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Bruce Lee.

Bruce Junfan Lee (November 27, 1940 — July 20, 1973) was a Chinese American martial artist and martial arts actor who is widely regarded as one of the most influential martial artists of the 20th century. Bruce Lee's revolutionary break from traditional martial arts doctrines is nowadays seen as the first step into the modern style of mixed martial arts. Lee's movies, especially his performance in the Hollywood-produced Enter the Dragon, elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity, paving the way for future martial artists and martial arts actors such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Chuck Norris. Bruce Lee sparked the first major surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West. The direction and tone of Bruce Lee's movies have forever changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong and China, and the rest of the world. Bruce Lee has become an iconic figure as a personification of an Asian man who became the epitome of what many see as physical perfection and invincibility in personal combat and martial arts.

Early life

Bruce Lee was born at the Chinese Hospital^[1] in San Francisco to his Chinese father, Lee Hoi-Chuen (李海泉) and Chinese-German^[2] mother Grace Lee (何金棠).

Names

Lee's Cantonese name, Lee Jun Fan (李振藩; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Zhènfán), literally means "invigorate San Francisco," paying homage to the Chinese name of his birthplace, San Francisco, California (三藩市). At birth, Lee was given the English name "Bruce" by nurses at the hospital^[3].

In addition, Lee initially had a birth name (李炫金; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xuànjīn) given by his mother, as at the time Lee's father was away on a Chinese opera tour. After several months, when Lee's father returned, the name was abandoned because of a conflict with the name of Lee's grandfather — in Chinese culture, it is considered a taboo to give a child a name that is the same as an ancestor's. Lee was then renamed Jun Fan. Finally, Lee was also given a feminine name, Sai Feng (細鳳, literally "Slender Phœnix"), used throughout his early childhood in keeping with a Chinese custom traditionally thought to hide the child from evil spirits.

Bruce Lee's screen name was Lee Siu Lung in Cantonese and Li Xiao Long in Mandarin (李小龍; Cantonese pengyam: Ley⁵ Siw² Long⁴; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xiǎolóng) which literally means "Lee Little Dragon." These were first used by director 袁步雲 of the 1950 Cantonese movie 細路祥 in which Lee performed.

Education and martial arts training

Bruce Lee was a very well-rounded man; well educated both academically and in the field of martial arts. His studies of Kung Fu sparked his enthusiasm and understanding of martial arts. Later Lee studied Karate, Judo, Jujutsu, and other styles of martial arts.

Bruce Lee received his early education and Kung Fu training in Hong Kong. Because of his father's fame as a Chinese opera actor, Lee had the opportunity to appear in several Hong Kong movies as a child. He studied the Wing Chun style of martial arts at a young age and picked up the languages of English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

Bruce Lee loved to fight, and one day as he was walking out of a classroom in school, several students jumped him, and beat him up. Since Bruce was eager to learn martial arts, after seeing his father practice Tai Chi Chuan, he was enrolled in Wing Chun under Grandmaster Yip Man.

At age 14, Bruce Lee entered La Salle College, a high school, under the wing of Brother Henry. In 1959, Bruce got in a fight with a feared Triad gang member's son, and his father worried, so he and his wife decided to send Bruce to United States to live with an old friend of his father's. All he had was $100 in his pocket and the title of 1958 Crown Colony Cha Cha Champion of Hong Kong. After living in San Francisco for awhile, he moved to Seattle to work for Ruby Chow, another friend of his father's.

In 1959, Lee completed his high school education in Seattle and received his diploma from Edison Technical School. He enrolled at the University of Washington as a Philosophy major. It was at the University of Washington that he met his future wife, Linda Emery, whom he would marry in 1964. Lee had two children: a daughter, Shannon, and a son, actor Brandon Lee, who was tragically killed during a film set accident in 1993.

Early acting career

A few credits short of graduation from the University of Washington as a philosophy major, Bruce Lee headed to San Francisco and then Hollywood.

In 1964 at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, the soon-to-be-famous Lee met karate black belt champion Chuck Norris. Lee would later introduce Norris to portray one of Lee's opponents in Return of the Dragon, aka Way of the Dragon, in a famous Colosseum fight scene regarded by some as the best martial arts fight ever filmed.

Lee went on to star as Kato in the TV series The Green Hornet, which ran from 1966 to 1967 and afterward opened up his own Jeet Kune Do school. Later Lee would use filmmaking to prove and to demonstrate his fighting theories.

Success in Hong Kong

In 1971, unable to find acting roles and faced with stereotypes regarding Asian actors, Lee returned to Hong Kong with his family. There, he starred in martial arts movies, earning $30,000 for his first two feature films, cementing his fame.

Martial arts training and development

Wing Chun

Bruce Lee began his formal martial arts training at a young age in Wing Chun style of Kung Fu under Hong Kong Wing Chun master Yip Man. Like most martial arts schools at that time, Grandmaster Yip Man's classes were often taught by the highest ranking student. The highest ranked student under Yip Man at the time of Lee's training was Wong Shun-leung.

Bruce Lee's first formal, organized bout came as a teenager at his Catholic school in Hong Kong. He was to fight a young British boxer, a reigning two-time boxing champion. Bruce knocked his opponent out with repeated strikes, using the Wing Chun technique jik chung chuy.

Jeet Kune Do

It would not be until his arrival in the United States, however, that Lee began the process of creating his own style, which he would later teach at the martial arts schools he opened first in Seattle starting with judo practitioner Jesse Glover as his first student who later became his first assistant instructor, and the first person authorized by Lee to teach aspects of Bruce Lee's Gung Fu.

Then in Oakland and Los Angeles, California Lee opened his martial arts school named the Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. After studying and becoming dissatisfied with existing schools of martial arts, Lee also created his own styles of martial arts: Jun Fan Gung Fu, a Kung Fu style; and Jeet Kun Do, which incorporated elements from martial arts outside of Kung Fu with the intent to create a more streamlined and practical martial art, as well as a comprehensive system of fitness training. He frequently gave demonstrations of his two-finger pushups and his famous "one inch punch" to demonstrate his martial arts.

Lee modified his martial arts style, which consisted mostly of elements of Wing Chun, with elements of Western Boxing, Fencing, and other martial arts and named it Jun Fan Gung Fu. Lee expanded this style over time, including elements from Muay Thai, Indo-Malay Silat, Panantukan, Sikaran, Bando, Catch Wrestling, Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido, Taekwondo, and other martial arts. It would be much later that he would come to describe his style as Jeet Kune Do or the Way of the Intercepting Fist, a term he would later regret because Jeet Kune Do implied a style.

Bruce Lee later regretted giving a name to his fighting style, Jeet Kune Do, because he believed it made it a single "martial art style" and therefore had limitations. Instead Bruce Lee calls his fighting style, the style of no style, or the art of fighting without fighting which implies no limitations. Lee saw loyalty to a particular martial arts style as having limitations. This and Lee's other ideas about martial arts and his teaching of Chinese martial arts to non-Asian students gave Lee many enemies in the martial arts community, culminating in many challenges by other martial artists which Bruce Lee poignantly answered.

It took a violent confrontation to start Bruce Lee's adaptation of his martial art. Many believe that Lee was issued a challenge by Chinese elders in the region in response to his teaching "secret" Chinese martial art techniques to Westerners. However, it may have been that Bruce was challenged because he was new in town and was very harsh on theie current methods of teaching martial arts.

A contest was scheduled between him and another martial artist in the area. The instructor who fought Bruce was Wong Jack Man, a practitioner of Shaolinquan. According to Dorgan, writing in Official Karate (in the July 1980 issue), the numbers of people who attended the fight ranged from 8 to 13. Wong and William Chen remembered the fight as being more than 20 minutes, and that Wong was on the defensive and Lee was the aggressor. Bruce Lee's description said that he had chased Wong around the room until finally subduing him. Wong later published his own description of the fight in the Chinese Pacific Weekly newspaper, along with an invitation to Lee for a public rematch. Lee did not respond to Wong's invitation for unknown reasons.^[4]

Beyond Jeet Kune Do

The match with Wong influenced Lee's philosophy on fighting. Lee believed that the fight had lasted too long and that he had failed to live up to himself. At this point he decided to start training hard: weights for strength, running for endurance, stretching for flexibility, plus many other methods of training, which he constantly adapted as he grew as a martial artist.

During this time Lee developed his own combat techniques, while demonstrating the infamous one inch punch, of Wing Chun, which he demonstrated during a Karate tournament at Long Beach.

Prior to his death, Lee told his then only two living instructors, Dan Inosanto and Taky Kimura (James Yimm Lee had passed away in 1972), to dismantle his schools. He no longer wished to call his art Jeet Kune Do or have his students associate what they were learning as Bruce Lee's style. His last wish was that Dan Inosanto never use the name Jeet Kune Do again. Though there are many who claim to teach Jeet Kune Do around the globe, Dan Inosanto, following Lee's request, still refers to the Bruce Lee curriculum taught at his school as Jun Fan Gung Fu.

Perhaps a reason for Lee himself later regretting even giving a name to his fighting style/philosophy was that it became just another "martial art style." Lee saw loyalty to a particular martial arts style as having limitations. This and Lee's other ideas about teaching martial arts made him many enemies in the martial arts community of the 1960s/70s.

Many contemporary martial arts instructors, in effort to promote themselves or their martial arts schools, make dubious claims about learning from or teaching Bruce Lee. This was a major reason why Bruce Lee, and later Dan Inosanto, put rigid standards forth to earn certification in his martial arts. As a hybrid-style of martial arts, Jun Fan Gung Fu/Jeet Kune Do Concepts boasts being composed from 27 different styles of martial arts.

There were three certified Jeet Kune Do instructors: Dan Inosanto received the highest certification in Lee's art (a notable exception is Taky Kimura, senior most instructor in Jun Fan Gung Fu) and is widely regarded as the most senior JKD instructor. All other instructors (again except Taky Kimura and the late James Yimm Lee [no relation to Bruce Lee]) are certified under Dan Inosanto. Even Bruce's other original students, Taky Kimura, to date, has certified only one person in Jun Fan Gung Fu, his son and heir, Andy Kimura. James Yimm Lee, a close friend of Lee's, never certified anyone before his untimely death. Dan Inosanto often serves not only as the leading instructor and historian of Jeet Kune Do Concepts; he also teaches and practices other styles such as Kali, Silat, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jujitsu and others martial arts styles, some of which were already incorporated into the Jun Fan Gung Fu system.

Physical training, fitness, and nutrition

File:The.Way.Of.The.Dragon.1972.Bruce.Lee.flex.front.jpg

Lee flexing (1972), front

Bruce Lee cared deeply about his physical fitness and tracked the evolution of his training in personal notes and diary, which have been recollected and published in The Bruce Lee Library by John Little, a "martial arts historian" from The Bruce Lee Estate. Lee typically exhibited a muscular and very lean appearance in his films, particularly in his upper body. Bruce Lee felt many martial artists of his day lacked the necessary physical fitness to back up their fighting skills. In his book the Tao of Jeet Kune Do, he wrote "Training is one of the most neglected phases of athletics. Too much time is given to the development of skill and too little to the development of the individual for participation."

Bruce Lee used every known technique and resource in aiding his physical fitness, including the use of electric current as an aid to strength training. However, this muscle stimulator was only one of many pieces of equipment and exercise routines Lee used to achieve his fighting ability. Footage of Lee performing a fighting scene, was often slowed down because it would only show as a blur on screen. Lee developed a trick for showing off his speed: a person held a coin and closed his hand, and as he closed it, Lee would take it and could even swap the coin for another.

The weight training program Lee used during a stay in Hong Kong in 1965, indicated bicep curls of 80 pounds and 8 repetitions^[5] for endurance. This translates to an estimated one-repetition-maximum of 110 pounds^[6], placing Lee in approximately the 100th percentile for the 121 to 140 pound weight class^[7].

Bruce Lee was light because he was more interested in lean muscles and not bulky mass. His exercise routines consisted of polymetrics and cardiovascular training. Bruce did not resort to traditional "body building" techniques to build mass, he was more interested in muscle strength and contraction. Hence, he developed strategies to increase muscle tension and resistance.

Of all the muscles Bruce Lee developed, his abdominal muscles were among the strongest: rock solid, deeply cut, and highly defined. Lee believed the abdominals muscles were one of the most important muscle groups for a martial artist since virtually every movement requires some degree of abdominal work. Perhaps more importantly, the "abs" are like a shell, protecting your ribs and vital organs.

Bruce Lee's washboard abs did not come from mere abdominal training; he was also a proponent of cardiovascular conditioning and would regularly run, jump rope and ride a stationary bicycle. A typical excercise Lee would perform would be to run covered a distance of two to six miles in 15 to 45 minutes.

Nutrition

Another element in Lee's quest for abdominal definition was nutrition. According to Linda Lee, soon after he moved to the United States, Bruce Lee started to take nutrition seriously and developed an interest in health foods and high-protein drinks. "Several times a day, he took a high-protein drink made up of powdered milk, ice water, eggs, eggshells, bananas, vegetable oil, peanut flour and chocolate ice cream," who claims Bruce's waist fluctuated between 26 and 28 inches. "He also drank his own juice concoctions made from vegetables and fruits apples, celery, carrots and so on, prepared in an electric blender."

Bruce Lee ate lean meat sparingly and consumed large amounts of fruits and vegetables. In later years, he became very knowledgeable about vitamin supplements, and each day apportioned himself exactly the right quota of vitamins A, B, C, D, and E.

1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships

File:One inch punch bruce lee 1964aug2 long beach.JPG

"one inch punch"

At the invitation of Ed Parker, Lee appeared in the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championship and performed repetitions of two-finger pushups (using the thumb and the index finger) with feet at approximately a shoulder-width apart. In the same Long Beach event he also performed the "one inch punch", the description of which is as follows: Lee stood upright, his right foot forward with knees bent slightly, in front of a standing, stationary partner.

File:Two finger pushup bruce lee 1964aug2 long beach.JPG

two finger push up

Lee's right arm was partly extended and his right fist approximately an inch away from the partner's chest. Without retracting his right arm, Lee then forcibly delivered the punch to his partner while largely maintaining his posture, sending the partner backwards and falling into a chair placed behind the partner to prevent injury.

Bruce Lee's feats

Here are some of Bruce Lee's real life feats. This information is taken from various documentaries and magazines.

Bruce Lee's striking speed from 2 feet away was five hundredths of a second. (Glover^[8])
Bruce did push ups using only 2 fingers.
Bruce was able to break a 150lb bag with a sidekick. (Coburn^[9])
Bruce would ride for 45 minutes (10 Miles) on a stationary bike, sweating profusely afterwards. (Uhera ^[10])
Bruce's last movie Enter the Dragon was made for $850,000 in 1973 ($3.75 million in 2005 currency^[11]). To date, Enter the Dragon has grossed over $90,000,000. (IMDB.com^[12])

Quotes from Bruce Lee's friends

These are some quotes from Bruce Lee's friends about his feats of strength: ^[13]

Chuck Norris
- "Lee, pound for pound, might well have been one of the strongest men in the world, and certainly one of the quickest".

Dan Inosanto
- "Bruce was only interested in strength that he could readily convert to power. I remember once Bruce and I were walking along the beach in Santa Monica. All of a sudden this huge bodybuilder came walking by, and I said to Bruce "Man, look at the arms on that guy" I'll never forget his reaction, he said "Yeah, he's big, but is he powerful???".
- "Bruce had tremendous strength in holding a weight out horizontally in a standing position. I know because I've seen it. He'd take a 125lb barbell and hold it straight out".

Doug Palmer
- "Bruce was like the Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali in his prime, somebody who stood above everyone else. It's not that the other martial artists weren't good. It's just that this guy was great".

Herb Jackson
- "Bruce was interested in becoming as strong as possible".
- "The biggest problem in designing equipment for Bruce was that he'd go through it so damn fast. I had to reinforce his wooden dummy with automobile parts so he could train on it without breaking it. I had started to build him a mobile dummy that could actually attack and retreat to better simulate "Live" combat, sadly Bruce died before the machine was built. It would have been strung up by big high-tension cables that I was going to connect between two posts, one on either side of his backyard. The reason for the machine was simply because no one could stand up to his full force punches and kicks, Bruce's strength and skill had evolved to point where he had to fight machines.".
- "He never trained in a gym, he thought he could concentrate better at home, so he worked out on his patio. He had a small weight set, something like a standard 100lb cast-iron set. In addition, he had a 310lb Olympic barbell set, a bench press and some dumbbells, both solid and adjustable".
- "Bruce used to beat all other comers at this type of wrist wrestling and even joked that he wanted to be world champion at it".

James Coburn
- "Bruce and I were training out on my patio one day, we were using this giant bag for side kicks, I guess it weighed about 150lbs. Bruce looked at it and just went Bang, it shot up out into the lawn about 15ft in the air, it then busted in the middle. It was filled with little bits and pieces of rag, we were picking up bits of rag for months".

Jesse Glover
- "When he could do push ups on his thumbs and push ups with 250lbs on his back, he moved on to other exercises".
- "The power that Lee was capable of instantly generating was absolutely frightening to his fellow martial artists, especially his sparring partners, and his speed was equally intimidating. We timed him with an electric timer once, and Bruce's quickest movements were around five hundredths of a second, his slowest were around eight hundredths. This was punching from a relaxed position with his hands down at his sides from a distance between 18-24 inches. Not only was he amazingly quick, but he could read you too. He could pick up on small subtle things that you were getting ready to do and then he'd just shut you down".
- "Bruce was gravitating more and more toward weight training as he would use the weighted wall pulleys and do series upon series with them. He'd also grab one of the old rusty barbells that littered the floor at the YMCA and would roll it up and down his forearms, which is no small feat when you consider that the barbell weighed 70lbs".

Joe Lewis
- "Bruce was incredibly strong for his size. He could take a 75lb barbell and from a standing position with the barbell held flush against his chest, he could slowly stick his arms out, lock them and hold the barbell there for 20 seconds, that's pretty damn tough for a guy who at the time only weighed 138lbs. I know 200lb weight lifters who can't do that."
- " I never stood in front of another human who was a quick as him. He not only had the quickness but he had the inner confidence to muster the conviction to do so. I've seen others who had the speed but lack conviction or vice versa. He was like Ali, he had both.I stood before both of these men, so I know."

Leo Fong
- "Yes, I was on the receiving end of his side kick. It was like getting hit with a truck. "

Mito Uhera
- "Bruce always felt that if your stomach wasn't developed, then you had no business doing any hard sparring".

Death, "by misadventure"

Bruce Lee's death was officially attributed to cerebral edema.

On July 20, 1973, Lee was in Hong Kong, due to have dinner with former James Bond star George Lazenby, with whom he intended to make a film. According to Lee's wife, Linda, Bruce met producer Raymond Chow at 2 pm at home to discuss the making of the movie Game of Death. They worked until 4 pm, and then drove together to the home of Betty Ting Pei (丁珮), a Taiwanese actress who was to also have a leading role in the film. The three went over the script at her home, and then Chow left to attend a dinner meeting.

A short time later, Lee complained of a headache, and Ting Pei gave him a tablet of analgesic. At around 7:30 pm, he laid down for a nap. After Lee didn't turn up for the dinner, Chow came to the apartment but could not wake Lee up. A doctor was summoned, who spent 10 minutes attempting to revive him before sending him by ambulance to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. However, Lee was dead by the time he reached the hospital. There was no visible external injury; however, his brain had swollen considerably, from 1,400 to 1,575 grams. Lee was 32 years old. On October 15, 2005, Chow stated in an interview that Lee was allergic to equigesic, one of the three ingredients in the pain-killing medication, whose generic name is Flunixin Meglumine. When the doctors announced Bruce Lee's death officially, it was coined as "Death by Misadventure".

However, the exact details of Lee's death are controversial. Bruce Lee's iconic status and unusual death at a young age led many people to develop many theories about Lee's death, such as a murder involving triads, gangsters, and so on — none of these have ever been proven.

Martial arts lineage

Lineage in Wing Chun / Jeet Kune Do
Sifu in Wing Chun	Yip Man (葉問)
Other instructors	Sihing Wong Shun-leung (黃惇樑) Learned Filipino stick fighting skill (Eskrima) from Dan Inosanto Learned Karate high kicking skill from Chuck Norris Learned Judo fighting skills from Gene Lebell Sifu Gin Foon Mark (Praying mantis kung fu)
Bruce Lee (李小龍) Creator of Jeet Kune Do
Known students in Wing Chun	Unknown
Known students in Jeet Kune Do	Taky Kimura Dan Inosanto Allen Joe Ted Wong Gary Dill Jesse Glover Charlie Woo James W. DeMile Joe Lewis Larry Hartsell Numerous others...
Famous students who learned Jeet Kune Do from Bruce Lee	Chuck Norris Kareem Abdul-Jabbar James Coburn Roman Polanski James Garner Lee Marvin Steve McQueen Numerous others...

Filmography

Lee starred in a leading role in a total of five major films, two of which (Enter the Dragon, Game of Death) premiered after his death.

Released	#	Chinese and English title of original release	U.S. title	Note
1971	1	《唐山大兄》 The Big Boss	Fists of Fury	Plays "Chen". Fights against a drug lord (The Big Boss) in Thailand.
1972	2	《精武門》 Fist of Fury	The Chinese Connection	Plays the character "Chen" (not relevant to "The Big Boss"). Fights against Japanese tyrants in Shanghai.
1972	3	《猛龍過江》 Way of the Dragon	Return of the Dragon	Plays "Tang Lung". Fights crime in Rome, Italy. Released after Enter the Dragon in the U.S. hence the title.
1973	4	《龍爭虎鬥》 Enter the Dragon	same	Plays Shaolin Monk "Mr. Lee". Fights an ex-monk turned drug lord in Hong Kong to avenge his sister.
1979	5	《死亡遊戲》 Game of Death	same	Plays Martial arts master "Billy Lo". Pieced together with few fight scenes after his death.^[14]

Note: The English titles for the first two films were swapped by the U.S. distributor. The title The Chinese Connection (a play on the then-recently-released The French Connection) was originally intended for The Big Boss due to the drugs theme of the story.

Yuen Wah, a member of the Seven Little Fortunes, and later to become a well known actor in his own right (notably starring in 2005's Kung Fu Hustle), was Lee's stunt double in Lee's last few films. David Carradine played the characters written for Lee in the 1978 version of The Silent Flute.

Philosophy

Although Bruce Lee is best known as a martial artist and actor, Lee majored in philosophy at the University of Washington. Lee's books on martial arts and fighting philosophy are well-known both for their philosophical insight both inside and outside of martial arts circles. His philosophy often mirrored his fighting beliefs, though he was quick to claim that his martial arts were solely a metaphor for such teachings. His influences include Taoism and Buddhism. One of Lee's passion was martial arts philosophy and his knowledge of both Eastern and Western philosophy was extensive.

The following are some of Bruce Lee's quotes on that reflect his fighting philosophy. ^[15]

"If I tell you I'm good, you would probably think I'm boasting, If I tell you I'm no good, You KNOW I'm lying."

"Be formless... shapeless like water. If you put water into a cup it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, and it can crash. Be water, my friend..."

"Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it."

"The more relaxed the muscles are, the more energy can flow through the body. Using muscular tensions to try to "do" the punch, or attempting to use brute force to knock someone over, will only work to opposite effect."

"Mere technical knowledge is only the beginning of Kung Fu, to master it, one must enter into the spirit of it."

"There are lots of guys around the world that are lazy. They have big fat guts. They talk about chi power and things they can do, but don't believe it."

"I'm not a master, I'm a student-master, meaning that I have the knowledge of a master and the expertise of a master, but I'm still learning, So I'm a student-master. I don't believe in the word master, I consider the master as such when they close the casket."

"Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there."

"Jeet Kune Do, It's just a name, don't fuss over it. There's no such thing as a style if you understand the roots of combat."

"Unfortunately, now in boxing people are only allowed to punch. In Judo, people are only allowed to throw. I do not despise these kinds of martial arts. What I mean is, we now find rigid forms which create differences among clans, and the world of martial art is shattered as a result."

"I think the high state of martial art, in application, must have no absolute form. And, to tackle pattern A with pattern B may not be absolutely correct."

"True observation begins when one is devoid of set patterns."

"The other weakness is, when clans are formed, the people of a clan will hold their kind of martial art as the only truth, and do not dare to reform or improve it. Thus they are confined in their own tiny little world. Their students become machines which imitate martial art forms."

"Some people are tall, some are short. some are stout, some are slim. There are various different kinds of people. If all of them learn the same martial art form, then who does it fit?"

"Ultimately, martial art means honestly expressing yourself. It is easy for me to put on a show, and be cocky so I can show you some really fancy movement. But to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly enough; that my friend is very hard to do."

See Wikiquotes for more quotes by Bruce Lee.

Books authored

Awards and honors

With his ancestral roots coming from Gwan'on in Seundak, Guangdong province of China (广东顺德均安, Guangdong Shunde Jun'An), a street in the village is named after him where his ancestral home is situated. The home is open for public access.
Bruce Lee was named TIME Magazine's 100 Most Important People of the Century and as one of the greatest heroes & icons and among the influential martial artists of the 20th century.
The 1993 film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a slightly fictionalized biographical film about Bruce Lee.
In 2001, LMF, a Cantonese hip-hop group in Hong Kong, released a popular song called "1127" as a tribute to Bruce Lee. The lyrics include: "We only want you to become a Chinese you can be proud of. Learn from others; Need not copy. Use your heart to digest the knowledge of others. Try asking why there are so many failures here who do not support each other and always pretend to be like the other. [Chorus] We had Bruce Lee teach us we are not the disease of Asia. Though having yellow skin, we can still be ourselves. Do not follow, copy, and be like the other. Do not look down upon ourselves.... The spirit of Bruce Lee will never die and the Chinese will never forget that."
In 2004, UFC president Dana White credits Bruce Lee as the "father of mixed martial arts"^[16].
In September 2004, a a BBC story stated that the Herzegovinian city of Mostar was to honour Lee with a statue on the Spanish Square, as a symbol of solidarity. After many years of war and religious splits, Lee's figure is to commend his work: to successfully bridge culture gaps in the world. The statue, placed in the city park, was unveiled on November 26, 2005 (One day before the unveiling of the statue in Hong Kong, below).
In 2005, Lee is to be remembered in Hong Kong with a bronze statue to mark his 65th birthday. The bronze statue, to be unveiled in November 27, 2005 will honour Lee as "Chinese film's bright star of the century". [17]

Characters based on Lee

Anime and manga

Lee Bailong (Lee Pai-Long) in the anime and manga Shaman King, especially the manga resembles Bruce Lee. The character was killed so that his body could be made into a Jiang Shi in service to the Tao family.

Rock Lee from Naruto, resembles and is a tribute to Bruce Lee (as does his teacher Gai). In the anime and manga, the character is a martial arts master with a similar fighting style as Bruce Lee. Rock Lee is a very spirited taijutsu specialist who is the paragon of hard work and his hobby is hard work. Rock Lee also shares Bruce Lee's birthday of November 27. However, he seems to emulate Jackie Chan as well because he fights more effectively when he's drunk (i.e. Drunken Master)

Also from Naruto, Hatake Kakashi is seen doing two-finger pushups popularized by Bruce Lee at the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships.

Spike Spiegel from the anime and manga Cowboy Bebop uses the quote "be like water" in the Cowboy Bebop episode Waltz for Venus when teaching the Jeet Kune Do to the promising student, Roco. Spike Spiegel also fights in a fashion similar to the fights in Lee's movies. Spike uses the nunchaku as Lee does and shares similar fighting stances. Cowboy Bebop incorporates many elements of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do philosophy as the theme. Spike's innate fighting abilities and martial arts style (Jeet Kune Do) were borrowed from martial artist Bruce Lee, whose influence is seen many times in the series. The name of the bounty in the second episode is Abdul Hakim, borrowed from the Bruce Lee film Game of Death that co-starred Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who played a character called "Hakim". On two other separate occasions, Spike also makes mention of both Enter the Dragon and Way of the Dragon, two more Bruce Lee films and Spike is seen using nunchaku in the episode Stray Dog Strut. The creator of Cowboy Bebop stated that Cowboy Bebop was a tribute to Bruce Lee.

In the anime Bleach, there is a female character named Sei Feng, just like Bruce Lee's feminine name. Her fighting style and appearance remembles Lee's.

Kenshiro from the manga and anime Fist of the North Star got the same famous "cat screech" noise and "atatatah" battle cry whenever Kenshiro is punching his enemies. The creator Tetsuo Hara admits that he is a big fan of Lee's movies and his character Kenshiro is a tribute to Lee.

Videogames

Lee is one of the very few actors to have commercially released computer and console videogames named after themselves, not after a character they played.^[18] These include

Bruce Lee, by Datasoft, for Commodore 64, PC Booter, and Apple II. (1984)
Bruce Lee, by Ocean Software, for ZX Spectrum. (1984)
Bruce Lee Lives: The Fall of Hong Kong Palace, by The Software Toolworks, for DOS. (1989)
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, by Acclaim Entertainment, for SNES and Game Gear (1993)
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, by Atari Corporation, for Jaguar. (1994)
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, by Acclaim, for Sega Master System. (1995)
Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon, by Universal Interactive Studios, for Xbox. (2002)
Bruce Lee: Return of the Legend, by Vivendi Universal Games, for Game Boy Advance. (2003)

In addition, many fighting games have characters based on Bruce Lee, enough that it has become an archetype within the fighting game genre. Notable examples include:

Fei Long in the Street Fighter series,strongly resembles Bruce Lee as do his movements and fighting style. This Bruce lee tribute has been featured in several movies and games.
K' (K Dash) and Kula Diamond from King of Fighters 2000/2001, the characters use Bruce Lee's fighting stance and even have a move that imitates Bruce Lee's One Inch Punch, the move is named One Inch.
Marshall Law and his son Forest in the Tekken series. In the early Tekken games, one of Marshall's outfits was a yellow tracksuit from the Game of Death. In addition, the sounds Marshall Law makes when he attacks are exactly like the whoops and shouts Bruce Lee is famous for. You can also also equip him, in Tekken 5, with the nunchaku seen in Game of Death.
Kim Dragon in the World Heroes series.
Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat series. In the game Mortal Kombat: Deception he fights with the style Jun Fan. Also he uses nunchakus as his weapon.
Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance uses both nunchaku and Jeet Kune Do. He's also known for being a great martial artist and a movie star. His clothing in Deadly Alliance resembles Bruce Lee's clothing.
Jann Lee in the Dead or Alive series shares many similarities with and is closely modeled after martial artist Bruce Lee. The character have the same body type as his real-life counterpart; that is, "steely" abdominal muscles. In fact, their personas and attires are almost identical. Also, Jann Lee often yells and whoops in a Bruce Lee-like high pitched voice. The most obvious connection is their actual fighting style. "Light feet" play heavily, with neither staying motionless for more than a second a time. Jann Lee is one of the fastest striking characters in the Dead or Alive video game, with quick, intricate, string combos as well as sudden, hard hitting, jab moves.
Maxi in the Soul Calibur series uses Bruce Lee's style of nunchakus and have a similar fighting stance as Bruce Lee.
Ling Tong in Dynasty Warriors 5 uses a Nunchaku, moves quickly, and has similar physical characteristics and movements as Bruce Lee.
Fei Fong Wong in Xenogears has a similar fighting style, techniques, and stance as Bruce Lee. The character's name Fei Fong Wong is Chinese and also tributes the martial art master Wong Fei Hung and Bruce Lee. His moves also similar to Jeet Kune Do. Fei also wears similar pants Bruce Lee wore in many of his movies.
Reiji in Kakuto Chojin fights using Jeet Kune Do. Reiji's physical appearance also resembles Bruce Lee and wears sunglasses similar to Bruce Lee's
In Double Dragon, Billy and Jimmy Lee are a tribute to Bruce Lee (the surname Lee is a big give away). In the remake Double Dragon Advance, there are Bruce Lee posters during the China Town level and in the cutscenes Billy and Jimmy looks similar to Lee when angry.
When Dante Sparda wields his three-pronged Nunchaku in Devil May Cry 3, his shouts emulate Lee's famous whoops and howls.
Jacky Bryant in Virtua Fighter has Jeet Kune Do, listed as his fighting style.
In Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories a set of clothing you unlock is the jump suit he wore in Game of Death.
In May of 2003, Vicarious Visions/Vivendi Universal Games/Activision released a cinematic video-game venture based on several of Lee's movies, called Bruce Lee: Return of the Legend, in which "the legend" himself plays the revenge-seeking Hai Feng.
In 1984 Kung-Fu Master (movie Game of Death).
The Pokémon Hitmonlee was named after Bruce Lee and uses primarily kicks. Similarly the Pokémon Hitmonchan was named after Jackie Chan and uses primarily punches.

Film references

Stephen Chow, Hong Kong actor and director, is a fan of Lee and has played and directed roles which are reminiscent of Lee, such as: Sing (Brother #4) in Shaolin Soccer (2001), and Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
Lee from Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2 was named after Bruce Lee and has a similar fighting styles to Bruce Lee.
In the Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill, multiple references to Bruce Lee can be seen e.g.Uma Thurman's yellow jumpsuit is a tribute to Bruce Lee from the movie Game of Death, and the villains from the "Crazy 88 gang" wore masks similar to that which Lee donned in his role as Kato in "Green Hornet".
In the film No Retreat, No Surrender, Bruce Lee's ghost trains a young Bruce Lee enthusiast.
In the film They call me Bruce the main character has an altercation with some thugs, after which he goes home and looks at a poster of Bruce Lee on the wall and says "If I was half as good as you I could have taken those guys in the bar".
In the film The King of the Kickboxers the character Jake Donahue played by Loren Avedon watches a martial arts film and says "This is like a Bruce Lee film without Bruce".
In the film American Shaolin there is a fighter who challenges one of the main characters at the beginning of the film who's fighting technique is the same as Lee's.

Bruce Lee Documentaries

CG resurrection

Using computer graphics technology, a South Korean filmmaker Chul Shin is making a $50 million movie called Dragon Warrior that will be the first to feature a long-dead Bruce Lee in a leading role[20]. Film company ShinCine have the approval of Linda Lee Cadwell and Shannon Lee [21].

List of people influential to Bruce Lee's career

Footnotes

^ Chinese Hospital [23] - Radiology 845 Jackson Street, San Francisco, CA 94133.
^ Yang, Jeff, et all. Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture. Boston/New York: Meridian/Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
^ Lee, Linda. 1989. The Bruce Lee Story Ohara Publications, California. (p.70)
^ Hatfield, Fredrick C., Ph. D. 1993. Fitness: The Complete Guide. International Sport Sciences Association, California. (p.119)
^ Wathen, Dan. 1994. Load Assignment. In Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. Human Kinetics, Illinois. (p.436)
^ MobyGames [24]
^ Dorgan, Michael. Bruce Lee's Toughest Fight [25]. (1980 July). Official Karate. (The neutrality of this article is debatable).
^ Pieced together with the few shots that were filmed before Lee's death in 1973.
^ Wickert, Marc. 2004. Dana White and the future of UFC. kucklepit.com. See Wikiquotes for the text.
^ Miscellaneous. bruceleedivinewind.com page The accuracy of this source has been disputed: see here.
^ Internet Movie Database. [26]
^ westegg.com - inflation calculator

External links

@@ Line 285: / Line 285: @@
 * [[Stephen Chow]], [[Hong Kong]] actor and director, is a fan of Lee and has played and directed roles which are reminiscent of Lee, such as: Sing (Brother #4) in ''[[Shaolin Soccer]]'' (2001), and ''[[Kung Fu Hustle]]'' (2004)
 * Lee from ''[[Rush Hour (film)|Rush Hour]]'' and ''[[Rush Hour 2]]'' was named after Bruce Lee and has a similar [[fighting]] styles to Bruce Lee.
-*In the [[Quentin Tarantino]] movie ''[[Kill Bill]]'', multiple references to Bruce Lee can be seen e.g.[[Uma Thurman]]'s yellow jumpsuit is a tribute to Bruce Lee from the movie ''Game of Death'', and the villains from the "Crazy 88 gang" wore masks similar to that which Lee donned in his role as Kato in "Grean Hornet".
+*In the [[Quentin Tarantino]] movie ''[[Kill Bill]]'', multiple references to Bruce Lee can be seen e.g.[[Uma Thurman]]'s yellow jumpsuit is a tribute to Bruce Lee from the movie ''Game of Death'', and the villains from the "Crazy 88 gang" wore masks similar to that which Lee donned in his role as Kato in "Green Hornet".
 *In the film ''[[No Retreat, No Surrender]]'', Bruce Lee's ghost trains a young Bruce Lee enthusiast.
 *In the film ''[[They call me Bruce]]'' the main character has an altercation with some thugs, after which he goes home and looks at a poster of Bruce Lee on the wall and says "If I was half as good as you I could have taken those guys in the bar".