Original subtitles

Bruce Lee faces the real dilemma.

He's in the verge of a stardom in the United States with a projected TV series

on the horizon, but he's just achieved superstardom.

He's a film actor here in Hong Kong, so what does he choose?

The East or the West?

It's a kind of problem that most budding movie actors would welcome.

It's the Pierre Burton Show, the program that

comes to you from the major capitals of the world.

This edition comes to you from Hong Kong.

And Pierre's guest is the man who taught karate judo and Chinese boxing to James

Garner, Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, and James Coburn.

The newest Mandarin superstar known in the West for his appearances in Batman,

The Green Hornet, Iron Side, and Long Street.

His name is Bruce Lee, and he doesn't even speak Mandarin.

And here's Pierre.

Well, how can you play in the Mandarin movies if you don't even speak Mandarin?

How do you do that?

Well, first of all, I speak only Cantonese.

So, I mean, there is quite a different, as far as pronunciation and things like that.

So somebody else's voice is used, right?

Definitely.

You just make the words that...

Does that sound strange when you go to the movies, especially in Hong Kong,

in your own town, and you see yourself with somebody else's voice?

Well, not really, you see, because most of the

Mandarin picture done here are dubbed anyway.

They dubbed anyway.

Anyway, I mean, disregard.

I mean, they shoot without sound.

So it doesn't make any difference.

Ellipse never quite make the right words to me.

Well, that's where the difficulty lies, you see.

I mean, in order to, because the Cantonese have a different

way of saying things, you know, different from the Mandarin.

Yeah.

So I have to find something similar to that and keep a kind of feeling going

behind that, something that matching the Mandarin deal.

Like the silent complicated.

Like the old silent days.

But I gather in the movies made here, the dialogue is pretty stilted anyway.

Yeah, I agree with you.

I mean, see, to me, a motion picture is motion.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, you got to keep the dialogue down to the minimum.

Did you go to, did you look at many Mandarin

movies before you started playing the first one?

Yes, yes.

What did you think of them when you saw them?

Quality-wise, I mean, I have to admit that it's not quite up to the standard.

However, it is growing and it is getting higher and higher and

going to toward that standard than what I would term quality.

They say the secret of your success in that movie, The

Big Boss, which is such a success, you're in rocketed.

As an expert in the various martial arts in China, what did you think of the

fighting that you saw in the movies that you studied before you became a star?

Well, I mean, definitely in the beginning, I had no intention whatsoever that what I

was practicing and what I'm still practicing now would lead to this, to begin with.

But martial art has a very, very deep meaning, as far as my life is concerned,

because as an actor, as a martial artist, as a human

being, all these I have learned from martial art.

Maybe for our audience who doesn't know what it means,

you might explain exactly what you mean by martial art.

Martial art includes all the combative arts like kalate or karate, judo,

Chinese gung fu or Chinese boxing, whatever you call it.

All those, you see like aikido, kori, I can go on and on and on,

but it's a combative form of fighting.

I mean, some of them became sport, but some of them are still not.

I mean, they used, for instance, kicking to the groin,

chapping fingers at the eyes and things like that.

No wonder you're successful in it.

Chinese movies are full of this kind of action.

Anyway, they needed a guy like you could... Firelands, man.

So you didn't have to use a double when you moved into the bush of the world here.

You did it all yourself.

Can you break five or six pieces of wood in your hand or your foot?

I'll probably break my hand in foot.

But tell me a little bit, you set up a school in Hollywood, didn't you,

for people like James Garner and Steve McQueen and the others?

Yes.

Why would they want to learn Chinese martial arts because of a movie role?

Not really.

Most of them, you see, to me, at least the way that, I mean, when I teach it,

all type of knowledge ultimately means self-knowledge.

So, therefore, they are coming in to, I mean, and ask me to teach them not so

much of how to defend themselves or how to do somebody in.

Rather, they want to learn to express themselves through some movement,

be it anger, be it determination or whatsoever.

So, in other words, what I'm saying, therefore, is that he is paying me to show

him in combative form the art of expressing the human body.

Which is acting, in a sense, isn't it?

Well, it would be useful too for an actor to help out.

I mean, it might sound too philosophical, but it's unacting, acting or acting,

unacting, if you... You've lost me.

I have, Ron.

So, what I'm saying, actually, you see, I mean, it's a combination of both.

I mean, here it is the natural instinct and here is control.

You are to combine the two in harmony.

Not if you have one to the extreme, you will be very unscientific.

If you have another to the extreme, you become all of

a sudden a mechanical man, no longer a human being.

So, it is a successful combination of both.

So, therefore, it is not only... I mean, so,

therefore, it's not pure naturalness or unnaturalness.

The ideal is unnatural naturalness or natural unnaturalness.

Ying Yang, eh?

Right, man.

That's it.

Yeah, one of your students, James Coburn, played in a

movie called Arm and the Flint, in which he used karate.

Does that what he learned from you?

He learned it after... Oh, he went deep.

Oh, yeah.

After he played in the Arm, man.

Right, right.

You see, actually, I do not teach, you know,

karate because I do not believe in styles anymore.

I mean, I do not believe that there is such thing as, like, Chinese way of

fighting, or the Japanese way of fighting, or whatever way of fighting.

Because unless human beings have three arms and four

legs, we will have a different form of fighting.

But basically, we have only two hands and two feet.

So, styles tends to not only separate men, you know, because they have their own

doctrines, and then the doctrine became the gospel

truth, you know, that you cannot change, you know.

But if you do not have styles, if you just say, well, here I am,

you know, as a human being, how can I express myself totally and completely?

Now, that way you won't create a style, because style is a crystallization, you know.

I mean, that way it's a process of continuing growth.

You talk about Chinese boxing.

How does it differ from, say, our kind of boxing?

Well, first we use the feet.

And then we use the elbow.

And... You use the thumb.

You name it, man.

We use it all.

You have to, you see, because, I mean, that is the expression of the human body.

I mean, everything.

I mean, you know, not just a hand.

And when you're talking about combat, well, I mean, if it is a sport,

now you're talking about some else.

You have regulations, you have rules.

But when you're talking about fighting, as it is... With no rules.

With no rules.

Real fighting.

Well, then, baby, you better train every part of your body.

And when you do punch, now, I'm leaning forward a

little bit, hoping not to hurt any kind of angle.

I mean, you've got to put the whole hip into it, and snap it, and get all your

energy in there, and make this into a weapon.

I don't want to tangle you on any dark angle.

You do that right now.

You came at me pretty fast there.

What is the difference between Chinese boxing and what we see these young men

doing at 8 o'clock every morning on the rooftops?

The park's called Shadow Boxing, which they're always...

Well, actually, you see, that is part of Chinese boxing.

There are so many schools.

Everybody here seems to be, you know, going like this all the time.

Well, that's good.

I mean, I mean, I'm very glad.

I'm very glad to see that.

Because at least somebody is caring for their own body, right?

I mean, that's a good sign.

Well, it's a kind of a slow form of exercise, which is called Tai Tichuan.

I'm speaking Mandarin just now.

Cantonese, Tai Gekun.

And it's more of an exercise for the elderly, not so much for the young.

Give me a demonstration.

Show me.

Can you do it a little bit of it?

And you push it out, but all the time, you are keeping the continuity going.

Fending, stretching, everything.

You know, suppose, you know, I mean, you just keep it moving.

That's like a valid answer there.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, to them, you see, the idea is running water never grows stale.

So you've got to just keep on flowing.

Of all your students, famous, James Garner, Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin,

James Copern, Roman Polanski, which was the best, who adapted

the best to this oriental form of exercise and defense?

Well, depending, okay.

Now as a fighter, Steve McQueen, now he is good in that department because

that son of a gun got the toughness in him.

You see it on the screen.

I mean, he would say, all right, baby, here I am, and he'll do it.

Now, James Coburn is a peace-loving man.

I met him.

Right?

I mean, he's really, really nice.

I mean, super mellow and all that.

You know, I mean, now he appreciates the philosophical part of it.

Therefore, his understanding of it is deeper than Steve.

So it's really hard to say.

You see what I'm saying now?

I see.

I mean, it's different.

So that's, I mean, depending on what you see in it, interesting that we don't,

in our world, and heaven since the days of the Greeks who did combine philosophy and

art with sport, but quite clearly the oriental

attitudes of the three are facets of the same things.

Man, listen, you see, really, to me, okay?

To me.

Ultimately, martial art means honestly expressing yourself.

Now, it is very difficult to do.

I mean, it is easy for me to put on a show and be cocky and be flooded with a cocky

feeling and then feel like pretty cool and all that.

Oh, I can make all kinds of foamy things.

You see what I mean?

Blinded by it.

Oh, I can show you some really fancy movement.

But to express oneself honestly, not lying to

oneself and to express myself honestly, not that.

My friend is very hard to do and you have to train.

You have to keep your reflexes so that when you want it, it's there.

When you want to move, you're moving.

And when you move, you are determined to move,

not taking one inch, not anything less than that.

If I want to punch, I'm going to do it, man.

And I'm going to do it, you see.

So I mean, so that is the type of thing you have to train yourself into it.

To become one with the... you think?

It is very unwester in this attitude.

I want to ask you about your movie and TV career.

But first, we'll take a break.

And I'll be back with Bruce Lee.

I've been talking to Bruce Lee mainly about the Chinese martial arts,

which include things like Chinese boxing, karate and

judo, which is what he taught when he was in Hollywood.

After he left the University of Washington, where he

studied of all things philosophy, if you can believe that.

He did.

But that, perhaps you understand why he, the two

go together from the first half of this program.

And you can perhaps understand how he got into films and you knew a lot of actors.

But I'm told that you got the job on the Green Hornet, where you played Cato the

chauffeur, mainly because you're the only Chinese-looking guy who could pronounce

the name of the leading character, Brit Street.

I made that as a joke, of course.

And it's a heck of a name, man.

I mean, every time I said it, at that time, I was super conscious.

I mean, really, you know, that's another interesting thing, huh?

Let's say if you learn to speak Chinese.

Yeah.

I mean, it's very, I mean, it's not difficult to learn and speak the word.

The hard thing, the difficult thing, it's behind what is the meaning,

what brought on the expression and feelings behind those words.

Like, when I first arrived in the United States, and I look at a Caucasian,

and I really would not know whether he was putting me on.

Or is it really angry?

Because, because we have different way of reacting to it.

See, those are the difficult things, you see.

It's almost as if you came upon a strange race

where a smile didn't mean what it does to us.

In fact, a smile doesn't always mean the same, does it?

Tell me about the break when you played in Long Street.

I must tell the audience that Bruce Lee had a bit

part or a supporting role in the Long Street series.

And this had an enormous effect on the audience.

What was it?

Well, you see, the title of that particular episode of

Long Street is called The Way of the Intercepting Fist.

Now, I think the successful ingredient in it was because I was being Bruce Lee.

Myself, right.

And did that part just express myself, like

I say, honestly express myself at that time.

And because of that, I brought favorable mentioning in New York time, which says

the Chinaman, who incidentally came off quite convincingly enough to earn himself

a television series and so on and so on and so forth.

Can you remember the lines by Sterling Siliphant to the key lines?

He's one of my students, you know.

Was he two?

Yes.

But you read, there were some lines that expressed your philosophy.

I don't know if you remember them at all, don't you?

Oh, I remember that.

That's here.

This is what it is, okay?

You're talking to Long Street played by James Francisco.

I said, empty your mind.

Be formless.

Shameless.

Like water.

Now you put water into a cup.

It becomes the cup.

You put water into a bottle.

It becomes the bottle.

You put it in a teapot.

It becomes the teapot.

Now water can flow or it can crash.

Be water, my friend.

Like that.

I see.

I get the idea.

I get the power behind it.

So now two things have happened.

First, there's a pretty good chance that you'll get a TV

series in the States called the Warriors in which you use what?

The martial arts in a western setting?

That was the original idea now.

Paramount.

You know, I did Long Street for Paramount.

And Paramount wants me to be in a television series.

On the other hand, Warner Brothers wants me to be in another one.

But both of them, I think, they want me to be in a modernized type of a thing.

And they think that western idea is out, which is I want.

You want to do the western?

And then the western one specifies all these punching

and kicking environment except in the period of the west.

I mean, in now a day, you don't go around on

the street kicking people or punching people.

Because if you do.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't care how good you are.

But this is true also of the Chinese dramas, which are mainly costume dramas.

They're all full of blood and gore over here.

Oh, you mean here?

Yeah.

Well, unfortunately, you see, I hope that the picture

I am in would either explain why the violence was done.

Whether right or wrong or whatnot.

But unfortunately, pictures, most of them are

done mainly just for the sake of violence.

You know what I mean?

Like, you know, fighting for 30 minutes gets stabbed.

Well, I'm fascinated.

Let me give you your microphone back.

I'm fascinated that you came back.

I am a martial artist.

You came back to Hong Kong on the verge of success in Hollywood and full of it.

And suddenly, on the strength of one picture, you become a superstar.

What he knows you, you have to change your phone number.

You get mobbed in the streets.

Now, what are you going to do?

Are you going to be able to live in both worlds?

Are you going to be a superstar here or one of the states or both?

Well, let me say this.

First of all, the word superstar really turned me off.

And I'll tell you why.

Because the word star, man, is an illusion.

It's something what the public calls you.

You should look upon oneself as an actor, man.

I mean, you would be very pleased if somebody says, hey, man, you are a super actor.

It is much better than superstar.

You've got to admit that you are a superstar.

If you're going to give me the truth.

I'm honestly saying this.

Yes, I have been very successful.

But I think the word star is... I do not look upon myself as a star.

I really don't believe me, man, when I say it.

I mean, I'm not saying it because... What are you going to do?

Let's get back to the question.

Okay.

Are you going to stay in Hong Kong and be famous?

Are you going to go to the United States and be famous?

Are you going to try and eat your cake and have it too?

I am going to do both.

Because you see, I have already made up my mind that in the United States,

I think something about the oriental.

I mean, the true oriental should be shown.

Hollywood, sure, as heck hasn't.

You better believe it, man.

I mean, it's always the pigtail and bouncing around, chop chop, you know,

with the eye slant and all that.

And I think that's very, very out of attention.

Is it true that the first job you had was being cast as Charlie Chan's number one?

Yeah, number one, son.

They never made a movie.

No, no, no.

They were going to make it into a new Chinese, James Bond type of thing.

Now that the old man, Chan, is dead, Charlie is dead, and his son is married.

Oh, I see.

But they didn't do that.

Bad man came along, you see.

And then everything was starting to be going into that, you know, that kind of...

Which you're in.

But... By the way, I did a really terrible job in that, I have to say.

Really?

He didn't like you so hard.

I didn't see.

Let me ask you, however, about the problems that you face as a Chinese hero

in an American series, have people come up in the industry and say, well,

we don't know how the audience is going to take a non-American?

Well, such question has been raised.

In fact, it is.

It is.

It is being discussed.

And that is why the warrior is probably not going to be on.

I see.

You see, because, unfortunately, such thing does exist in this world.

You see, like, I don't know, certain part of the country, right?

Where, like, they think that business-wide, it's a risk.

And I don't blame them.

I mean, in the same way as in Hong Kong, if a foreigner come and became a star,

if I were the man with the money, I probably would have my own worry of

whether or not the acceptance would be there.

Like, that's all right.

Because if you honestly express yourself, it doesn't matter.

How about the other side of the coin?

Is it possible that you were merely a fairly hip and fairly Americanized?

Are you two Western foreign audiences?

You think?

Oh, man.

Like, wow.

I have been criticized for that.

You have, eh?

Oh, it's definitely.

Well, let me say this.

When I do the Chinese film, I'll try my best, not to be as American as I,

you know, have been adjusted for the last 12 years in the States.

But when I go back to the States, it seems to be the other way around.

You're too exotic, eh?

Yeah, man.

I mean, they're trying to get me to do too many

things that are really for the sake of being exotic.

Do you understand what I'm trying to say?

Oh, sure.

So it's really, I mean...

When you live in both worlds, it brings us problems as well as advantages,

and you've got both.

Time to go to a commercial.

I'll be back in a moment with Bruce Lee.

Let me ask you whether the change in attitude of the part of the Nixon

administration towards China has helped your

chances of starring in an American TV series.

Well, first of all, this happened before that.

But I do think that things of Chinese will

be quite interesting for the next few years.

I mean, not that I'm politically inclined to talk to anything.

I understand that right this morning.

But I mean, once the opening of China, that it will bring more understanding.

More things that are, hey, different, and maybe in the

conge phase of comparison, some new thing might grow.

So therefore, I mean, it's a very rich period to be in.

I mean, like, if I were born, let's say, 40 years ago, if I had thought in my mind,

I said, boy, I'm going to style in a movie or style in a television series in America.

Well, that might be a vague dream, but I think right now, maybe.

You still think you're so Chinese, or do you

ever think of yourself as North American?

You know what I want to think of myself as a human being, because, I mean,

I don't want to sound like, you know, as Confucius say, but under the sky,

under the heaven, man, there is but one family.

It just so happened, man, that people are different.

Okay, we've got to go.

Thank you, Bruce Lee, for coming here.

Thank you for watching.

Thank you.

You've been watching Bruce Lee on The Pierre Burton Show,

a half-hour program of conversation, opinion, and debate.

This is Bernard Gown speaking.