Bruce Lee
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| Bruce Lee 李小龍 | |
 | |
| Birth name | Lee Jun-fan |
| Born | November 27, 1940 San Francisco, California, U.S.A. |
| Died | July 20, 1973 (aged 32) Hong Kong |
| Spouse(s) | Linda Lee Cadwell |
| Official site | http://www.bruceleefoundation.com |
| Notable roles | Lee in Enter the Dragon Chen Zhen in Fist of Fury Kato in The Green Hornet |
Bruce Lee (Traditional Chinese: 李小龍; Simplified Chinese: 李小龙; Pinyin: Lǐ Xiǎolóng; Cantonese Yale: Léih Síulùhng; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Chinese American martial artist, philosopher, instructor, and martial arts actor widely regarded as one of the most influential martial artists of the twentieth century.
Lee is iconic for his presentation of Chinese martial arts to the non-Chinese world. Lee's films, especially his performance in the Hollywood-produced Enter the Dragon, elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim. Lee's films sparked the first major surge of interest of Chinese martial arts in the West. The direction and tone of his films changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong, China, and the rest of the world. Lee became an iconic figure particularly to Chinese; as he portrayed Chinese national pride and Chinese nationalism in his movies.Many see Lee as a model blueprint for acquiring a strong and efficient body, as well as developing a mastery of martial arts and hand to hand combat skills.
Early life
Lee was born at the Chinese Hospital in San Francisco.His father, Lee Hoi-Chuen (李海泉), was Chinese, and his Catholic mother, Grace (何愛瑜), had a half German and half Chinese father and a Chinese mother.
Names
Lee's Cantonese given name, Jun Fan (振藩; Mandarin Pinyin: Zhènfán), literally means "invigorate San Francisco" (三藩市).At his birth, he additionally was given the English name of "Bruce" by a Dr. Mary Glover. Though Mrs. Lee had not initially planned on an English name for the child, she deemed it appropriate and would concur with Dr. Glover's addition. Interestingly, the name "Bruce" was never used within his family until Bruce Lee enrolled in La Salle College (a Hong Kong high school) at the age of 12,and again at another high school (St. Francis Xavier's College in Kowloon), where Lee would come to represent the boxing team in inter-school events.
Lee initially had the birth name Li Yuen Kam(李炫金); Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xuànjīn) given to him by his mother, as at the time Lee's father was away on a Chinese opera tour. This name would later be abandoned because of a conflict with the name of Bruce Lee's grandfather, causing him to be renamed to Jun Fan upon his father's return. Also of note is that Bruce Lee was given a feminine name, Sai Fung (細鳳, literally "small phoenix"), which was used throughout his early childhood in keeping with a Chinese custom that is traditionally thought to hide the child away from evil spirits.
Lee's screen names were respectively 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 translate to "Lee Little Dragon" in English. These names were first used by director 袁步雲 of the 1950 Cantonese movie 細路祥 in which Lee would perform. It is possible that the name "Lee Little Dragon" was based on his childhood name of "small dragon", as in Chinese tradition the Chinese dragon and phoenix come in pairs to represent the male and female genders, respectively. The more likely explanation however is that he came to be called "Little Dragon" because according to the Chinese zodiac, Bruce Lee was born in the Year of the Dragon.
Education and family
At age 12, Lee entered La Salle College, a high school, under the wing of Brother Henry. Then, he attended St Francis Xavier's College. In 1959, Lee got into a fight with a feared Triad gang member's son. His father became concerned about young Bruce's safety, and as a result, he and his wife decided to send Bruce to the 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, 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. He had two children with Linda, Brandon Lee (born 1965) and Shannon Lee (born 1969). Brandon, who would also become an actor like his father, died in an accident during the filming of The Crow in 1993.
Acting career
Lee's father, Lee Hoi-Chuen, was a famous Cantonese Opera star. Through his father he was introduced into films at a very young age and appeared in several short black-and-white films as a child.
In the 1960s Lee attempted to start his acting career in America. He became famous for playing Kato alongside Van Williams in the TV series The Green Hornet which lasted for only one season from 1966 to 1967. He also played Kato in three episodes of the series Batman which was also produced by the same people of The Green Hornet. This was followed by guest appearances in television series such as Ironside (1967) and Here Come the Brides (1969). In 1969 he made his first major film appearance in Marlowe where he played a henchman hired to intimidate Philip Marlowe (played by James Garner) by smashing up his office with karate chops and kicks. In 1971 he appeared in four episodes of the television series Longstreet as the martial arts instructor of the title character Mike Longsteet (played by James Franciscus)
Not happy with the roles that he was being offered in America, Lee then returned to Hong Kong and was offered a film contract by Raymond Chow to appear in films produced by his company Golden Harvest. He played his first leading role in The Big Boss (1971) which was a huge box office success all over Asia and catapulted him to stardom. He went on to star in Fist of Fury (1972) which was an even bigger success at the box office and wrote, directed and starred in Way of the Dragon (1972). In 1964 at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, Lee met Karate champion Chuck Norris. In Way of the Dragon Lee introduced Chuck Norris as his opponent in the final fight scene at the colosseum in Rome which is considered to be one of his most famous fight scenes. He was then offered the lead role in Enter the Dragon (1973) which was the first to be produced jointly by a Chinese and American studio. This was to be the film that would have shot Lee to fame in America. Tragically Lee mysteriously died two weeks before the film was released. Enter the Dragon went on to become one of the highest grossing films of the year and cemented Lee's status as a martial arts legend. It was made for US$850,000 in 1973 ($3.74 million in 2005 currency). To date, Enter the Dragon has grossed over $200 million worldwide.The movie sparked a brief fad in the martial-arts epitomized in songs like Kung Fu Fighting and TV shows like Kung Fu.
After his death two feature-length films with episodes of The Green Hornet' were edited together and released on VHS in 1974.
Robert Clouse, the director of Enter the Dragon attempted to finish Lee's incomplete film Game of Death which Lee had intended to also write and direct. Lee had shot over 40 minutes of footage for Game of Death before shooting was stopped to allow him to work on Enter the Dragon. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a student of Bruce Lee also appeared in the film. In the film, Lee played Billy Lo who while wearing the now famous yellow track suit, took on the 7 foot 2 giant basketball player in a climactic fight scene. Unfortunately, Lee had died before he was due to resume filming for Game of Death. Robert Clouse finished the film using a Bruce Lee look-alike and archive footage of Lee from his other films and released it in 1978 with a new storyline and cast. However it only contained 15 minutes of the actual footage Lee had shot and the rest of the film had Lee's lookalike Tai Chung Kim playing Billy Lo and Yuen Biao acting as a stunt double. The unused footage Lee had filmed was recovered 22 years later and was included in the Bruce Lee documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey.
Martial arts training and development
Young Bruce learned the fundamentals of Wu style Tai Chi Chuan from his father, Lee Hoi Cheun. Lee's Wing Chun sifu, Yip Man, was also a colleague and friend of Hong Kong Wu family teacher Wu Ta-ch'i. He always held that the principles of Tai Chi Chuan influenced his view of martial arts all through his life as an actor and a martial artist. While it is obvious that the style studied by his father was the Wu style, Lee was seen on at least one occasion demonstrating the 108 Basic Movements of the Yang form.
Lee started training in Wing Chun at the age of 14 under Hong Kong Wing Chun master Yip Man. Lee was introduced to Yip Man in early 1954 by William Cheung, then a live-in student of Yip Man. Like most martial arts schools at that time, Sifu Yip Man's classes were often taught by the highest ranking students. One of the highest ranking students under Yip Man at the time of Lee's training was Wong Shun-leung, who is understood to have had the largest influence. Yip Man trained Lee privately after some students refused to train with Lee due to his ancestry. Lee would leave before learning the entire Wing Chun curriculum, but Wing Chun formed a base for his later explorations of martial arts.
In between the learning of Tai Chi and Wing Chun, Lee also learned bits and pieces of the Hung Gar style from a friend of his father. There are photographs and videos of Bruce demonstrating animal stances and forms found within its teachings.
Lee was also trained with weapons by the renown Martial artist Fumio Demura, the head of the Shito Ryu martial arts style.
Jun Fan Gung Fu
Lee began the process of creating his own martial arts system after his arrival in the United States in 1959. At first Bruce Lee taught what he called the "Tao of Chinese Gung Fu" with Wing Chun at its core. Not to show disrespect to the art of Wing Chun and to accurately name what he was teaching Lee changed the name of his martial art Jun Fan Gung Fu (literally Bruce's Gung Fu), which consisted mostly of Wing Chun, with elements of Western boxing and fencing. Lee taught friends he met in Seattle, starting with Judo practitioner Jesse Glover as his first student and who later became his first assistant instructor. Before moving to California, Lee opened his first martial arts school, named the Lee Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute, in Seattle. Lee also improvised his own kicking method, involving the directness of kung-fu and the power of taekwondo. Like tkd experts, Lee used full hip and leg power. Like kung fu kicks, Lee's kicks were delievered very quickly to the target, without chambering the leg.
Jeet Kune Do
Jeet Kune Do originated in 1965. 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 his potential. He took the view that traditional martial arts techniques were too rigid and formalistic to be practical in scenarios of chaotic street fighting. Lee decided to develop a system with an emphasis on "practicality, flexibility, speed, and efficiency". He started to use different methods of training such as weight training for strength, running for endurance, stretching for flexibility, and many others which he constantly adapted.
Lee emphasized what he called "the style of no style". This consisted of getting rid of a non-formalized approach which Lee claimed was not indicative of traditional styles. Because Lee felt the system he called Jun Fan Gung Fu was too restrictive, it was transformed to what he would come to describe as Jeet Kune Do or the Way of the Intercepting Fist, a term he would later regret because Jeet Kune Do implied specific parameters that styles connotate whereas the idea of the martial art was to exist outside of parameters and limitations.
Bruce Lee certified 3 instructors, Taky Kimura, James Yimm Lee (no relation to Bruce Lee) and Dan Inosanto. James Yimm Lee, a close friend of Bruce Lee, died without certifying additional students. Taky Kimura, to date, has certified one person in Jun Fan Gung Fu: his son and heir Andy Kimura. Dan Inosanto continues to teach and certify select students. Prior to his death, Lee told his then only two living instructors Inosanto and Kimura (James Yimm Lee had died in 1972) to dismantle his schools. Both Taky Kimura and Dan Inosanto were allowed to teach small classes thereafter without using the name Jeet Kune Do.
As a result of a lawsuit between the estate of Bruce Lee and the Inosanto Academy, the name "Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do" was legally trademarked, and the rights were given solely to the Lee estate. "The name is made up of two parts: 'Jun Fan' (Bruce's given Chinese name) and 'Jeet Kune Do' (the Way of the Intercepting Fist). The development of Bruce Lee's art from 1961 until the end of his life was one smooth and indivisible path. In the beginning, he referred to his teachings simply as Jun Fan Gung Fu.
Some martial arts instructors, in an effort to promote themselves or their martial arts schools, make dubious claims about learning from or teaching Bruce Lee. Yet, only 3 were certified by Lee.
1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships
At the invitation of Ed Parker, Lee appeared in the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships[13] 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. 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, though the force of the impact caused his partner to soon after fall onto the floor.
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