Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee

Bruce Jun Fan Lee (November 27, 1940 in San Francisco - July 20, 1973 in Hong Kong) was a Chinese American martial artist and actor widely regarded as the most influential, famous and celebrated martial artist of the 20th century. 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. His pioneering efforts paved the way for future martial artists and martial arts actors such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chuck Norris.

Lee's movies sparked the first major surge of interest in 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.[1]

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. Lee began the process of creating his own fighting system known as Jeet Kune Do. Bruce Lee's evaluation of traditional martial arts doctrines is nowadays seen as one of the first steps into popularising the modern style of mixed martial arts.

Early life

Bruce Lee was an American Born Chinese (ABC) born at the Chinese Hospital[2] in San Francisco in 1940 to his Chinese father Lee Hoi-Chuen and Chinese-German[3] mother Grace Lee, where Bruce's parents were on a one-year U.S. tour with the Cantonese Opera Company. Bruce's maternal grandmother was Chinese and his maternal grandfather was German.

Names

Bruce's Cantonese given name, Jun Fan (Chinese: 振藩, Mandarin Pinyin: Zhиnfбn), literally means "invigorate San Francisco."[4] At birth, he was given the English name "Bruce" by Dr. Mary Glover. Mrs. Lee had not initially planned on an American name but deemed it appropriate and concurred with Dr. Glover.[5] Interestingly the name "Bruce" was never used within his family until he enrolled in La Salle College, a Hong Kong high school, at 12 years of age, [4] and then again at another Catholic boys' school, St Francis Xavier's College. There he represented their boxing team in inter-school events.

In addition, Lee initially had a birth name Li Yuen Kam[1] Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ XuÐonjīn) 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. Lee was then renamed Jun Fan. Finally, Lee was also given a feminine name, Sai Fung, literally "small phoenix". It was 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 李小龍, pronounced Lee Siu Lung in Cantonese and Li Xiao Long in Mandarin (Cantonese pengyam: Ley5 Siw2 Long4; Mandarin Pinyin: Lǐ Xiǎolуng) which literally means "Lee Little Dragon." These were first used by the directors of the 1950 Cantonese movies in which Lee performed. It is possible that the name "little dragon" was chosen based on his childhood name "small phoenix". In Chinese tradition, the Chinese dragon and phoenix come in pairs to represent the male and female genders. However, it is more likely that he was called Little Dragon because he was born in the Year of the Dragon in the Hour of the Dragon, according to the Chinese zodiac.

Education and family

At age 14, Bruce Lee entered La Salle College, a high school, under the wing of Brother Henry. Then, he attended St Francis Xavier's College from 1957-1959.

In 1959, Bruce got into a fight with a feared Triad gang member's son. His father became concerned about his safety and Bruce was sent to the United States to live with an old friend of his father's. All he had was $100 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. There he met his future wife Linda Emery.

Bruce and Linda married in 1964 and had two children together, Brandon Lee (born 1965) and Shannon Lee (born 1969). Brandon, an actor like his father, died on a movie set while filming The Crow on March 31, 1993.

Early acting career

A few credits short of graduation, Lee headed to San Francisco and then to Hollywood.

In 1964 at a demonstration in Long Beach, California, the soon-to-be-famous Bruce Lee met karate black belt champion Chuck Norris. In 1972, Lee later induced Norris to portray one of his opponents in Return of the Dragon, also known as Way of the Dragon, in a famous Colosseum fight scene regarded by many as one of the best martial arts fights 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 used filmmaking to demonstrate his martial arts fighting techniques and theories.

He had created the character idea for the role of Kwai-Chang-Caine for the TV Series Kung Fu, but the role eventually went to David Carradine instead.

He also appeared in the film Marlowe in 1969 and a few episodes of the TV series Longstreet in 1971.

Martial arts training and development

Tai Chi Chuan

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-chi. 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.

Hung Gar

In between the learning of Tai Chi and Wing Chun, Lee also learned bits and pieces of