Enter the Clones of Bruce (2023) Movie Script
1
He doesn't frighten me,
I'm strong, see?
Now, Bruce, just look right
into the camera lens.
Right here and tell
us your name, your age
and where you were born.
My last name is Lee. Bruce Lee.
I was born is
San Francisco, 1940.
I am 24 right now.
And you work in motion
pictures in Hong Kong?
Yeah, since I was around
six years old.
Yeah, Bruce had done
all these movies
as a kid, caused
a lot of trouble,
he'd been sent to America.
Did the Green Hornet, which
to him was a step down.
Kato, we're dealing with
a man of infinite brilliance
and infinite madness.
But it was the Green
Hornet marketed
as the Kato show in Hong Kong,
that opened the doors for him.
You want to fight?
I'll take you on.
Golden Harvest was considered
very much an upstart,
a small independent.
He came in and showed people
that there was a different
way to do things.
The first movie that Bruce
did as an adult was Big Boss.
And that was, for its time,
considered a huge success.
Bruce was considered
a local star in Hong Kong
and in Singapore, Malaysia.
Before his films had
been released in Japan
or anyplace else in the world.
Even in Hong Kong,
the Bruce Lee.
movies were the first
Chinese movies that
non-Chinese people really
started paying attention to.
The fact that Bruce got
interviewed on the English TV
out here and everything.
Even now, it's hard to see.
Hong Kong actors
getting interviewed on
the British side of things.
He just hit a certain moment in
history where people were
looking for that kind of hero.
Now hear this.
I shall accept punishment for
the lives that I took.
-You just leave
this school alone.
-Yes. Sure.
The Big Boss and Fists of Fury
and even Way of the Dragon,
they weren't designed to be
international releases.
But the demand was
so strong that suddenly
you had buyers coming in.
So that was the
beginning of Bruce Lee becoming
a quote, international star,
I was working with him
on Game of Death
when we stopped Game of Death to
go work on Enter the Dragon.
Game of Death was never
finished, he only shot about
three or four fight scenes
before Warner Brothers came
along and picked him up for
Enter the Dragon.
Bruce Lee was
the first leading man
to achieve recognition for
introducing the genre
of martial arts films
to the global market.
The truth in fact is we were
just at the cusp of that fame.
Before the release of
Enter the Dragon
when he passed away.
On the 20th of July 1973,
all of the newspapers in Hong
Kong carried shock headlines.
The death of Bruce Lee.
The cause of death
was cerebral edema,
which is the swelling
of the brain
and that was reportedly
caused by a headache
tablet he'd been taking.
Nobody believed it.
It was like, whoa,
in the middle of it,
we're really getting
into this guy, then all
the sudden he's gone.
The next question is,
can we find another Bruce Lee?
I was assigned by Golden Harvest
to bring Bruce's wife,
Linda and the children back
to the States for the funeral.
It was suggested that we take
a documentary film crew with us.
The world of Chinese
movies has lost a hero
and a leader.
Many people have
lost a friend.
Raymond Chow,
who was Bruce Lee's producer,
started shooting
footage of the funeral.
Started shooting
footage in Bruce Lee's house.
Like days after he died.
His home stands empty.
Only memories of
the past remain here.
The idea morphed
to building it out
into being a complete film.
And so we spent
about another five months
assembling all the other
footage that went on to become
Bruce Lee The Man,
The Life and The Legend.
So right away they started
making these movies.
I mean, you can almost
look at this documentary
as a sort of
a Bruceploitation film.
McQueen and Coburn helped
carry the coffin to the hearse
for the final
journey to the cemetery.
Hong Kong Chinese film
industry was moving along,
whether it was with David Chang
or with Jimmy Wang Yu
or with any of
the other stars of the day.
For the international market,
we tried selling a lot
of the other martial arts movies
and the swordplay movies.
They met with limited
success around the world.
They all wanted
the next Bruce Lee.
They would go
to people in the martial
arts schools,
the gymnasiums and so forth.
Hey, anybody
looked like Bruce Lee.
Anybody was good.
They were scouring everything.
My name is Ho Chung-Tao.
Chinese name,
English name is James.
And they give name
called Bruce Li.
Bruce Li is the best
known double for Lee
and is an accomplished martial
artist in his own right.
We felt that you should
take a good look at
his abilities
and compare for yourself.
Why then, do you still get
into fights every day?
I can't... I can't
help fighting.
Additional kung fu movements
are grouped according to
the section of the body
you want to attack.
These groups are good
in practice,
but the real fight is different.
Action!
Not bad.
-Kung fu good!
-Uncle.
I'm producing the Green Hornet
program for NBC TV this fall
and I would like you
to play a part.
-Are you interested?
-Me?
That, that hurt me.
Get back.
Let me handle them.
Well, what's the matter?
Want to fight?
I think these bastards
won't bother you anymore.
He went on and did about
four or five other films
about Bruce Lee's life.
You can see all
the different interpretations
all these different
filmmakers had of Bruce Lee.
He had, like 19 different lives.
According to these guys.
Only one man in
the world could play the part.
Bruce Li starring in Bruce Lee
the Man, the Myth.
Bruce Lee the Man the
Myth is probably one of
the most popular ones.
It's probably
the most even handed as well.
Bruce Li was his
friend in life,
Bruce Li was his student
in the martial arts.
I don't think he'd ever
even met Bruce Lee.
Every kick and hit
reminds you of his master.
A master in three forms
of Wing Chun.
No wonder he fights like his
master, all new, all true.
His True Story.
Bruce Lee?
Yes, my captor is very lovely.
You must have guessed that
I wanted to know more
about you and your kung fu.
She certainly is...
very sweet.
Bruce Lee, my friend,
your kung fu is really classic.
You will be a Chinese hero.
You will conquer
the western world.
Bruce Lee was always
proud of being Chinese.
When he went to America,
he became very progressive and
he started to learn western
boxing, and he started teaching
martial arts to whites,
and they didn't like that.
It's like, hey,
those are our secrets.
So when The Dragon Lives
came along,
he's born in China.
It means that boy is
destined for big things.
He wasn't. He was really
born in San Francisco.
And when he goes to America
and he's only there for,
I think it seemed like
a month or something like that,
and in that month,
he meets a girl in one scene
and 15 minutes later she's
his girlfriend. The next thing
you know, when he's in
Hong Kong now, she's his wife.
Bruce Lee really married
a white woman in real life.
Well, let's get her in
there because we got
to get her in there.
They did have some skeletal
biography of Bruce Lee,
so it's a highly fictionalized
biography of Bruce Lee.
Goes to America, fights racism.
What sort of movie
are you making?
Oh, it's called
Hong Kong Today.
Hong Kong Today? Huh?
So why must I wear this crap?
Well, that's what
the Chinese all look like,
so what else
are you supposed to wear?
Comes back to Hong Kong,
he's shipped over this American
training device which looks
like this giant demon head.
It was developed in
the States, it's quite new.
And he starts punching on it.
He locks himself
in his room and he's
like beating
on it because he wants
to become the best
martial artist.
And they're always
banging on the door going,
Bruce, what are you doing?
You've gotta stop.
And it was
such a clear indication
of how America has totally
spoiled this
Chinese martial artist.
When I'm dead.
Then I'll rest.
First kind of wave of
these films pivoted around
Bruce Lee's death.
Someone important died.
It's Bruce Lee,
kung fu star, at age 34.
His death is still
the headlines here.
Bruce Lee's death, a great
blow to cinema and kung fu.
-It can't be.
-It says it in the paper there.
Yeah, right there.
How could he die?
This guy was so strong.
Bruce, you feeling alright?
I'm alright, but if something
should happen to me...
You'll be my successor.
And remember, you must
always uphold, as I have,
the honor of the martial arts,
wear that garment
and wear it well.
Of course.
I'll have to find out
if there was some foul play.
And if there was,
I'll avenge. I'll avenge.
So that's what these
films all revolved around.
Why did he die? Who killed
him? How do we avenge him?
The other was
sequels and prequels and
sort of pseudo spinoffs.
Get going, Japanese,
get the hell out of here!
Well, let's see how
tough they are.
-And you are?
-Uh.
-My name's Wong.
-I am Woo.
You may call me Mr. Wong.
Now what's the point of this?
We knew it the first
time we saw you.
Ask our producer, Mr. Cho.
I think you were born
to be Bruce Lee the second.
It's a heavy responsibility,
give it some thought.
Hey, he's the one,
the troublemaker.
You bastards again?
Get out!
I walk on set,
I looked at Ho Chung-Tao.
He's playing Bruce Lee.
I looked at
him and said, well, if
I really stretch my
imagination a little bit.
If people buy
into it that he looks like
Bruce Lee,
even though Bruce Lee is
no longer with us,
then they can make the gap.
Soldier?
I don't like Bruce Li,
because it just like chicken.
because they give me,
I have no way to change it.
There have been
many imitators.
But there's only
one Bruce Lee.
Now that you've seen some of
the Bruce Lee look-a-likes,
we feel that the latest is
by far the greatest.
From deep in the heart
of the orient,
introducing the new,
sensational fighter:
Dragon Lee.
The rest will be history.
Dragon Lee was
one of my favorites.
His introduction was he had
done this film in Korea,
but an American producer
named Serafim Karalexis
found this film
and he bought it
and he brought it back,
turned it from a 90 minute
to a 60 minute film.
Stuck on a bunch of
footage that he also managed to
pick up of Bruce Lee as
a child actor when he was,
like, eight years old
and fifteen years old.
Stuck that at the beginning
of the movie, made sort of like
a little pseudo documentary
thing at the beginning,
and released
it as the real Bruce Lee.
Your attention please.
An historic event has
developed recently
due to better relations
between the United
States and China.
An early Bruce Lee film has
been found in the Chinese Film
archive, and arrangements
are being made to make
it available
and ready for screening in
theaters across the country.
The real Bruce Lee is back,
and this theater will
be privileged to showing
it first in this area.
Coming soon.
Not yet rated, but due to
the action,
we can expect it to be R.
And it became this
gigantic, huge success.
Nobody is madder,
Nobody is badder.
Dragon Lee.
So this is your kung fu.
Do you want to challenge me?
Hey, what are you doing?
You always seem to be fooling
around, get on with your work.
You're responsible
for framing Sammy.
Then you injured Lin Young,
now you've killed my brother!
Dragon Lee,
who was this Bruce Lee
times ten,
this gigantic, muscular guy.
And every time he would,
like, look at you,
you'd hear his neck cracking.
At this point,
the nunchaka was so ingrained
into Bruce Lee lore,
like anybody that pulled
up a nunchaka, you're
instantly thinking of Bruce Lee.
But he made
a pair of thumb chucks.
So he had one stick from
the nunchaka that went to, like,
a keychain to his thumb
and he would spin it around.
One time he had, like,
a knife sticking on one.
He would always come up
with these bizarre ways to let
the evolution of Bruce Lee
follow him through his progress.
-What are you doing?
-I'm trying to think of
a way to destroy
the magnetic sword.
He actually did a couple
of really good films,
he did one called Dragon
on Fire, which was also
known as Dragon the Hero,
which wasn't a Bruceploitation
film, it was a period piece.
But then when
Dragon Lee steps into it,
he's doing his Bruce Lee thing.
It's almost like
you've got this modern
day Bruce Lee that steps
into this period film where
everybody's doing this
very traditional martial
arts and he's sitting
there thumbing his nose.
Action!
Cut!
He's terrific!
Hello!
My name is Bruce Le.
Bruce Le is actually a proper
kung fu guy, he'd won
tournaments in Macau.
The Big Boss II was Bruce Le's
introduction to Bruceploitation.
He was still being
billed under his real name,
but he, in that movie,
plays the character that Bruce
Lee played in The Big Boss.
And then somebody realized
he kinda looks a bit
like Bruce Lee.
And give him a pair of big
sunglasses and a bowl haircut
and we can turn him into him.
You looking for me?
Snake blood.
He only did one film where he
actually played Bruce Lee in it.
It was about
Bruce Lee's youth in Hong Kong
before he went to America.
Do you see the meteor in the sky
that is shining for your son?
I am an astrologer.
Interesting to note
in that film,
the one that plays
the antagonist Shih Kien,
who was the bad guy
Han in Enter the Dragon.
-You are this famous Bruce.
-Yes, I'm Bruce.
Well, today I'm
going to teach you a lesson.
That's the only time that he
ever did a Bruceploitation film.
Because all these actors that
all these small parts
in Bruce Lee's films,
their stock shot way up
when Bruce Lee passed away.
Bolo.
Bolo, who is the big
bodyguard in Enter the Dragon.
First off, this guy's
done more Bruceploitation
films than probably anybody
that would ever live.
Unfortunately, at that
time, Enter the Dragon,
they never fought.
So that's why they put
them up after those films.
They would pit him
up against these
Bruceploitation actors
to sort of convey this
what if Bruce Lee and Bolo
had fought on Enter the Dragon?
Sometimes they'll literally
put him in the same outfit.
So that would go on
the poster, of course.
And you're like, did
they film those guys fighting?
Well, maybe it's in that film.
He works a lot and
he's a very busy person.
I never really seen him much.
I grown up, I've gone to school
and he travels so much.
From my recording for
what I know is at least
like 140,
150 films in his career.
Enter Jim Dragon Kelly.
No, no, you stay here
until I get back.
Do those dishes or something.
They're done.
The Black Superman of
the martial arts.
Star of the famous
Enter the Dragon.
Jim Kelly is as cool as 007.
He's James Bond and Bruce Lee
rolled up into one cool
package of dynamite.
I like to think of you
as my white knight.
Never the white knight, baby.
Okay. Class dismissed.
And there were others
that we built up. Angela Mao.
Here comes the lethal
lady of kung fu.
She's a crack karate queen
who really drives men nuts.
For five, six years,
she was the biggest female
name in martial arts.
She was the female Bruce Lee.
Her pictures made almost
as much as Bruce Lee.
Queen of the Deep Thrust.
And then she vanished.
By the late 1980s, everybody's
saying, where is Angela Mao?
Stay where you are.
We caught you red-handed.
Have a look what's behind you.
All right let's do it once
in rehearsal, now, try.
Now you give him a kick here.
Hold it! Mr. Chung,
that should cover.
This act is too dangerous.
When I got to work in Hong
Kong and in the Philippines
and Thailand,
you saw seven to ten people.
They did everything a 200
man crew did on a big shoot.
A good crew could shoot
a complete film in 15 days.
Leave the casino until later.
We'll have the duel first.
Right. We'll take care of this
duel business first,
And then later, the casino.
Audiences, they didn't care
about your story,
they cared about the actions.
Not a bad leg technique.
I have a good teacher.
I see, you're begging
to be killed.
If you've got a fight scene
where you have five foreigners
fighting Ho Chung Tao,
then another fight scene,
five foreigners fighting
Ho Chung Tao and another one.
So they just try
to mix people up and
make them look different.
Let's go.
Kicking cars with real glass,
jumping into water
without even checking
in the water, nothing.
At that time I thought
I was Superman.
Until once I jumped from
the third floor,
at time we only had boxes and
mattress made out of straw.
I jumped right in between,
I broke my tendon.
Many people get hurt.
You had days off
when you weren't filming.
So if you're a lead
actor and you have to act
every single day, then,
no, you have no time off.
It was tough.
It was not easy.
Hey, you look exhausted,
what's wrong with you?
You're moving too fast.
You've already moved
off before the other
actors have got near you!
It's okay.
Carry on.
Bruce Lee!
Instead of it just being
the Southeast Asia market,
suddenly the Philippines
wanted them, suddenly Thailand
wanted them.
Suddenly Europe started
to want them, suddenly
America wanted them.
This big boom came
and people were looking
for Hong Kong cinema.
I mean, every week back then
they would release a film or two
in theaters and a lot
of them were Bruceploitation
films because those are
the ones that the buyers were
grabbing up because they figured
that's what was going to sell.
I look back
at it and think about how
easy it was
for the pirates to operate.
I had not only
discussions at the boardroom
level at Golden Harvest,
I had multiple conversations
with leading law firms.
There was very
little we could do.
Bruce Lee "Le" or Bruce Lee "Li"
are still not
the same as Bruce Lee "Lee."
That actually impacted
more on the Lee family and
their ability
to exploit the likeness
and the trademark of Bruce Lee.
For Linda, it was both
financially bad and secondly,
it was very
emotionally frustrating.
People wanted more.
There was no video at the time.
Films like this weren't going
to appear on TV for years.
Every neighborhood
had a theater and every
theater had kung fu movies.
Dojos just came
up all over the place.
A lot of people really
started to think of Asian
men as being strong and heroic.
Let the foreigners experience
kung fu just to let them see
what kung fu's really
like and to teach them that
Chinese are not cowards.
And talented
and charismatic and sexy.
But would
you really like to take me?
Of course,
honeymoon in Hong Kong.
I can't believe it.
Which is not
something that Asian men
in the U.S. were thought of.
In Hollywood movies,
there were generally very
few kinds of roles for men.
You could play
a Japanese soldier and
get killed,
or you could play a houseboy.
Inspector Clouseau's residence.
Or maybe pull a rickshaw.
Women had a little bit,
somewhat more interesting parts.
Townsend Harris, first white
man to open up the Orient,
and the beautiful geisha was
sent to love him and kill him.
Although they were,
generally speaking, either
geisha girls, prostitutes
or girlfriends of the white guy.
So Bruce Lee came along
and all of a sudden, boom, boom.
It was disruptive
to the film industry.
So that, of course, engendered
a lot of pride
amongst Chinese people.
It wasn't only just
Asian Americans who liked it.
There's huge numbers
of African Americans
who love kung fu movies.
Maybe because Bruce Lee
often played someone
who is fighting
against the system.
And then just through
his sheer strength of will
and incredible
martial arts skills,
he was able
to beat the system.
Oh, 42nd Street, the circus.
42nd Street, in those days,
was quite a shady area.
In the movie theaters,
people would be selling joints
and bags and stuff.
People would smoke
right next to you.
They'd drink next to you.
But most of the theaters
were young people.
Principally male-dominated,
blue-collar audience,
action-oriented audience.
And we were constantly
successful with these pictures.
I met Serafim Karalexis there.
Mr. Van Clief.
He's the gentleman
that really started
the kung fu phase in America,
he and Terry Levene.
They had movie theaters
and they showed
three, four kung fu movies
per day.
They were both innovators
on the kung fu market.
Ron Van Clief was working
here in New York
as a martial arts instructor.
He was a remarkable athlete
and a remarkable actor.
The death of Bruce Lee came
as a surprise to the world .
A Chinese millionaire
from San Francisco
was willing to pay $100,000
up-front to find out the truth.
The assignment went to
the most feared man in America.
Ron Van Clief, otherwise known
as The Black Dragon.
I met Bruce Lee at
the All-American Championships
at Madison Square Garden
in New York City.
He watched me fight
in the eliminations.
And he said that my spirit
was so strong,
he named me The Black Dragon.
About eight years later,
I met Serafim Karalexis.
And the first film I did for him
was called The Black Dragon.
Black Dragon rips into
the Hong Kong underworld
a nd takes no bullshit
from any of them ,
as he revenges the death
of Bruce Lee.
We did some promotion
for The Black Dragon,
Black Dragon's Revenge,
Super Weapon,
The Way of the Black Dragon,
Kung Fu Fever,
which they renamed
Black Dragon Fever.
We'd bring him to live shows
at the Lyric Theater
and the Selwyn Theater.
Terry had me do exhibitions
on a stage
that was really small, narrow.
One of my students fell off
the stage into the audience
when we were doing
one of the demonstrations.
That guy bothering you?
How can I ever repay you?
I'm sure Ron has some ideas
of his own.
This is the part that always
gets left out
when everybody talks about
the history of the Asian cinema.
There are two markets
that actually help
to drive the Chinese cinema.
One being the United States,
and the other being France.
Asian people, especially
Taiwan people,
It's not the real Bruce Lee,
oh, forget it, forget it.
The westerns can't tell
a Korean from a Japanese
from a Chinese.
Most of them can't.
I was five when Bruce Lee died.
So I was like,
he's a Chinese man.
I didn't know at
the time he was a real person.
I thought he was a character,
almost, because
I'd see other people
playing Bruce Lee.
I was twelve years old.
I was in San Francisco,
and there was a poster
up on the Marcus street cinema,
and it said, the Young Dragon.
It had this Chinese guy,
and he was all ripped up
and shredded, and he had
the aviator glasses on.
The tagline was Bruce
in his first film at age 18.
That's it. It didn't say
which Bruce.
So I went in,
and within ten minutes
I realized
I'd been seriously duped.
I didn't hang around
the theater too much
for critical reviews,
for obvious reasons.
But putting that aside, I don't
recall anybody or any incident
of a serious nature where
a customer was dissatisfied.
When Bruce Lee died,
it was a big deal.
I was very upset.
And I said, if you could get
the TV show,
same people that did Batman,
you could cut it up
and all your troubles be solved,
because Bruce Lee's
the biggest star and he's great.
We took the best episodes
and we made it into two movies.
And from that, my dad became
a big independent distributor.
I want to just point out,
these ads were the thing
that really
also brought people in
so much in the advertising,
and it was such a big
part of it.
Now, you would think
this is going to be
a sequel to Big Boss 1
but it absolutely has
zero to do with any Big Boss.
This is an example of three
movies that have the same title.
This film got released
while Bruce Lee was alive.
So it's essentially the first
Bruceploitation movie.
Bruce, of course, went nuts
because films of him helping do
some of the choreography
on the set turned into the most
exciting kung fu picture
ever directed by Bruce Lee.
This would quickly change to...
The most exciting
kung fu picture ever directed.
And then Bruce Lee,
of course, is now missing
from the front of it.
This is a film that really has
zero, zero to do with Bruce Lee.
But you get
this guy that is basically
Bruce Lee with
a Charles Bronson mustache.
Nothing will stop
the rise of Bronson Lee.
Here... it's Bruce Lo.
How did that come about?
When I was doing the trailer,
and in it they had a guy
who looked like Bruce Lee,
and his name was Kurata.
So I said, they had
Bruce Le, Bruce Li,
do they have Bruce Lo yet? And
he said, that's a good idea.
Bruce Lo, that's very good.
Witness Bruce Lo
as he takes on a dozen
skilled fighters, bare handed.
I'm told that
he didn't even know
that he was called
Bruce Lo in the United States.
I'm Japanese.
So, everything, spirit,
mind, style,
always in the
Japanese style. Yeah.
This is called
the Japanese crab technique.
So Exit the Dragon,
Enter the Tiger.
We've got, obviously, this image
drawn of Bruce Lee in a coffin.
Now, that was bad enough,
but when you get over
to the Death of
Bruce Lee poster,
this is an actual photo
of Bruce Lee at the bottom here.
In, uh, in his coffin.
And they put it on the poster.
We have a picture,
enter something or
whatever it is,
and we show the entire
30 minutes of his funeral.
In Hong Kong.
Bruce Lee was buried,
but not before making a deal
with the black angel of death.
Now his tormented soul
returns as Bruce Lee
Fights Back From the Grave.
Bruce Lee Fights Back From
the Grave, primarily, was a faux
Bruce Lee,
a fictional Bruce Lee.
His name might have
been Bruce Li, Bruce Lee,
Bruce Flea, for all I know.
We had a director who we hired
to go to a cemetery in
New Jersey, sacrilegiously
open a grave,
and have himself come out
of the grave dressed
in a Bruce Lee mask.
Special effects,
and a few things of that nature,
which cost an awful,
awful lot of money.
Around about $35.
He faces every contest.
The fighters,
the killers, the mobsters,
the slime of the underworld.
You have kind of like
the seven stages of dying.
You have this shock and you have
this acceptance and this anger.
And I think there's
a certain sense of
that you can follow
through with these films.
In the beginning, all
the films dealt with his death,
and then you progressed
into this stage
where everybody was going,
okay, he's dead.
We got to deal with it now.
And that brought up
these what if scenarios.
I didn't coin this phrase,
but they were like
Bruce Lee conjectures.
If we wanted to
see Bruce Lee as Indiana Jones.
What if he had lived
and he played Indiana Jones?
We stick him in New Guinea,
and he fights the snake clan,
and you got
Bruce Li in New Guinea.
There was a point
where the Bruce Lee actors
actually started to go
through their own transition,
trying to change up their
own images so they weren't
so stuck in
the whole Bruce Lee mold.
Dragon Lee started
getting really into comedy,
so he was still doing Bruce,
but he was doing this
weird kind of comedy
hybrid version of him.
Bruce Le, basically,
in his morphing, went into very
extravagant sort of James Bond
sort of pink kind of filmmaking
career where everything
was either topless women.
Or gangsters.
He teams up with
basically a James Bond
character in the story,
this white guy.
And they both go on
this mission to try to
stop this drug that's
been stolen that can actually
disseminate
every male on the planet,
make everybody infertile.
Great storyline.
If you look at the poster,
it says, starring Bruce Le.
Then it says, and
Jack Klugman and Jane Seymour.
And you're like, what? And what
they did was they were filming
this movie and they went to
a party where Jack Klugman and
Jane Seymour at this party,
and they just filmed Bruce Lee
walking up to him
and shaking their hand.
You can't even
hear what they're saying.
And he walks
into Jane Seymour and just
stands next to her for
a minute and then walks off.
And now they're
starring in the movie.
And it was just classic.
I don't know if you know
the film Pieces. He's in it.
He makes one little
appearance where he shows up,
has a karate fight in a walkway.
Hey, it's my kung fu professor.
What's the story, Chow?
Oh, I am out jogging, and next
thing I know, I am on ground.
Something I eat. Bad chop suey.
So long.
Hey, that looks like,
you know, Bruce Lee.
I heard they brought him in.
The clones of Bruce Lee,
which is so self
reflexive of the genre itself.
Bruce Lee dies.
Nothing, doctor. His heart
has stopped beating.
This evil doctor comes
up with an idea to clone him
and turn him into different
Bruce Lees and then ultimately
take over the world,
which sounds sort of like
the Bruceploitation
genre in itself, right?
So that film had
Dragon Lee and Bruce Le and it
had another Bruce Thai.
They each go on
an adventure for the government.
And at the very end of
the film, the clones come
together and they say,
to hell with this.
Let's fight the doctor.
Get him.
Are you sure it's Bruce Lee?
Doesn't look like him.
When a person dies,
their face and their
body undergo a change.
I love it.
What do you take me for?
Don't think you can
trick me, baby.
Listen, Dracula, your
zombies can't help you.
It's a crazy fun film to watch.
When a man's endowed like Bruce,
the girls are bound to want him.
He's gotta have his fun,
eh, Brucey?
That's enough.
Bruce Liang did The Dragon
Lives Again.
He did a film called Little
Godfather in Hong Kong
where he basically plays Bruce
Lee making Way of the Dragon
when he was in Rome.
Not a move.
You're a pretty clever guy.
You'd like a fight, huh?
I gave you 200 a day.
Now I give you three.
-Five. I'm begging you.
-All right.
Now, through the miracle
of motion pictures,
we bring
you the story and the film
that superstar Bruce Lee
wanted you to see.
There were attempts
to advertise the game of
death that whatever it is,
the Return of the Dragon,
Part Five has the secret,
unseen footage.
Well, that's very easy
to stop those claims,
or at least to make legal
threats that would
make the distributors think
twice before they would
actually go forward with it.
But there was
a lot of mystery about
what was the actual footage.
Well, the truth was
we knew that it couldn't
be pirated because
the negative was being
held in a vault
at our own laboratory.
What they did do, though,
was take some of the frames
that we had released
back before Bruce died,
very famous shots of
him with Kareem Jabbar
and try and inject
them into their films.
This image of Bruce Lee
in his tracksuit with
the nunchaku, particularly,
was so prevalent in people's
brains years and years
before Game of Death
even came out.
It was all about
you wanting to go
and hopefully
this was maybe the movie
that Bruce Lee actually was in.
At the time of his death,
Bruce Lee was working
on this film project.
Soon it will be at
this theater, a living
memorial to this
great fighter
and kung fu superstar.
Pleasure to meet
Mr. Lee's killer.
-Well chosen.
-Thank you.
With the greatest cast
ever assembled in one
motion picture.
The Shaolin Magician,
Poison Fingers,
The Incredible Ape.
And last but not least,
Abdul the Giant.
A giant in his time,
a legend in his death.
He lives again.
And fights for his life.
in the Game of Death.
Four years in the making.
Initially,
it was not our intention
to finish the film.
It was not until a good
two years after he passed away
that the serious
conversations started at
Golden Harvest about, is
it possible to finish the movie?
We had shot 30 minutes of
usable footage that ultimately
was cut down to be about
15 minutes in the film.
It was probably
the worst Bruceploitation
movie of all time.
It promises so much.
It's got that fantastic opening
sequence that you're expecting.
This is the bombastic music
comes in, it's all there,
and then suddenly it's got
footage of Bruce Lee's funeral.
I can say definitively
that Golden Harvest refrained
from making any knockoff movies,
with the exception of
Game of Death,
where I did use
doubles for Bruce Lee.
It is better to die
a broken piece of jade
than to live a life of clay.
Even though it's
being done in the guise of
a Bruce Lee film,
it uses all the same
tricks that all
the Bruceploitation films
use to make you think,
am I seeing Bruce Lee right now?
There's a cardboard cut out
of Bruce Lee stuck on a mirror.
The double sits down in front
of a mirror, and they literally
just take a cardboard
pasting of Bruce Lee's face,
like a photograph, and stick
it on the front of the mirror.
And he's just behind it,
and you're like, what?
Here we go.
Everybody settle down.
In the story, he's reenacting
a scene from Fists of Fury where
he runs at the camera and
this kick and these guards are
all sitting below the camera,
and they shoot him.
In Game of Death,
they have it where a gangster
is placed in these extras
and really
shoots him in the face.
The idea
there was that his face got
a little bit changed from
the bullet hitting in the face,
so he was always wearing
disguises, beards and glasses.
And so that's kind of
how they worked it off.
Commercially it was
a phenomenal success.
With the true Bruce Lee
fans and aficionados,
I think I would say mixed.
And there were some
people that were convinced
we still had another
hour of footage that we were
holding back for
part two and part three.
There are no secret
five minutes of footage
that I have stashed for
my old age retirement pension.
For the action scenes
that had to be done without
Bruce, we used a young,
in those days,
aspiring action director
by the name of Sammo Hong,
because Sammo had been involved
with Bruce on
the Enter the Dragon with me
and worked as
a stuntman on the other movies.
And for my money,
Sammo was one of the smartest
martial arts choreographers.
He went on to
become a very successful
director in his own right.
Do I look like him?
Does the star
really look like Bruce Lee?
Yes, he does.
More than you, for sure.
There's a great sequence where
Sammo gets hired to
be an extra
on a Bruceploitation
movie and has a fight
with the actor because
he feels you're not
worthy of Bruce Lee's spirit.
Cut, cut, cut, cut.
Why didn't you move?
He doesn't look like Bruce Lee.
What do you mean?
I can tell you this,
that Bruce Lee is my hero.
You're not in the same league.
The funny thing about the Fat
Dragon is it's very easy to go
oh, this movie is
just a piss-take,
but it's actually
a very respectful piss-take.
-What do you want?
-From what I've seen of you,
-I reckon you'd fit.
-No thanks.
New Fist of Fury
and Fist of Fury Two,
which was Bruce Li, were kind
of competing sequels to fist
of Fury because they were
being done about the same time.
Ng called me into his office.
He says, there's this other
film I would like you to do.
Play a bad guy in the film. It's
a new guy called Jackie Chan.
He's done a few
films in Hong Kong.
The preacher.
I'm not any sort of priest.
I come from Russia.
But we're going to
try something different.
But Jackie always said
the way he became famous later
was by doing everything
that Bruce Lee didn't do.
I'm gonna get my ass kicked
for the whole movie and then win
at the end. And that's
what Bruce Lee never would do.
And if you give me a chance,
I will be the best comedy
action martial
arts star in the world.
Nobody was interested in
comedy action kung fu.
He went off and he made two
movies away from Golden Harvest,
the Drunken Master
movies that convinced us
we didn't understand
how to use Jackie.
God Chang, the drunk
God with the double kick.
So in the finest
traditions of the movie
industry everywhere,
Golden Harvest turned
around and said, we always
knew that would be a success.
We love you. We want
to make a deal with you.
As we say, the rest is history.
Jackie Chan,
at this point, was starting
to come up and people were
taking notice of Jackie Chan.
What if Bruce Lee and
Jackie Chan had done a movie?
Well, you got Golden
Dragon and Silver Snake,
or you have Bruce
and Jackie to the rescue.
Dragon Lee is the Golden
Dragon. Johnnie Chan is...
The Silver Snake.
At some point,
it's going to come to a place
where everybody's sort
of processed what happened.
Game of Death finally come out.
Now you guys let him be.
Many believe
Bruce Lee is still alive.
A recluse preparing
to return in 1983,
ten years from the day
of his disappearance.
So here is the, what we call
Clearwater Bay studio nowadays,
not easy to find this
kind of studio. No more.
No more studios.
No more Golden Harvest.
So much closed, yeah.
Most of production
gone to China.
Before, we shot the 400 films.
Now only 30 films a year.
Even though the advertising
or commercial films still,
they also move
their base back to China
to shoot there because
Hong Kong is too expensive.
It's a
That's a history of
Hong Kong film industry,
a downfall of the Golden Empire.
He doesn't frighten me,
I'm strong, see?
Now, Bruce, just look right
into the camera lens.
Right here and tell
us your name, your age
and where you were born.
My last name is Lee. Bruce Lee.
I was born is
San Francisco, 1940.
I am 24 right now.
And you work in motion
pictures in Hong Kong?
Yeah, since I was around
six years old.
Yeah, Bruce had done
all these movies
as a kid, caused
a lot of trouble,
he'd been sent to America.
Did the Green Hornet, which
to him was a step down.
Kato, we're dealing with
a man of infinite brilliance
and infinite madness.
But it was the Green
Hornet marketed
as the Kato show in Hong Kong,
that opened the doors for him.
You want to fight?
I'll take you on.
Golden Harvest was considered
very much an upstart,
a small independent.
He came in and showed people
that there was a different
way to do things.
The first movie that Bruce
did as an adult was Big Boss.
And that was, for its time,
considered a huge success.
Bruce was considered
a local star in Hong Kong
and in Singapore, Malaysia.
Before his films had
been released in Japan
or anyplace else in the world.
Even in Hong Kong,
the Bruce Lee.
movies were the first
Chinese movies that
non-Chinese people really
started paying attention to.
The fact that Bruce got
interviewed on the English TV
out here and everything.
Even now, it's hard to see.
Hong Kong actors
getting interviewed on
the British side of things.
He just hit a certain moment in
history where people were
looking for that kind of hero.
Now hear this.
I shall accept punishment for
the lives that I took.
-You just leave
this school alone.
-Yes. Sure.
The Big Boss and Fists of Fury
and even Way of the Dragon,
they weren't designed to be
international releases.
But the demand was
so strong that suddenly
you had buyers coming in.
So that was the
beginning of Bruce Lee becoming
a quote, international star,
I was working with him
on Game of Death
when we stopped Game of Death to
go work on Enter the Dragon.
Game of Death was never
finished, he only shot about
three or four fight scenes
before Warner Brothers came
along and picked him up for
Enter the Dragon.
Bruce Lee was
the first leading man
to achieve recognition for
introducing the genre
of martial arts films
to the global market.
The truth in fact is we were
just at the cusp of that fame.
Before the release of
Enter the Dragon
when he passed away.
On the 20th of July 1973,
all of the newspapers in Hong
Kong carried shock headlines.
The death of Bruce Lee.
The cause of death
was cerebral edema,
which is the swelling
of the brain
and that was reportedly
caused by a headache
tablet he'd been taking.
Nobody believed it.
It was like, whoa,
in the middle of it,
we're really getting
into this guy, then all
the sudden he's gone.
The next question is,
can we find another Bruce Lee?
I was assigned by Golden Harvest
to bring Bruce's wife,
Linda and the children back
to the States for the funeral.
It was suggested that we take
a documentary film crew with us.
The world of Chinese
movies has lost a hero
and a leader.
Many people have
lost a friend.
Raymond Chow,
who was Bruce Lee's producer,
started shooting
footage of the funeral.
Started shooting
footage in Bruce Lee's house.
Like days after he died.
His home stands empty.
Only memories of
the past remain here.
The idea morphed
to building it out
into being a complete film.
And so we spent
about another five months
assembling all the other
footage that went on to become
Bruce Lee The Man,
The Life and The Legend.
So right away they started
making these movies.
I mean, you can almost
look at this documentary
as a sort of
a Bruceploitation film.
McQueen and Coburn helped
carry the coffin to the hearse
for the final
journey to the cemetery.
Hong Kong Chinese film
industry was moving along,
whether it was with David Chang
or with Jimmy Wang Yu
or with any of
the other stars of the day.
For the international market,
we tried selling a lot
of the other martial arts movies
and the swordplay movies.
They met with limited
success around the world.
They all wanted
the next Bruce Lee.
They would go
to people in the martial
arts schools,
the gymnasiums and so forth.
Hey, anybody
looked like Bruce Lee.
Anybody was good.
They were scouring everything.
My name is Ho Chung-Tao.
Chinese name,
English name is James.
And they give name
called Bruce Li.
Bruce Li is the best
known double for Lee
and is an accomplished martial
artist in his own right.
We felt that you should
take a good look at
his abilities
and compare for yourself.
Why then, do you still get
into fights every day?
I can't... I can't
help fighting.
Additional kung fu movements
are grouped according to
the section of the body
you want to attack.
These groups are good
in practice,
but the real fight is different.
Action!
Not bad.
-Kung fu good!
-Uncle.
I'm producing the Green Hornet
program for NBC TV this fall
and I would like you
to play a part.
-Are you interested?
-Me?
That, that hurt me.
Get back.
Let me handle them.
Well, what's the matter?
Want to fight?
I think these bastards
won't bother you anymore.
He went on and did about
four or five other films
about Bruce Lee's life.
You can see all
the different interpretations
all these different
filmmakers had of Bruce Lee.
He had, like 19 different lives.
According to these guys.
Only one man in
the world could play the part.
Bruce Li starring in Bruce Lee
the Man, the Myth.
Bruce Lee the Man the
Myth is probably one of
the most popular ones.
It's probably
the most even handed as well.
Bruce Li was his
friend in life,
Bruce Li was his student
in the martial arts.
I don't think he'd ever
even met Bruce Lee.
Every kick and hit
reminds you of his master.
A master in three forms
of Wing Chun.
No wonder he fights like his
master, all new, all true.
His True Story.
Bruce Lee?
Yes, my captor is very lovely.
You must have guessed that
I wanted to know more
about you and your kung fu.
She certainly is...
very sweet.
Bruce Lee, my friend,
your kung fu is really classic.
You will be a Chinese hero.
You will conquer
the western world.
Bruce Lee was always
proud of being Chinese.
When he went to America,
he became very progressive and
he started to learn western
boxing, and he started teaching
martial arts to whites,
and they didn't like that.
It's like, hey,
those are our secrets.
So when The Dragon Lives
came along,
he's born in China.
It means that boy is
destined for big things.
He wasn't. He was really
born in San Francisco.
And when he goes to America
and he's only there for,
I think it seemed like
a month or something like that,
and in that month,
he meets a girl in one scene
and 15 minutes later she's
his girlfriend. The next thing
you know, when he's in
Hong Kong now, she's his wife.
Bruce Lee really married
a white woman in real life.
Well, let's get her in
there because we got
to get her in there.
They did have some skeletal
biography of Bruce Lee,
so it's a highly fictionalized
biography of Bruce Lee.
Goes to America, fights racism.
What sort of movie
are you making?
Oh, it's called
Hong Kong Today.
Hong Kong Today? Huh?
So why must I wear this crap?
Well, that's what
the Chinese all look like,
so what else
are you supposed to wear?
Comes back to Hong Kong,
he's shipped over this American
training device which looks
like this giant demon head.
It was developed in
the States, it's quite new.
And he starts punching on it.
He locks himself
in his room and he's
like beating
on it because he wants
to become the best
martial artist.
And they're always
banging on the door going,
Bruce, what are you doing?
You've gotta stop.
And it was
such a clear indication
of how America has totally
spoiled this
Chinese martial artist.
When I'm dead.
Then I'll rest.
First kind of wave of
these films pivoted around
Bruce Lee's death.
Someone important died.
It's Bruce Lee,
kung fu star, at age 34.
His death is still
the headlines here.
Bruce Lee's death, a great
blow to cinema and kung fu.
-It can't be.
-It says it in the paper there.
Yeah, right there.
How could he die?
This guy was so strong.
Bruce, you feeling alright?
I'm alright, but if something
should happen to me...
You'll be my successor.
And remember, you must
always uphold, as I have,
the honor of the martial arts,
wear that garment
and wear it well.
Of course.
I'll have to find out
if there was some foul play.
And if there was,
I'll avenge. I'll avenge.
So that's what these
films all revolved around.
Why did he die? Who killed
him? How do we avenge him?
The other was
sequels and prequels and
sort of pseudo spinoffs.
Get going, Japanese,
get the hell out of here!
Well, let's see how
tough they are.
-And you are?
-Uh.
-My name's Wong.
-I am Woo.
You may call me Mr. Wong.
Now what's the point of this?
We knew it the first
time we saw you.
Ask our producer, Mr. Cho.
I think you were born
to be Bruce Lee the second.
It's a heavy responsibility,
give it some thought.
Hey, he's the one,
the troublemaker.
You bastards again?
Get out!
I walk on set,
I looked at Ho Chung-Tao.
He's playing Bruce Lee.
I looked at
him and said, well, if
I really stretch my
imagination a little bit.
If people buy
into it that he looks like
Bruce Lee,
even though Bruce Lee is
no longer with us,
then they can make the gap.
Soldier?
I don't like Bruce Li,
because it just like chicken.
because they give me,
I have no way to change it.
There have been
many imitators.
But there's only
one Bruce Lee.
Now that you've seen some of
the Bruce Lee look-a-likes,
we feel that the latest is
by far the greatest.
From deep in the heart
of the orient,
introducing the new,
sensational fighter:
Dragon Lee.
The rest will be history.
Dragon Lee was
one of my favorites.
His introduction was he had
done this film in Korea,
but an American producer
named Serafim Karalexis
found this film
and he bought it
and he brought it back,
turned it from a 90 minute
to a 60 minute film.
Stuck on a bunch of
footage that he also managed to
pick up of Bruce Lee as
a child actor when he was,
like, eight years old
and fifteen years old.
Stuck that at the beginning
of the movie, made sort of like
a little pseudo documentary
thing at the beginning,
and released
it as the real Bruce Lee.
Your attention please.
An historic event has
developed recently
due to better relations
between the United
States and China.
An early Bruce Lee film has
been found in the Chinese Film
archive, and arrangements
are being made to make
it available
and ready for screening in
theaters across the country.
The real Bruce Lee is back,
and this theater will
be privileged to showing
it first in this area.
Coming soon.
Not yet rated, but due to
the action,
we can expect it to be R.
And it became this
gigantic, huge success.
Nobody is madder,
Nobody is badder.
Dragon Lee.
So this is your kung fu.
Do you want to challenge me?
Hey, what are you doing?
You always seem to be fooling
around, get on with your work.
You're responsible
for framing Sammy.
Then you injured Lin Young,
now you've killed my brother!
Dragon Lee,
who was this Bruce Lee
times ten,
this gigantic, muscular guy.
And every time he would,
like, look at you,
you'd hear his neck cracking.
At this point,
the nunchaka was so ingrained
into Bruce Lee lore,
like anybody that pulled
up a nunchaka, you're
instantly thinking of Bruce Lee.
But he made
a pair of thumb chucks.
So he had one stick from
the nunchaka that went to, like,
a keychain to his thumb
and he would spin it around.
One time he had, like,
a knife sticking on one.
He would always come up
with these bizarre ways to let
the evolution of Bruce Lee
follow him through his progress.
-What are you doing?
-I'm trying to think of
a way to destroy
the magnetic sword.
He actually did a couple
of really good films,
he did one called Dragon
on Fire, which was also
known as Dragon the Hero,
which wasn't a Bruceploitation
film, it was a period piece.
But then when
Dragon Lee steps into it,
he's doing his Bruce Lee thing.
It's almost like
you've got this modern
day Bruce Lee that steps
into this period film where
everybody's doing this
very traditional martial
arts and he's sitting
there thumbing his nose.
Action!
Cut!
He's terrific!
Hello!
My name is Bruce Le.
Bruce Le is actually a proper
kung fu guy, he'd won
tournaments in Macau.
The Big Boss II was Bruce Le's
introduction to Bruceploitation.
He was still being
billed under his real name,
but he, in that movie,
plays the character that Bruce
Lee played in The Big Boss.
And then somebody realized
he kinda looks a bit
like Bruce Lee.
And give him a pair of big
sunglasses and a bowl haircut
and we can turn him into him.
You looking for me?
Snake blood.
He only did one film where he
actually played Bruce Lee in it.
It was about
Bruce Lee's youth in Hong Kong
before he went to America.
Do you see the meteor in the sky
that is shining for your son?
I am an astrologer.
Interesting to note
in that film,
the one that plays
the antagonist Shih Kien,
who was the bad guy
Han in Enter the Dragon.
-You are this famous Bruce.
-Yes, I'm Bruce.
Well, today I'm
going to teach you a lesson.
That's the only time that he
ever did a Bruceploitation film.
Because all these actors that
all these small parts
in Bruce Lee's films,
their stock shot way up
when Bruce Lee passed away.
Bolo.
Bolo, who is the big
bodyguard in Enter the Dragon.
First off, this guy's
done more Bruceploitation
films than probably anybody
that would ever live.
Unfortunately, at that
time, Enter the Dragon,
they never fought.
So that's why they put
them up after those films.
They would pit him
up against these
Bruceploitation actors
to sort of convey this
what if Bruce Lee and Bolo
had fought on Enter the Dragon?
Sometimes they'll literally
put him in the same outfit.
So that would go on
the poster, of course.
And you're like, did
they film those guys fighting?
Well, maybe it's in that film.
He works a lot and
he's a very busy person.
I never really seen him much.
I grown up, I've gone to school
and he travels so much.
From my recording for
what I know is at least
like 140,
150 films in his career.
Enter Jim Dragon Kelly.
No, no, you stay here
until I get back.
Do those dishes or something.
They're done.
The Black Superman of
the martial arts.
Star of the famous
Enter the Dragon.
Jim Kelly is as cool as 007.
He's James Bond and Bruce Lee
rolled up into one cool
package of dynamite.
I like to think of you
as my white knight.
Never the white knight, baby.
Okay. Class dismissed.
And there were others
that we built up. Angela Mao.
Here comes the lethal
lady of kung fu.
She's a crack karate queen
who really drives men nuts.
For five, six years,
she was the biggest female
name in martial arts.
She was the female Bruce Lee.
Her pictures made almost
as much as Bruce Lee.
Queen of the Deep Thrust.
And then she vanished.
By the late 1980s, everybody's
saying, where is Angela Mao?
Stay where you are.
We caught you red-handed.
Have a look what's behind you.
All right let's do it once
in rehearsal, now, try.
Now you give him a kick here.
Hold it! Mr. Chung,
that should cover.
This act is too dangerous.
When I got to work in Hong
Kong and in the Philippines
and Thailand,
you saw seven to ten people.
They did everything a 200
man crew did on a big shoot.
A good crew could shoot
a complete film in 15 days.
Leave the casino until later.
We'll have the duel first.
Right. We'll take care of this
duel business first,
And then later, the casino.
Audiences, they didn't care
about your story,
they cared about the actions.
Not a bad leg technique.
I have a good teacher.
I see, you're begging
to be killed.
If you've got a fight scene
where you have five foreigners
fighting Ho Chung Tao,
then another fight scene,
five foreigners fighting
Ho Chung Tao and another one.
So they just try
to mix people up and
make them look different.
Let's go.
Kicking cars with real glass,
jumping into water
without even checking
in the water, nothing.
At that time I thought
I was Superman.
Until once I jumped from
the third floor,
at time we only had boxes and
mattress made out of straw.
I jumped right in between,
I broke my tendon.
Many people get hurt.
You had days off
when you weren't filming.
So if you're a lead
actor and you have to act
every single day, then,
no, you have no time off.
It was tough.
It was not easy.
Hey, you look exhausted,
what's wrong with you?
You're moving too fast.
You've already moved
off before the other
actors have got near you!
It's okay.
Carry on.
Bruce Lee!
Instead of it just being
the Southeast Asia market,
suddenly the Philippines
wanted them, suddenly Thailand
wanted them.
Suddenly Europe started
to want them, suddenly
America wanted them.
This big boom came
and people were looking
for Hong Kong cinema.
I mean, every week back then
they would release a film or two
in theaters and a lot
of them were Bruceploitation
films because those are
the ones that the buyers were
grabbing up because they figured
that's what was going to sell.
I look back
at it and think about how
easy it was
for the pirates to operate.
I had not only
discussions at the boardroom
level at Golden Harvest,
I had multiple conversations
with leading law firms.
There was very
little we could do.
Bruce Lee "Le" or Bruce Lee "Li"
are still not
the same as Bruce Lee "Lee."
That actually impacted
more on the Lee family and
their ability
to exploit the likeness
and the trademark of Bruce Lee.
For Linda, it was both
financially bad and secondly,
it was very
emotionally frustrating.
People wanted more.
There was no video at the time.
Films like this weren't going
to appear on TV for years.
Every neighborhood
had a theater and every
theater had kung fu movies.
Dojos just came
up all over the place.
A lot of people really
started to think of Asian
men as being strong and heroic.
Let the foreigners experience
kung fu just to let them see
what kung fu's really
like and to teach them that
Chinese are not cowards.
And talented
and charismatic and sexy.
But would
you really like to take me?
Of course,
honeymoon in Hong Kong.
I can't believe it.
Which is not
something that Asian men
in the U.S. were thought of.
In Hollywood movies,
there were generally very
few kinds of roles for men.
You could play
a Japanese soldier and
get killed,
or you could play a houseboy.
Inspector Clouseau's residence.
Or maybe pull a rickshaw.
Women had a little bit,
somewhat more interesting parts.
Townsend Harris, first white
man to open up the Orient,
and the beautiful geisha was
sent to love him and kill him.
Although they were,
generally speaking, either
geisha girls, prostitutes
or girlfriends of the white guy.
So Bruce Lee came along
and all of a sudden, boom, boom.
It was disruptive
to the film industry.
So that, of course, engendered
a lot of pride
amongst Chinese people.
It wasn't only just
Asian Americans who liked it.
There's huge numbers
of African Americans
who love kung fu movies.
Maybe because Bruce Lee
often played someone
who is fighting
against the system.
And then just through
his sheer strength of will
and incredible
martial arts skills,
he was able
to beat the system.
Oh, 42nd Street, the circus.
42nd Street, in those days,
was quite a shady area.
In the movie theaters,
people would be selling joints
and bags and stuff.
People would smoke
right next to you.
They'd drink next to you.
But most of the theaters
were young people.
Principally male-dominated,
blue-collar audience,
action-oriented audience.
And we were constantly
successful with these pictures.
I met Serafim Karalexis there.
Mr. Van Clief.
He's the gentleman
that really started
the kung fu phase in America,
he and Terry Levene.
They had movie theaters
and they showed
three, four kung fu movies
per day.
They were both innovators
on the kung fu market.
Ron Van Clief was working
here in New York
as a martial arts instructor.
He was a remarkable athlete
and a remarkable actor.
The death of Bruce Lee came
as a surprise to the world .
A Chinese millionaire
from San Francisco
was willing to pay $100,000
up-front to find out the truth.
The assignment went to
the most feared man in America.
Ron Van Clief, otherwise known
as The Black Dragon.
I met Bruce Lee at
the All-American Championships
at Madison Square Garden
in New York City.
He watched me fight
in the eliminations.
And he said that my spirit
was so strong,
he named me The Black Dragon.
About eight years later,
I met Serafim Karalexis.
And the first film I did for him
was called The Black Dragon.
Black Dragon rips into
the Hong Kong underworld
a nd takes no bullshit
from any of them ,
as he revenges the death
of Bruce Lee.
We did some promotion
for The Black Dragon,
Black Dragon's Revenge,
Super Weapon,
The Way of the Black Dragon,
Kung Fu Fever,
which they renamed
Black Dragon Fever.
We'd bring him to live shows
at the Lyric Theater
and the Selwyn Theater.
Terry had me do exhibitions
on a stage
that was really small, narrow.
One of my students fell off
the stage into the audience
when we were doing
one of the demonstrations.
That guy bothering you?
How can I ever repay you?
I'm sure Ron has some ideas
of his own.
This is the part that always
gets left out
when everybody talks about
the history of the Asian cinema.
There are two markets
that actually help
to drive the Chinese cinema.
One being the United States,
and the other being France.
Asian people, especially
Taiwan people,
It's not the real Bruce Lee,
oh, forget it, forget it.
The westerns can't tell
a Korean from a Japanese
from a Chinese.
Most of them can't.
I was five when Bruce Lee died.
So I was like,
he's a Chinese man.
I didn't know at
the time he was a real person.
I thought he was a character,
almost, because
I'd see other people
playing Bruce Lee.
I was twelve years old.
I was in San Francisco,
and there was a poster
up on the Marcus street cinema,
and it said, the Young Dragon.
It had this Chinese guy,
and he was all ripped up
and shredded, and he had
the aviator glasses on.
The tagline was Bruce
in his first film at age 18.
That's it. It didn't say
which Bruce.
So I went in,
and within ten minutes
I realized
I'd been seriously duped.
I didn't hang around
the theater too much
for critical reviews,
for obvious reasons.
But putting that aside, I don't
recall anybody or any incident
of a serious nature where
a customer was dissatisfied.
When Bruce Lee died,
it was a big deal.
I was very upset.
And I said, if you could get
the TV show,
same people that did Batman,
you could cut it up
and all your troubles be solved,
because Bruce Lee's
the biggest star and he's great.
We took the best episodes
and we made it into two movies.
And from that, my dad became
a big independent distributor.
I want to just point out,
these ads were the thing
that really
also brought people in
so much in the advertising,
and it was such a big
part of it.
Now, you would think
this is going to be
a sequel to Big Boss 1
but it absolutely has
zero to do with any Big Boss.
This is an example of three
movies that have the same title.
This film got released
while Bruce Lee was alive.
So it's essentially the first
Bruceploitation movie.
Bruce, of course, went nuts
because films of him helping do
some of the choreography
on the set turned into the most
exciting kung fu picture
ever directed by Bruce Lee.
This would quickly change to...
The most exciting
kung fu picture ever directed.
And then Bruce Lee,
of course, is now missing
from the front of it.
This is a film that really has
zero, zero to do with Bruce Lee.
But you get
this guy that is basically
Bruce Lee with
a Charles Bronson mustache.
Nothing will stop
the rise of Bronson Lee.
Here... it's Bruce Lo.
How did that come about?
When I was doing the trailer,
and in it they had a guy
who looked like Bruce Lee,
and his name was Kurata.
So I said, they had
Bruce Le, Bruce Li,
do they have Bruce Lo yet? And
he said, that's a good idea.
Bruce Lo, that's very good.
Witness Bruce Lo
as he takes on a dozen
skilled fighters, bare handed.
I'm told that
he didn't even know
that he was called
Bruce Lo in the United States.
I'm Japanese.
So, everything, spirit,
mind, style,
always in the
Japanese style. Yeah.
This is called
the Japanese crab technique.
So Exit the Dragon,
Enter the Tiger.
We've got, obviously, this image
drawn of Bruce Lee in a coffin.
Now, that was bad enough,
but when you get over
to the Death of
Bruce Lee poster,
this is an actual photo
of Bruce Lee at the bottom here.
In, uh, in his coffin.
And they put it on the poster.
We have a picture,
enter something or
whatever it is,
and we show the entire
30 minutes of his funeral.
In Hong Kong.
Bruce Lee was buried,
but not before making a deal
with the black angel of death.
Now his tormented soul
returns as Bruce Lee
Fights Back From the Grave.
Bruce Lee Fights Back From
the Grave, primarily, was a faux
Bruce Lee,
a fictional Bruce Lee.
His name might have
been Bruce Li, Bruce Lee,
Bruce Flea, for all I know.
We had a director who we hired
to go to a cemetery in
New Jersey, sacrilegiously
open a grave,
and have himself come out
of the grave dressed
in a Bruce Lee mask.
Special effects,
and a few things of that nature,
which cost an awful,
awful lot of money.
Around about $35.
He faces every contest.
The fighters,
the killers, the mobsters,
the slime of the underworld.
You have kind of like
the seven stages of dying.
You have this shock and you have
this acceptance and this anger.
And I think there's
a certain sense of
that you can follow
through with these films.
In the beginning, all
the films dealt with his death,
and then you progressed
into this stage
where everybody was going,
okay, he's dead.
We got to deal with it now.
And that brought up
these what if scenarios.
I didn't coin this phrase,
but they were like
Bruce Lee conjectures.
If we wanted to
see Bruce Lee as Indiana Jones.
What if he had lived
and he played Indiana Jones?
We stick him in New Guinea,
and he fights the snake clan,
and you got
Bruce Li in New Guinea.
There was a point
where the Bruce Lee actors
actually started to go
through their own transition,
trying to change up their
own images so they weren't
so stuck in
the whole Bruce Lee mold.
Dragon Lee started
getting really into comedy,
so he was still doing Bruce,
but he was doing this
weird kind of comedy
hybrid version of him.
Bruce Le, basically,
in his morphing, went into very
extravagant sort of James Bond
sort of pink kind of filmmaking
career where everything
was either topless women.
Or gangsters.
He teams up with
basically a James Bond
character in the story,
this white guy.
And they both go on
this mission to try to
stop this drug that's
been stolen that can actually
disseminate
every male on the planet,
make everybody infertile.
Great storyline.
If you look at the poster,
it says, starring Bruce Le.
Then it says, and
Jack Klugman and Jane Seymour.
And you're like, what? And what
they did was they were filming
this movie and they went to
a party where Jack Klugman and
Jane Seymour at this party,
and they just filmed Bruce Lee
walking up to him
and shaking their hand.
You can't even
hear what they're saying.
And he walks
into Jane Seymour and just
stands next to her for
a minute and then walks off.
And now they're
starring in the movie.
And it was just classic.
I don't know if you know
the film Pieces. He's in it.
He makes one little
appearance where he shows up,
has a karate fight in a walkway.
Hey, it's my kung fu professor.
What's the story, Chow?
Oh, I am out jogging, and next
thing I know, I am on ground.
Something I eat. Bad chop suey.
So long.
Hey, that looks like,
you know, Bruce Lee.
I heard they brought him in.
The clones of Bruce Lee,
which is so self
reflexive of the genre itself.
Bruce Lee dies.
Nothing, doctor. His heart
has stopped beating.
This evil doctor comes
up with an idea to clone him
and turn him into different
Bruce Lees and then ultimately
take over the world,
which sounds sort of like
the Bruceploitation
genre in itself, right?
So that film had
Dragon Lee and Bruce Le and it
had another Bruce Thai.
They each go on
an adventure for the government.
And at the very end of
the film, the clones come
together and they say,
to hell with this.
Let's fight the doctor.
Get him.
Are you sure it's Bruce Lee?
Doesn't look like him.
When a person dies,
their face and their
body undergo a change.
I love it.
What do you take me for?
Don't think you can
trick me, baby.
Listen, Dracula, your
zombies can't help you.
It's a crazy fun film to watch.
When a man's endowed like Bruce,
the girls are bound to want him.
He's gotta have his fun,
eh, Brucey?
That's enough.
Bruce Liang did The Dragon
Lives Again.
He did a film called Little
Godfather in Hong Kong
where he basically plays Bruce
Lee making Way of the Dragon
when he was in Rome.
Not a move.
You're a pretty clever guy.
You'd like a fight, huh?
I gave you 200 a day.
Now I give you three.
-Five. I'm begging you.
-All right.
Now, through the miracle
of motion pictures,
we bring
you the story and the film
that superstar Bruce Lee
wanted you to see.
There were attempts
to advertise the game of
death that whatever it is,
the Return of the Dragon,
Part Five has the secret,
unseen footage.
Well, that's very easy
to stop those claims,
or at least to make legal
threats that would
make the distributors think
twice before they would
actually go forward with it.
But there was
a lot of mystery about
what was the actual footage.
Well, the truth was
we knew that it couldn't
be pirated because
the negative was being
held in a vault
at our own laboratory.
What they did do, though,
was take some of the frames
that we had released
back before Bruce died,
very famous shots of
him with Kareem Jabbar
and try and inject
them into their films.
This image of Bruce Lee
in his tracksuit with
the nunchaku, particularly,
was so prevalent in people's
brains years and years
before Game of Death
even came out.
It was all about
you wanting to go
and hopefully
this was maybe the movie
that Bruce Lee actually was in.
At the time of his death,
Bruce Lee was working
on this film project.
Soon it will be at
this theater, a living
memorial to this
great fighter
and kung fu superstar.
Pleasure to meet
Mr. Lee's killer.
-Well chosen.
-Thank you.
With the greatest cast
ever assembled in one
motion picture.
The Shaolin Magician,
Poison Fingers,
The Incredible Ape.
And last but not least,
Abdul the Giant.
A giant in his time,
a legend in his death.
He lives again.
And fights for his life.
in the Game of Death.
Four years in the making.
Initially,
it was not our intention
to finish the film.
It was not until a good
two years after he passed away
that the serious
conversations started at
Golden Harvest about, is
it possible to finish the movie?
We had shot 30 minutes of
usable footage that ultimately
was cut down to be about
15 minutes in the film.
It was probably
the worst Bruceploitation
movie of all time.
It promises so much.
It's got that fantastic opening
sequence that you're expecting.
This is the bombastic music
comes in, it's all there,
and then suddenly it's got
footage of Bruce Lee's funeral.
I can say definitively
that Golden Harvest refrained
from making any knockoff movies,
with the exception of
Game of Death,
where I did use
doubles for Bruce Lee.
It is better to die
a broken piece of jade
than to live a life of clay.
Even though it's
being done in the guise of
a Bruce Lee film,
it uses all the same
tricks that all
the Bruceploitation films
use to make you think,
am I seeing Bruce Lee right now?
There's a cardboard cut out
of Bruce Lee stuck on a mirror.
The double sits down in front
of a mirror, and they literally
just take a cardboard
pasting of Bruce Lee's face,
like a photograph, and stick
it on the front of the mirror.
And he's just behind it,
and you're like, what?
Here we go.
Everybody settle down.
In the story, he's reenacting
a scene from Fists of Fury where
he runs at the camera and
this kick and these guards are
all sitting below the camera,
and they shoot him.
In Game of Death,
they have it where a gangster
is placed in these extras
and really
shoots him in the face.
The idea
there was that his face got
a little bit changed from
the bullet hitting in the face,
so he was always wearing
disguises, beards and glasses.
And so that's kind of
how they worked it off.
Commercially it was
a phenomenal success.
With the true Bruce Lee
fans and aficionados,
I think I would say mixed.
And there were some
people that were convinced
we still had another
hour of footage that we were
holding back for
part two and part three.
There are no secret
five minutes of footage
that I have stashed for
my old age retirement pension.
For the action scenes
that had to be done without
Bruce, we used a young,
in those days,
aspiring action director
by the name of Sammo Hong,
because Sammo had been involved
with Bruce on
the Enter the Dragon with me
and worked as
a stuntman on the other movies.
And for my money,
Sammo was one of the smartest
martial arts choreographers.
He went on to
become a very successful
director in his own right.
Do I look like him?
Does the star
really look like Bruce Lee?
Yes, he does.
More than you, for sure.
There's a great sequence where
Sammo gets hired to
be an extra
on a Bruceploitation
movie and has a fight
with the actor because
he feels you're not
worthy of Bruce Lee's spirit.
Cut, cut, cut, cut.
Why didn't you move?
He doesn't look like Bruce Lee.
What do you mean?
I can tell you this,
that Bruce Lee is my hero.
You're not in the same league.
The funny thing about the Fat
Dragon is it's very easy to go
oh, this movie is
just a piss-take,
but it's actually
a very respectful piss-take.
-What do you want?
-From what I've seen of you,
-I reckon you'd fit.
-No thanks.
New Fist of Fury
and Fist of Fury Two,
which was Bruce Li, were kind
of competing sequels to fist
of Fury because they were
being done about the same time.
Ng called me into his office.
He says, there's this other
film I would like you to do.
Play a bad guy in the film. It's
a new guy called Jackie Chan.
He's done a few
films in Hong Kong.
The preacher.
I'm not any sort of priest.
I come from Russia.
But we're going to
try something different.
But Jackie always said
the way he became famous later
was by doing everything
that Bruce Lee didn't do.
I'm gonna get my ass kicked
for the whole movie and then win
at the end. And that's
what Bruce Lee never would do.
And if you give me a chance,
I will be the best comedy
action martial
arts star in the world.
Nobody was interested in
comedy action kung fu.
He went off and he made two
movies away from Golden Harvest,
the Drunken Master
movies that convinced us
we didn't understand
how to use Jackie.
God Chang, the drunk
God with the double kick.
So in the finest
traditions of the movie
industry everywhere,
Golden Harvest turned
around and said, we always
knew that would be a success.
We love you. We want
to make a deal with you.
As we say, the rest is history.
Jackie Chan,
at this point, was starting
to come up and people were
taking notice of Jackie Chan.
What if Bruce Lee and
Jackie Chan had done a movie?
Well, you got Golden
Dragon and Silver Snake,
or you have Bruce
and Jackie to the rescue.
Dragon Lee is the Golden
Dragon. Johnnie Chan is...
The Silver Snake.
At some point,
it's going to come to a place
where everybody's sort
of processed what happened.
Game of Death finally come out.
Now you guys let him be.
Many believe
Bruce Lee is still alive.
A recluse preparing
to return in 1983,
ten years from the day
of his disappearance.
So here is the, what we call
Clearwater Bay studio nowadays,
not easy to find this
kind of studio. No more.
No more studios.
No more Golden Harvest.
So much closed, yeah.
Most of production
gone to China.
Before, we shot the 400 films.
Now only 30 films a year.
Even though the advertising
or commercial films still,
they also move
their base back to China
to shoot there because
Hong Kong is too expensive.
It's a
That's a history of
Hong Kong film industry,
a downfall of the Golden Empire.