was influenced and dominated by two Chinese masters; Lau Ban and Tin Long.
Lau Ban started the first ever martial arts school in the US, and restricted
his students strictly not to get into any fights with others, or other schools.
Similarly Tin Wong also disciplined his
students in the same way. This is so unlike Hong Kong where martial arts
practitioners challenged each other and battled it out.
When Bruce Lee arrived at Frisco
he attended Lau Bans School. He criticized the style of Kung Fu being taught
there and said Hong Kong’s style was better. This made Lau Ban throw him out of
the school, and it also closed all doors of Chinese martial arts school to
Bruce. Bruce Lee then continued his criticism of the martial art style being
taught by the Chinese in the US and also criticized the books wrote by Tin
Long. Tin Long called Bruce Lee a dissident with bad manners and all the
martial arts in that area thought him to be the same.
At that time Wong jack Man
arrived in Chinatown. He is educated and respected the orthodox Chinese
versions of Kung Fu specially the Northern Shaolin style. Now this style is
totally opposite to Bruce Lee’s style of Win Chun. Wong Jack Man was also a
great fighter.
Bruce started giving lectures on
different Chinese martial arts styles, and gave demonstrations to prove that
they are inferior. He also explained why they would not work in street
fighting. He also did the same with Northern Shaolin School which is Wong Jack
Mans style. The problem with Bruce Lee is that he is too forthright in his
approach and did not consider about the feelings of others. All the Chinese
martial arts experts of that area thought him to be impudent.
When in Seattle Japanese Karate expert
Yoichi Nakachi challenged Bruce Lee and Bruce finished him off in just 11
seconds and knocked him out, such was his speed and agility. Nakachi had a
skull fracture in the fight and had to be hospitalized.
Wong Jack Man wanted to open a
karate school in that area, and wanted to fight Bruce Lee to gain reputation
for his school. In all probability the pressure of orthodox masters like Lau
Ban and Tin Long was on him to fight and defeat Bruce Lee. The fight lasted for
much more time than Bruce Lee expected at 7 minutes during which time Bruce Lee
ran out of breath. After that finally Wong Jack Man surrendered.
In 1966 Bruce Lee appeared in the
Television series “The Green Hornet” which ran for 26 episodes.
In 1967 Lee founded the Jung Fan
Gung Fu Institute. His fight with Wong Jack Man influenced Bruce Lee and made
him change his style. He thought the fight lasted too long and he did not fight
well enough with his old style. He named his newly evolved style as Jeet Kune
Do (the Way of the Intercepting Fist). Bruce Lee introduced elements from
Fencing, Wrestling Boxing and Wing Chun In Jeet Kune Do and integrated them. He
also changed his physical training. He is considered the founder of the modern
MMA (MIxed Martial Arts). Bruce Lee was a master in street fighting which he
learnt well at Hong Kong. To that he added a brilliant brain and came out with
a synthesis. The man may be impudent, but he is simply unbeatable. He was just
5 foot 7 inches in height, and what he lost in height he more than compensated by
his speed and technique.
Bruce Lee was the first Chinese
to teach Kung Fu to Americans as all the schools at that time only taught it to
Chinese. Two of Lee’s martial arts students were at that time in Hollywood; one
as a script writer and the other as an actor. In 1969 Bruce Lee along with his
two students worked on a script of a film, and came to India for locations which
did not take off. Then he made a brief appearance in a few Hollywood films. In
1970 he became the fight choreographer of a Hollywood film.
In 1970 Bruce Lee injured the
nerves in his back while doing a strenuous exercise with a 55 Kg weight. The
doctors told him that it is impossible for him to perform Kung Fu again, but
Bruce Lee is no ordinary man, and he came back very fast and starred in Big
Boss in 1971 itself.
Not happy with his supporting
roles in the US films, Lee returned to Hong Kong in 1971 when he played a
leading role in Big Boss which was a great box office success. He then came up
with Fists of Fury in 1972 which broke the collection records set by Big Boss. He
got full control of his 3rd film Way of the Dragon in 1972 as
writer, director, star and fight scenes choreographer.
In late 1972 he started his 4th
film the Game of Death. In November 1972 his production got stalled as Warner
Brothers offered him a lead role in Enter the Dragon. Unfortunately only a few months after the completion of the
film in 1973, and a few days before its release in July Bruce Lee died. As you
all know Enter the Dragon was a runaway success and catapulted Bruce Lee into
big stardom when he was no more. As per 2007 indices the film cost USD 4
million but collected 200 million USD worldwide.
Bruce Lee’s death gave rise to
many stories. In May 1973 Bruce Lee collapsed, and suffered from seizures and
headaches. The Doctors diagnosed Cerebral Edema (seeping of fluid into the
brain) and were able to cure him with drugs. He was over stretching his body
too much and performed very strenuous exercise. Perhaps that may have affected
his metabolism.
In July 1973, Bruce Lee was to
have a dinner with an actor. First Lee and his producer Raymond Chow discussed
a new script from 2 PM to 4 PM at Lees home after which they drove to the
residence of Betty Ting Pei, a Taiwanese
actress who was a colleague. Thereafter Chow left to attend a dinner meeting.
As Bruce Lee complained of a
headache, Ting gave him pain killer named Equagesic. At 7.30 PM Lee went to lie
down on account of the headache, and just did not get up and died. What a soft
and tragic ending for such a man, and that too at the young age of 32.
Bruce Lee is survived by his wife
Linda Lee Caldwell, son Brandon Lee and daughter Shannon Lee. Unfortunately
Brandon Lee died in accident when he was shooting for a film in 1993.
No comments:
Post a Comment