Original subtitles

- Brandon Lee is the son of Bruce Lee,

who was a Chinese-American kung fu star.

Brandon was on the cusp of superstardom.

- Brandon was shooting "The Crow"

in which he starred as an undead rock star.

- Final scene in "The Crow," action.

He pulls the trigger, the blank fires.

- Let me say, first of all, I don't think anybody

should ever get hurt on a film set.

I mean, I'm a professional.

The stunt men are professionals.

That's what movie magic is all about.

- He's actually been shot.

- The medical examiner is actually stunned

to find a .44 caliber bullet lodged near Brandon's spine.

- How did that bullet get there? - Is it nefarious?

Is this potentially a criminal act?

Is this just straight up negligence

leading to an accidental death?

- Brandon Lee's death was classified as an accident.

But a lot of his fans believe there's more to the story.

- How does somebody get shot and killed on a movie set

with all these safety protocols in place?

The theory is that the Triads loaded that weapon

that shot Brandon Lee.

When you look back on it, in hindsight,

it's like, wow, the set was really cursed.

- 911 emergency.

- The official narrative doesn't tell the whole story.

- But you really have to look at everything.

Do you still have to go down that rabbit hole,

still have to go down that path.

- When a celebrity dies, the search for answers

moves online and the truth may be one click away.

In 1993, Actor Brendan Lee is just coming

into his own in Hollywood,

and for the first time stepping out from

under the shadow of his legendary father,

action movie icon Bruce Lee.

For 28-year-old Brandon, acting is in his blood.

But it's not until May of that year

that he finally gets his big break.

- My name is Bridget Baiss, and I am a journalist.

I'm also the author of "The Crow:

The Story Behind the Film."

In '93, he was cast in his dream role, "The Crow."

Brandon saw this as his opportunity

to break into Hollywood as a leading man with a project

could be really groundbreaking.

And he was very excited about making a movie

that would be showcasing his acting talent.

- But with only a week left of filming,

Brandon's career is cut short

when he is accidentally killed on set.

- Approximately 9:00 A.M. this morning,

an autopsy was performed on the body of actor Brandon Lee

at Onslow Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

The detectives are proceeding with the investigation.

- And while the investigation begins, friends and family

are left scrambling to figure out what really happened,

how a life so full of promise could end so abruptly.

- Brandon Lee was the son of martial artist and film actor

and also martial arts guru, in a sense,

Bruce Lee.

Brandon's father, Bruce, tragically died

while making a movie in Hong Kong

when he was just eight.

When he was were pre-teen,

he went to the same martial arts school

that his father started in Los Angeles.

He was there being taught by people

who had worked with his father,

seeing pictures of his father on the walls.

One of his early teachers said it was...

It was really traumatic for him.

- But while Brandon Lee yearns to be his own person,

his martial arts skills and his movie star looks

make him a natural to pick up where his father left off.

- Brandon started his career, actually,

in a Hong Kong film "Legacy of Rage."

It was largely a martial arts role,

but that he saw as a way to start in films.

And then shortly after that, he did

"Showdown in Little Tokyo" with Dolph Lundgren.

- Then in 1993, Brandon lands his first leading role

in the film adaptation of the already

wildly popular graphic novel "The Crow."

- It was an exceptional film made in exceptional ways.

Equally exceptional, I think,

is all of the sequence of events,

many of them innocuous and unrelated,

that culminated in the tragedy of Brandon Lee's death.

- Less than 24 hours after his death,

an official autopsy is released.

The cause of death is listed as a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

But now, 30 years later,

questions about what really happened that fatal day

on the set of "The Crow" still remain.

- Even though Brandon Lee's death occurred before the Internet

was really a thing,

it resurfaced in a big way after the fatal shooting

on the set of "Rust" involving Alec Baldwin.

- In October 2021,

a prop gun used by Baldwin misfired,

killing the film's cinematographer

and injuring the director.

- A ton of people dove into that story

and came up with Brandon Lee's

mysterious death decades before.

That set off a whole new round of conspiracy theories.

My name is Justin Ling.

I'm an investigative journalist.

I worked for "Foreign Policy," "The Guardian," Wired,"

a whole bunch of major publications

covering misinformation,

national security, conspiracy theories,

and a whole bunch of other stuff.

- There's a lot of talk on the Internet.

It's not so much chatter in the sense, like,

it's not happening in between two users on some Web forum.

It's it's happening on, like, conspiracy blogs.

It's happening in books that people have written.

My name is Deanna Thompson.

I have a degree in information technology.

I've been in the tech world for over 20 years.

I am an analyst by day and a Web sleuth by night.

I have this, like, neurodivergent quests

for fairness and justice.

Online, people are investigating the possibility

that Brandon's death was a mafia hit.

They're also looking at the idea that there was

a Lee family curse that has been plaguing

the Lee family for generations.

- Generational curse or not,

it's clear that something very bad

went down on the set that day.

A lot of people look at this and say,

how could a blank kill someone?

- That question ignites many conspiracies online.

And the deeper the dive, the stranger, and darker they get.

- Some of the theories around Brandon's death

get pretty out there.

Some of the crew members reported seeing ninjas

in the rafters of the studio immediately prior to his death.

Robert Lee, Bruce's brother,

actually told The Washington Post in 1993

that, "I don't know if our family is curse,

but I'm seriously starting to think about it.

It seems like a never ending story."

One of the best ways to separate good information

from total nonsense is to look

at who's actually making the claims.

Are they an expert?

Do they have a stake in the story?

Do they even have any knowledge what they're talking about?

Do they have the evidence, the actual proof

to back up their claims?

And if no, go check out somebody who actually does know

what they're talking about.

Do they agree or are they calling it bullshit?

I've been digging into this and there are definitely

some red flags here.

There has got to be more to this story

than what's on the official narrative.

- It's clear just from the outset

that there were safety violations

that went on in terms of this weapon.

I teach forensics in criminal justice at the university level.

I head up our university's volunteer cold case team,

and I'm a true crime author.

Inevitably, because I was in the Army,

I was trained on various firearms through the years.

- The crew is preparing for the key scene in the film

when Lee's character is killed

and before resurrecting as The Crow.

- So on March 31, 1993,

Lee is in Wilmington, North Carolina, shooting "The Crow."

That day, Lee was supposed to be shooting a scene

where he walks through a door

and is immediately shot multiple times

by another character played by Michael Massee.

Massee is about 15 feet away with a .44 Magnum.

- They rehearse the scene.

Stunt coordinator came in, okay.

Brandon, you know, rehearsed it a couple of times.

He was going to fall forward after the blank was fired.

Everybody's ready to go.

They call action.

The character of Funboy whips around

when he hears the door open.

- Just like in rehearsal, Michael Massee

raises the gun at Lee and pulls the trigger.

But everyone who was watching noticed

that instead of the choreography they had rehearsed

before Brandon falling forward,

Brandon fell backwards against the wall

and kind of slid down the wall.

- And they initially think he's kind of like joking around.

- Several people told me it felt like an eternity.

- And finally they realize, oh, my God, he's not getting up.

- This was not a prank.

- The medic quickly realized that the he had been penetrated

by some sort of a projectile,

and he asked the costume person who was there.

He said, "Was this intentional?"

And the costume person said, "No."

- Paramedics arrive and rush Lee to hospital

where he undergoes a marathon five-hour surgery

to try and repair the internal damage

that's been caused by the accidental misfire of the gun.

- Ambulance got there, they pumped him

full of fluids and they gave him blood.

Enough for, like, five people in the course

of the different surgeries to try to stop the bleeding.

- But it's too late.

At 1:03 P.M. on March 31, 1993,

Brandon Lee is pronounced dead at the age of 28.

- It appears that Wilmington police seized the footage

and that they introduced that into evidence.

- I'm Dr. Michael Arntfield. I'm a professor

and criminologist at Western University

where I founded the Cold Case Society.

As an investigator, in terms of narrowing down

what exactly happened,

you're going to have to consult a firearms expert

who can explain how this could happen to determine

whether this was a criminal act

or whether it's just a series of tragic events.

- The Hanover County medical examiner, Leon Andrews,

conducted an autopsy on Brandon Lee's body,

and he was actually stunned to find a .44 caliber bullet

lodged near Brandon's spine.

- There were blanks in that gun. How could there be a bullet?

Those were 100% blanks for sure.

- The autopsy concluded that Lee died of a single gunshot

wound to the abdomen.

When they performed the autopsy,

they actually found a piece of the bullet

lodged in one of his vertebrae in his spine.

- The twist to this theory,

there were several people in the chain of events

who had an effect on the outcome and on Brendan's death.

- What chance in a billion

can it be that all of the mistakes

made could have culminated in this tragic accident

if somebody had just done one little thing different?

- Brandon's death sent shockwaves through the film industry.

How does somebody get shot and killed on a movie set

with all these safety protocols in place?

- And if some of these theories are correct,

then this was a planned hit.

- If investigators reasonably thought

that this was an act of foul play,

they would have to ask who gains from this.

Who would want Mr. Lee dead?

- "The Crow" was supposed to be the triumphant launch

of Brandon Lee's career.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't live to see its release.

On March 31, 1993, Brandon Lee dies on set.

Within hours of his death, fans worldwide start to question

how a man shot with a blank round could die.

Speculation begins to spread that his death

was not an accident, but a carefully

orchestrated conspiracy to commit murder.

- If some of these theories are correct

and this was a planned hit,

someone did a very good job of covering it up.

- If investigators reasonably thought

that this was an act of foul play,

they would have to ask who gains from this.

Who would want Mr. Lee dead?

- One of the most popular theories in online chat rooms

is that both Brandon and his dad,

Bruce, were targeted by Triads, the Chinese mafia.

- I know there's rumors that from the rafters

there was a Chinese mafia trying to get rid of him

because there was a grudge because of his father.

- And that sent me down this huge rabbit hole of, okay,

was Bruce actually in danger in some way?

The theory is that Bruce Lee,

because the autopsy said died for misadventure,

was secretly murdered by the Triads.

- The Triads are an organized crime syndicate

who have ties to the film and entertainment

industry in Hong Kong.

- My name is Jay Albanese.

I am a criminologist.

I study organized crime and corruption.

It's been speculated that Bruce Lee's death

was due to relationships with the Triads that had gone bad.

There are those who believe that Bruce Lee's transition

from making films in Asia for an Asian audience

and making money for people there

that that revenue stream would end

once Bruce Lee's career started taking off

and Hollywood was pursuing him to make Hollywood movies

and that this was a motive behind his death.

- Organized crime in China

is often referred to as the Chinese triad,

but triad is more of just like an umbrella term

for organized crime in general.

It's not just one specific group.

Word is that members of organized crime syndicates

had infiltrated the Hong Kong film industry

and were using it to launder money.

- You know, they kind of control the game in China

when somebody is doing a production in China.

I'm imagining like, you know, you would have to pay the Triads

a fee to film in certain locations

and they would provide security of some,

you know, typical Mafioso stuff, right?

What if there are some sort of, like,

Chinese kind of, like, revenge rule, right?

Like, we're going to kill you

and all of the sons that come after you.

- The Triads have a notorious and bloody history

within the Hong Kong film industry.

They are known to threaten, kidnap,

torture and murder producers

and actors who do not comply with their extortion demands.

- Bruce Lee reportedly wanted no part of that activity

and wanted no connection to it.

So the theory goes that Chinese organized crime

actually had him murdered.

- In 1973, Bruce Lee mysteriously died.

And back then, there was speculation that he was killed.

And people looked at his mistress

and people harassed her for years and years to come.

But then the thing that really took off

was that he was killed by the Chinese mafia.

Fast forward to Brandon Lee.

So, Brandon Lee also filmed movies in Hong Kong,

so that production would have been, you know,

giving money to the Triads as part of filming in Hong Kong.

Well, Brandon also was filming in America

and doing things in America.

- And therefore maybe the Chinese organized crime syndicate

had Brandon murdered as well.

- So the theory is that because they had been filming for

so many days in a row and the crew was just so tired...

that the Triads loaded that weapon with a real bullet

that shot Brandon Lee.

- When you pass away young unexpectedly,

there's this mystique around it.

- Bruce Lee actually made a comment at some point

that he didn't think Brandon was going to live very long,

that he actually thought he would die at a young age.

So did he have some sort of premonition?

And if so, where did that come from and why?

I mean, it's a bizarre coincidence.

- "The Crow" was said to be Brandon Lee's breakout role,

the kind that turns a relatively unknown actor

into a household name.

But during filming, Lee mysteriously meets

his character's fate when he dies

by a gunshot wound to the stomach.

As online investigators look into the case,

the story about a Lee family curse rears its head

and is spread across all forms of media,

including blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels.

- All you have to do is plug in how did Brandon Lee

die in Google,

you're going to find a lot of people speculating

that the entire family has been visited by a curse

that has killed both father and son.

So the origin of this idea that the Lee family was cursed

starts with Brandon's grandmother, Bruce Lee's mom.

She lost a child not long after his birth

for reasons that remain unclear.

It convinced her that the males in her family were cursed.

Bruce Lee's mother was so convinced of this curse

that she started referring to him as Bruce Xi Feng,

meaning little Phoenix,

the idea being that giving him a feminine name

might help him escape that curse.

- So, Bruce Lee in 1973 died, like, rather suddenly.

It's reported that he died from a drug allergy.

- Brandon was just eight years old when his dad died,

and there's actually a lot of speculation

surrounding Bruce Lee's death,

even though it's been decades since then.

But the official line is that Bruce Lee died

because he had this pressure that built up on his brain.

- The problem is that the medical examiner said he died

due to misadventure.

So that led to speculation

on what happened to Bruce Lee.

- Of course, when an icon dies before their time,

the conspiracy theories will endure long after they are gone.

Brandon's heartbreaking death

and the unexpected death of his father 20 years

earlier helped cement the idea of a Lee family curse.

- The conspiracy theories have been around since Bruce Lee died

while making a movie in China.

- There's a website called Unexplained Mysteries,

and this website is a bunch of conspiracy theories

about all kinds of different things.

They talk about the similarities

between Bruce Lee's death and Brandon Lee's death

and why there's no way it's a coincidence, alright?

- For one, they were both born in the Year of the Dragon.

They both died relatively young.

Brandon in his late 20s, Bruce in his early 30s.

- When you pass away young unexpectedly,

there's this mystique around it.

- Supposedly, Bruce Lee even predicted his own death,

claiming that he would only live to be half his father's age.

His father died at 64 and Bruce Lee died at 32.

- Bruce Lee actually made a comment at some point

that he didn't think Brandon was going to live very long,

that he actually thought he would die at a young age.

So, did he have some sort of premonition?

And if so, where did that come from and why?

- In his biopic, there's even a scene

where his son Brandon is being chased by a demonic spirit.

- I think some of the parallels that exist

between Bruce Lee's death and Brandon Lee's death

probably hold people's attention to two tragedies in one family.

- The most astonishing parallel

is within a scene from Bruce's final film.

- So in the fall of 1972, Bruce Lee was shooting the movie

that he wrote, directed and starred in

he called a "Game of Death."

- Like, there's a scene where Bruce Lee's character

is filming a movie.

And in the movie he's filming, his character

accidently get shot for real on set.

So it's like foretelling what's going to happen to his son.

- And the irony is that Bruce Lee's character

in that movie is actually an actor on a set

and is supposed to get shot, but shot with blanks.

The storyline of the movie is that one of those blanks

actually gets replaced with a life bullet

and he gets shot and killed for real on the set.

- Conspiracy theorists believe it is not just

an eerie coincidence.

Instead, the scene is a premonition

that Brandon Lee's death was destined to happen

at the hands of the Lee family curse.

Many people have picked up on the fact

that one of Bruce Lee's movies that he himself wrote

became basically a predictor of how his son would die.

- It's incredibly ironic looking back on that movie.

I mean, it's a bizarre coincidence.

- Those who believe in things like demonic curses

tend to also be on the lookout for really ominous coincidences

or eerie foreshadowing

or even premonitions about one's own death.

So all of this stuff really adds to the idea that there

is something supernatural about the Lees' deaths.

- In "The Crow," Brandon plays Eric Draven,

a man who was murdered, but comes back to life to avenge

the brutal killing of his fiancée.

- This scene is like the pivotal scene

where the character is killed in the beginning of the movie

and then he's resurrected as The Crow

and the rest of the plot unfolds.

- Sadly, Brandon Lee does not resurrect like his character

in the film, but the intrigue

surrounding his death lives on and continues to fascinate.

- Given that "The Crow" is such a cult classic,

there's many people who are still obsessed

with how Brenda Lee died.

- And Brandon Lee is actually shot when his character is shot.

When you add up those pieces, it's remarkable.

- After Lee's passing, the supernatural storyline

in the film bleeds into conspiracy theories online

about the making of the movie.

As the production of "The Crow" comes under scrutiny,

more tales of bad omens come to light.

And while some theories point to a family curse,

others believe the film itself is cursed.

- "The Crow" started pre-production in Los Angeles,

and they did get a phone call to the production offices

saying that you should not make this movie, this anonymous call.

This this will be very, very bad.

- Then the biggest hurricane to hit North Carolina

in years rips through the set.

- Everybody's evacuated.

People have to go away from the beach.

Roofs are coming off houses and everything

they had set up in the cement factory

was just decimated

and then they had to set up again.

So that was a rough, rough, rough evening.

- The anonymous phone call starts to make sense, and theories

about the film set itself being coerced begin to take hold.

- One of the producers on the film

recounted a story to me that, again, took on significance.

The producer was sitting in his office

and Brandon Lee waved to him

and he said he was on the phone talking to somebody

and he said, "It's weird.

Brandon still has several days left on the set,

but he just waved at me.

It seemed like he was saying goodbye."

- I think what's interesting with Brandon Lee's death

is the number of things that had to go wrong on set that day

in order for that gun to fire and shoot and kill the star.

- The set of "The Crow" is undeniably

haunted by misfortune.

But as Internet investigators examine the days and weeks

leading up to the shooting,

it becomes increasingly clear that Brandon Lee's death

is less mystery and more incompetence.

- When I first started learning more about Brandon's case,

it became immediately apparent

that there was negligence involved in his death.

- I think what's interesting about Brandon Lee's death

is the number of things that had to go wrong on set that day

in order for that gun to fire and shoot and kill the star.

A lot of people looking at this would ask,

how can a blank kill someone?

- So while some theories online point to a Lee family curse,

rumors about several mishaps on the set of "The Crow"

start to come to light.

- From the very beginning, "The Crow" seemed

plagued by bad luck.

- On the first day of filming, one of the crew got second

and third degree burns after a live wire caught fire.

- A carpenter on the backlot of Krakow Studios

was up on a cherry picker right next to power lines,

and sadly, he was lit on fire and he was seriously burned.

- By day three, prop trucks randomly combusted.

One stunt man fell and broke several of his ribs.

Another point a crew member got so irate

that he drove his car through part of the soundstage.

One crew member would later say that nothing ever seemed to go

right when they were shooting "The Crow."

On top of just the mishaps during filming,

"The Crow" was also way behind schedule and way over budget.

- People were getting sick left and right

because they were shooting long hours.

They were working nights, and it was extremely cold.

- While filming a scene where Brandon Lee's character crashes

through the door of a pawnshop,

the actor suffered several cuts on his body from the prop glass.

- You look back on it in hindsight, it's like,

wow, this set was really cursed.

- But many cyber sleuths believe it goes beyond any

kind of curse, and the root cause of the issues

on set comes down to the production.

- So they're shooting 50 days in a row.

The crew at this point,

they have eight days left of shooting.

- The script calls for a prop gun

and a single blank to be fired.

On a movie set, the person responsible

for gun safety is called an armorer.

- My name is Dave Brown, and I'm a professional

firearms instructor.

And also in the film industry,

I'm what we call it in armorer.

An armorer is the person on film

sets who handles the firearms.

They're the ones who hand the firearm

directly to the cast member.

But the most important job of the armorer

is the safety of the set.

There's never live ammunition on set.

It's not allowed. It just simply wouldn't exist.

- The first mistake, in my opinion,

that was made on the set of "The Crow"

is that live ammo was introduced to the set.

- At one point, a stunt coordinator discovered

a box of .44 Magnum ammunition on set,

and apparently the golden rule of filming is never,

ever have live ammunition on set.

- The weapons expert saw this box of live ammo

and he immediately confiscated it

and put it in the trunk of his car

where the box stayed for the next two weeks.

- In another shocking breach of safety protocol,

the crew also decide to make their own dummy cartridges.

- Mistake number two, the crew took the live rounds

and they modified them.

- They simply went to a gun store.

They bought a box of cartridges

and they found a way to knock out the bullet.

- The crew on set believe that modifying live bullets

by knocking out the gunpowder is enough to create a safe round.

- This is what we call a bullet puller.

It simply works off the inertia.

Hit it hard, it will cause the bullet

to fly out the end of the case.

And here is what we have, an empty case.

A bullet and gunpowder

because they obviously don't need the gunpowder.

The gunpowder would have simply been discarded.

Insert the bullet back into the case.

And now they have what they think is a dummy cartridge.

- So in theory, it's safe because there's no gunpowder

that will ignite and create the gases

that push the bullet down the barrel of the gun.

- What they don't realize is that the primer is still in place,

the primer is still intact and the primer is still live.

- So because the primer still active,

there's not going to be a sound because there's no gunpowder

but there is going to be a spark,

and that spark is going to propel

whatever bullet is in that chamber forward.

- So now they're inserting what they think is a dummy cartridge,

six of them into all the chambers.

Somebody said, I'm making my own dummy cartridge.

I would just say, "Thank you very much for coming.

Please go home.

I don't want you anywhere near my set."

- Both dummy cartridges and blanks were used

during the making of "The Crow."

- It's very important that that expert can tell the difference

between a blank, a dummy cartridge and live ammunition.

A blank is a case that contains gunpowder

designed to create a big, bright flash at the end of the barrel.

A dummy cartridge is sort of the opposite.

It's a case that has a bullet in the end,

but the case itself is completely empty of gunpowder.

But that primer also has to be either missing entirely,

or you're going to have a fake primer in the back,

something that's completely inert.

- With a live primer still attached.

The crew has actually created an armed cartridge,

another in a series of mistakes made on set

that ultimately lead to tragedy.

- So about two weeks prior to Lee's death,

they accidentally lodged one of the bullets inside the barrel.

- They pull out the same firearm, load the blank in it,

hand it to the actor and say

point it directly at Brandon Lee.

They could have pointed that firearm a good three

or four feet off to the side of Brandon Lee.

Even one foot, even six inches, would have saved his life.

- Immediately following Lee's death,

conspiracies began to circulate.

But as police investigate,

it becomes apparent that the real cause

is a series of preventable mistakes made on set.

- The tragedy of Brandon Lee started two weeks

before the shot was actually fired,

and it began with the fact

that they were sending the firearms expert home.

- It appears that the reason the weapons expert was sent home

early is because the production wasn't planning to film

the scene of Brandon walking through the door with

and getting shot by the intruder.

- Actors and the production staff often told me

that things did change.

Yes, there was a script, but it was evolving.

Originally, the script had called for him to be stabbed.

- And then they changed their mind.

They decided, let's use the revolver,

let's fire a gunshot.

- The director wanted the full flash bang

so that there's enough power to get a really loud

and bright flash from the barrel of the gun.

- So they had a Smith and Wesson model 2944 Magnum revolver.

And in that particular scene, they wanted to fire the blank,

and he was going to be on camera, as well as the gun

that was firing, well, would all be on camera.

And that was basically the scene.

It was very, very simple scene, one gunshot.

The risk then on the film set itself would be the blanks.

When we're firing blanks, can be potentially

dangerous at very short range.

So one of the things I always tell crew

and I always tell the cast is distance is your friend.

If you need to fire a gunshot at a very close range,

don't have the actor in the scene,

which is by far the most common way of shooting

a blank on a film set.

So, what went wrong during the scene?

Number one, sending the firearms expert home.

Number two, there was a bullet

still in the barrel that nobody could see,

nobody realized was there.

So they should have checked the barrel

for obstructions before they loaded the blank.

That's common, common practice.

And then to me, the number one biggest fatal thing

that they did at the very end

of this long chain of contributing factors

don't point it directly at Brandon Lee.

And they could have pointed that firearm a good three

or four feet off to the side of Brandon Lee.

Even one foot, even six inches would have saved his life.

- After the prop gun was fired,

no one on set knew what had hit him.

- He was supposed to come into his apartment.

There was a couple of people in the apartment

that were attacking, and he was going to come in

with a bag of groceries and he was going to be shot.

- Lee is supposed to activate a squib

inside a grocery bag he's holding.

Now, a squib, in movie parlance,

is basically a small explosive charge

meant to simulate the striking of a bullet.

So the grocery bag was supposed to explode

after he fired the revolver.

- I actually suspect that when Brandon

was taken to the hospital that they initially thought

the damage or the injury was because

of whatever fake explosive was in that grocery bag.

- The investigation was difficult because you're confronted

by a situation in which there's an actor

that's been fatally shot with a real bullet.

So your first initial impression is somebody must have loaded

a live cartridge and fired it at them.

And they were confronted by the fact, well, this is a blank.

How could a blank fatally kill somebody at that distance?

It took months to determine

that chain of events that led to this.

I was talking to some other professional firearms

instructors, and we started comparing notes

on how could this possibly have happened,

knowing live ammunition would never be allowed on set,

knowing that he had been struck by a real bullet.

And we all came to the conclusion that it was

what we call a primer pop.

And we kind of looked at each other and we said,

primer pop, yes.

A primer pop is simply a cartridge

that was incorrectly loaded.

When you pull the trigger,

that firing pin is going to strike that primer.

But the primer has enough energy just in the flame

to push that bullet maybe an inch or two forward.

- So on the set, while they were firing off some of the primers,

the pressure pushed a live bullet

into the barrel of the gun.

- So the bullet would have ended up

completely invisible to everybody.

Hammer it out of there. It's stuck in there so tight.

Now, end of that day, they simply took the firearm,

a different props assistant was unloading it.

They didn't remark on the fact

that now they've got five dummy cartridges

and one empty case because they weren't the person

who loaded it in the first place.

So they thought that was normal, put the firearm away,

didn't clean it, didn't check it.

- Although no one was injured,

the gun was now more dangerous than ever.

- Let's bring this forward two weeks.

They want to do the scene with Brandon Lee

actually being shot with the blank.

So they pull out the same firearm, load the blank in it,

hand it to the actor and say

point it directly at Brandon Lee

when he comes through that door.

- While shooting that scene, the blank

dislodged the very real bullet,

shooting it out of the barrel

and hitting Brandon Lee in the stomach.

- And unfortunately, we have a live bullet in the barrel.

We have a blank in the revolver.

The two connect, and that's ultimately what killed Brandon.

- The bullet struck him with enough force

that ultimately would prove fatal.

He fell down.

The crew didn't realize for the first few seconds

that he'd actually been shot.

This was the watershed event.

This is what caused the film industry to really stop

and take a look at itself and say

we need to be doing things better.

And that's why this was such a significant event

for everybody in the film industry.

30 years later, they're still talking about it.

I was working with an actor named Robin Williams

we're all very familiar with.

On our very last day of working together,

he looked at me and he said,

"Every single time you show me the firearm,

you show me that it's empty,

and you always pull the trigger eight times."

And he said, "There's only six chambers.

Why do you pull the trigger eight times?"

And I said, "The first six trigger pulls,

those six are for you.

The seventh one is for me because I'm a perfectionist,

and the eighth one is for Brandon Lee."

- On March 31, 1993, the onset shooting of Brandon Lee

brings a shocking end to what may have been

a long, promising career.

And while theories of a mafia hit

and curses swirl around the online world,

the answer to what happened seems much more likely

to be rooted in the real world.

- And there is plenty of blame to go around.

- Who's responsible for Brandon Lee's death?

- Here's the thing.

If an organized crime syndicate wants a person dead,

there's a lot less complicated ways to go about it.

Could they have had an infiltrator

that ensured a projectile was left in this weapon

when shot at Brandon?

No... way.

- Let's talk about that Lee family curse.

There's a more likely explanation

for Brandon Lee's death, other than his family is cursed.

Let's start by looking at the movies set.

- Was this an act of sabotage

or is this criminal negligence causing death?

Or is this just straight up negligence

leading to an accidental death?

Is it nefarious?

Is this potentially a criminal act?

Or is it something else?

If this was considered seriously at the time

to be an act of foul play?

I mean, this is tremendously elaborate.

This is like super villain type of stuff.

- I don't understand how somebody could not have cleared that gun

before giving it to Michael Massee.

Somebody hands me a gun.

I am going to check the barrel.

- If you don't follow safety protocols,

if you don't check the weaponry,

if you do have live ammunition on set, someone could die.

And that's what happened.

- The North Carolina D.A. ultimately ruled that he felt

the death was due to negligence and not foul play,

meaning there was no intent on behalf of anybody on the side

to actually kill Brandon, and therefore no criminal

charges were ever brought.

The production company of "The Crow"

was fined $77,000 for workplace violations.

- Two months after shutting down production,

"The Crow" resumes filming.

Lee's fiancée, Eliza Hutton, gives her blessing,

telling the L.A. Times, "Brandon told me that he thought

the film was his finest performance yet.

I know he would have wanted it to be completed."

- Producers ultimately chose to finish the film "The Crow,"

but that decision was obviously controversial.

- And there was a lot of mixed feelings from the cast and crew.

You know, it was a tragedy, but not too long after,

there was a consensus that they wanted to finish the film.

They decided that it would be an homage

to Brandon's performance,

which was so charismatic, so brilliant.

So he poured so much of his heart,

and all of them had poured it into creating this film.

They thought he would want it to be finished.

- There were a handful of scenes that still needed to be shot

after Brandon Lee passed.

- They came back and shot the rest of it

with the help of some very early CGI.

- They all were absolutely gung-ho,

and the film ended up being released.

- The film did get released,

but only after another incident almost doomed it again.

- In January 1994, "The Crow" was finally completed.

All that was left was for the laboratory

to make the first print.

It just so happens the same day they were supposed to do that

was the infamous Northridge earthquake.

It shook Los Angeles at 6.2 on the Richter scale

and actually destroyed that first print of "The Crow."

Now, they managed to salvage the movie,

but it was very close to destroying the movie for good.

- Three decades, nearly after the production in '93,

and there's still a fascination with "The Crow," the movie,

not only for the tragic accident

that happened on the set with Brandon Lee,

but because the film itself was stylistically remarkable

and the first one of its kind.

- The film did very well.

And even today, it's kind of like a cult classic.

- There's been several sequels,

but the original film to this point

has grossed over $100 million.

It's an evergreen classic.

The character The Crow

has continued to inspire new generations.

- I think that is part of the legacy of "The Crow"

is that Brandon, this guy was like on the cusp of stardom.

You see how eloquent he speaks and how handsome he is

and how excited he was to be doing what he was doing

and how much he loved his dad and whatnot.

He was like on the cusp of stardom.

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