Original subtitles

He had that neck.

He had that timing, the flexibility, rhythm.

It was beautiful to watch.

It was the man that was totally invincible.

He wanted to be the top.

Maybe he was phenomenal.

He was a very, very agile.

He was just like a cat.

It was a short amount of time.

He was recognized by almost the whole world.

In 1940, Lee Hui Chun, a successful Chinese actor, arrived in America on a

performing tour, accompanied by his pregnant wife Grace and their children.

He was in this Chinese theater, you know, in a kind of traveling trip that

went round all over overseas, wherever there are the Chinese communities.

By November, it was clear that Grace would be unable to travel

any further due to the imminent arrival of their third child.

She remained in San Francisco while her husband continued the tour to New York.

On the 27th of that month in 1940, at the Jackson Street Memorial Hospital,

she gave birth to their second son.

The Chinese name of Jun Fan, or Return Again, was chosen,

meaning someday he would return to the city of his birth.

He was given the English name, Bruce, by the doctor attending delivery.

The child was destined to become a legend during his short life, inspiring a

fascination in the martial arts for millions of people worldwide.

His name was Bruce Lee.

Indeed, even from an early age, after the families returned to their home

in Hong Kong, his love of fighting became a

constant source of problems with Bruce's parents.

As brother Henry, his teacher at La Salle Primary School, testified one day,

he really knocked out the son of one of their child's chiefs.

And they were after him.

They waited for him around outside the school.

He saw refuge in all places, the British dining room.

All these serious old monks, you know, and they were standing around the table,

just waiting to say great.

And in that Bruce, you know, around the table twice and

fit straight into the terrible room, lock himself in.

La Salle actually is one of the most prestigious as Salle.

To me, he never gave trouble.

Now, while I didn't give him a chance, perhaps I

took the initiative and didn't give him a chance.

They prayed all the games that the other little boys

played, but I think his main chief interest was in Kung Fu.

And after school, he cracked his back and after

Kung Fu's school, the father of the great master.

And his style of Kung Fu was wing chin.

I think he kind of fell in love with the Wing Chun concept more so than others,

because he felt that it was a little bit more

direct than a little bit less classic in nature.

He started training martial arts when he was about fourteen, because, you know,

he got beaten up in school.

He was a very mischievous side to person.

So anyway, after that beating, he took it on himself that, you know,

he should really, first of all, develop, you know, himself physically.

And also, he wanted to protect himself.

And also, I guess, you know, it was sort of inborn in him that he has this thing

whereby he, to him, like fighting movements, agility,

you know, all this thing is very important to him.

Alright!

Hold it!

If you want to fight, I'll take you on.

His fighting got so bad that they were like, you know, the people from police

department at the college, you know, summoning my mother over there and,

you know, sort of warning my mother saying that,

you know, it should be any more fighting from Bruce.

You know, they were more reports about his

fighting that he, you know, he would be arrested.

So my mom, you know, of course, you know, talked to my dad and my dad

decided that it would be best for him to change environment, change friends.

So, and they have friends like, my father had a friend from the Opera,

you know, in Seattle, and they contacted and they made

arrangements whereby Bruce could stay there and go to school there.

In April, 1959, Bruce Lee boarded the ship of the American

President's Line for the 18-day Transpacific Crossing to the USA.

I definitely gave him $100 US, you know, when he got on the boat.

And then, of course, the woman boy was all taken care of, but just $100, I mean,

for who knows how long, right?

He supplemented his father's allowance by giving

dance lessons to the first-class passengers.

And one of his cousins, I believe, was, right, a cha-cha teacher.

He instructed, you know, dancing.

So, he showed Bruce, dance steps while Bruce was showing him martial arts,

you know, when he tried.

So, they traded, and Bruce wanted to have a partner to dance with him, but he didn't

want to pick one of his girlfriends because he's

fearing that the others might get jealous or something.

So, he said, okay, I'll be neutral.

I'll pick Robert, because he already showed me all the dance steps, so...

Can you imagine, I mean, a seventeen with a nine-year-old, you know, type thing,

or eight-year-old, you know, kid dancing?

Taki Kimura and Roy Hollingsworth were introduced to

Bruce in Seattle and soon became devoted students.

They would later go on to teach his art of Jun Fan Gong Fu.

First met Bruce Lee about 1959.

I'd seen some karate and judo and different things like that, and I felt

like, well, what's this nineteen or eighteen-year-old kid going to show me?

But when we got together and he was asked to, you know, to

demonstrate something to me, why it was just incredible.

And I thought, my God, this is really something so I got involved with him.

You know, you realize right away that you wanted

to be part of this, and you wanted to learn this.

And here I am, still learning.

At that time, Bruce was living with a Chinese family that was kind of sponsoring

him up here, and he wanted to get out on his own.

And so, at that point, we made a suggestion, why don't you start a school,

and then we can all pay you, you know, tuition.

Back about 1960, Bruce and our group of people were practicing with him.

We decided to start a little school here, and so this is the first school that we

started at that time, from this color to that color, with one room, with an

upstairs, and we practiced both downstairs and upstairs.

I thought he put across to the students really what he wanted them to do,

and in very straightforward manner.

And there was no, you know, hocus pocus, it was just straight fundamental martial arts.

He had a very innovative, brilliant mind, and he could look at something,

and even at the age of 18, he could look at something, and just a split second take

out the wheat from the chaff, and tell you what was good and what wasn't.

So he modified the Wing Chun concept a great

deal, and those are the things that he taught us.

He was actually drawing knowledge from talking Roy, and from my uncle,

Fred, who was a judo sensei.

Since his arrival in Seattle, Bruce pursued his academic education,

and enrolled on a philosophy course at the University of Washington in March 1961.

He continued to teach martial arts, opening another school within the

university campus, and often gave public demonstrations.

It was during one of these at Garfield High School, but he met 17-year-old Linda Emery.

Just prior to 64, he had met Ed Parker, who was a

temple of karate, and he was part one of the guy.

Of course, Ed was very impressed with his abilities and the things he could do,

and so he would invite Bruce down as a guest demonstration in all the tournaments.

One of Ed Parker's students at the time, Richard

Bostillo, who has demonstrated demonstrations by Bruce.

Gaggon Whips, this tale!

With his explosive power and speed, I was in awe.

Everybody was in his hand, sensitivity, trapping.

I've never seen things like that before.

His grappling, his punching, his kicking, were never seen before a witness.

And I told my buddies, you know, we ought to work over a guy like this.

Truth in the martial arts.

Bruce used to always believe in his training that you need to make contact in

any kind of obstacles or training equipment.

And this is what Bruce and I had in mind where something would give upon impact.

This would represent the head, the body, and the legs.

The head shot, he would give and something that would give this way.

The body shot.

He used to like to work his one-inch punch from here.

Or the kick, back this way.

Sometimes the leg hit back this way, back here.

So all of these, he used to like have to work with resistance against obstacles.

By June 1964, Bruce decided his future success lay in California.

He abandoned his philosophy studies and left

Kaki Kamura in charge of the Gung Fu school.

And during these times, he was exposed to some of the honored guests like Blake

Edwards and some of these movie star people.

And that's how he became in contact with some of the movies that they were making,

the TV series that they were making like Batman.

And of course they came up with the green hornet and

they wanted him to come down and be interviewed for that.

The green hornet was the break Bruce had been seeking.

A way for him to demonstrate his martial arts through the medium of television.

He and Linda had married in August 64.

And together with their babies on Brandon moved to

Oakland, California in May of the following year.

And as I understand, I think Bill Dozier went to one of the Kung Fu shows and saw

him at the Long Beach Auditorium or something.

And you know, he said, there's Kato.

It was a vigilante type thing.

And to me it was more like a James Bondian type deal that they were going to do.

I don't think I met Bruce until the press party.

Adam introduced us both.

And we were there and this first time I met Bruce.

And we really didn't have much time to sit down and talk or anything else.

But I liked him from the moment I met him.

He was constantly training.

Yes, he was very, very diligent in that he was

always working out and training and always in motion.

He kind of ran people around the set nuts because he

was always doing his kicks and this, that and the other.

And I remember a number of times I was standing there watching the thing,

you know, like this and I'd feel up.

He had jumped up in the air and reached out with his toe and ticked you on the air.

Well, that stopped when one of the grips was standing there.

And just as he did it, he turned to the right and the guy hit him in the jaw.

And this little kid is Joe.

He hit you in ten different spots and as a something you

wouldn't know to grab your jaw and say that hurt or your stomach.

You know, so the stunt coordinator did his best to slow Bruce Lee down because the

western way they accepted is the old John Wayne method where

you'd reach from left field, tell a story and hit the man.

He'd like to throw 37 kicks and 12 punches.

If you design a part for somebody to fit into, who better than Bruce Lee?

I mean, he was Kato and you know, the things that he did just set that whole

thing aside and I think made a heck of a show on it.

He was always so full of enthusiasm for his martial arts.

You know, he was teaching even when he was doing this.

He had his own little school down in Chinatown somewhere.

You had to be invited by a member.

You could just walk in the door.

Someone has to bring you in.

It was just a small school, a smaller storefront text.

And I was fortunate to belong to that first Chinatown follow-class that Bruce

had in the nineteen to late sixty-four or sixty-six or sixty-seven.

He was called in the John Fung Gong for Institute.

People don't know that Lee John Fung was Bruce Lee's birth name and that's what he

named his school after Lee John Fung Gong for Institute.

I got to a point where I didn't think I was learning a whole lot more.

You know, I was learning how to punch and kick, but I'd had it after about two years.

If Bruce hadn't come along, I probably would

have dropped out and best for that was it.

Because I wasn't learning that much more, you know, that I thought was really useful.

Bruce was famous for this thing.

He had a one-inch hit he would do.

And I mean, you could stand there and brace yourself.

And he would literally move his hand one inch and send you across the room.

And he used to practice his one-inch punch for his wrists, elbow and shoulders.

Most people don't understand the coordination and the

fluidity of all these joints in his one-inch punch.

Holding this hand here, he'd hit this wrist out.

Then he'd extend the elbow.

And it'd be one sound to know that you got to snap.

Dude, I've got a one-inch punch that says better than anything you did.

And I said, really, I'd like to see that he's got a pelon.

So I stood up with a pelon in front of me.

And I held down, I rolled over into the corner with a one-inch punch.

I got up and I said, let's go to work.

And that looks like fun.

It's like a kind of whip, you know, the rack at the end of the whip.

Whether you want to get all of your energy to go right through and right,

bang, and have it happen right at the end of that crack.

And it would, you know, if you got it right, if all of your energy was flowing,

boom, you'll be right in there and right back again.

It was just, even though I was too old, by then I was

37 years old, it was just so good I couldn't quit.

You know, I thought, gosh, it'd be like learning

a new flipper, a new back hands wringer.

It would be, you went out of there, you'd learn something new, you know.

It was just too damn good to quit.

Bruce's favorite front leg kick would be his stomp or his side kick.

And let's get in the pressure and get in the weight behind

the body is what he used to practice that constantly.

And Bruce was the only one at that time who could really move this.

So I was flicking away, you know, like he'd call it, so it's too flicky.

It's flicky, it's flicky, it's flicky, it's gonna be fine, that'll be in there.

Always lead with your little finger followed and it goes out there and it...

So he was saying, he was saying, okay, now this is the way you're doing it.

And he kicked this bag, I guess it was about a 150 pound bag.

And it went flying, I was busted it in the middle.

It went flying out into the lawn.

It was filled with rags and rags.

We were picking up rags for months around there, little bits and pieces of rags.

It was all over the lawn.

And that was really in the sound.

And it shocked him as much as he said, oh, I'm sorry.

Well, he found out that I was a fireworker into Wilder and

I got the idea I might be able to build something for him.

So that was the beginning of my relationship where

I started to make a training equipment for him.

As a matter of fact, some of the training

equipment he's been working with was rather crude.

And most of the equipment didn't come up to his standards.

This was what we call a lobster hand getting contact, this position,

this, this way, or any which way.

And now we have our students hold and then pull back just to get that feel.

And so on this lobster, when you're on your lap,

pull this hand, we'll call a BOG or finger jab.

So when we hit, we can hit one or two.

Sometimes it can come back this way and then pull.

These are all pulling to simulate a human arm.

And this is what Bruce used to do, way ahead of his

time working on contraptions or resistance equipment.

You know, sometimes I'd be over at his house

on Sunday and I'd have him all to myself.

And there was people who wanted to hire him, you

know, movie stars, a lot of money and everything.

And I'm getting all afternoon for nothing.

You know, and I say, this is insane.

That guy makes $2,000 a week.

He can charge people anything he wants for private lessons.

And here I spend all afternoon with him, you know.

I noticed that he had several very famous students, like James Colburn, Steve

McQueen, and most of all, of course, that big gentleman, Kareem Abdul-Jibah,

you know, when I say big, he's tall, seven foot two.

And I still remember, like, you know, he would come into a house and he would

have to, like, bend down just to get across that, you know, the door.

But he was a very nice gentleman.

I'll never forget getting kicked by Kareem Abdul-Jibah, or a sidekick to the chest.

Back me back about nine feet, just right in the air.

When he would achieve a level of performance,

you would think would be complete and perfect.

He'd go beyond it, go beyond it, stretch the...

there was no limit in performance in developing.

There is no perfection.

In October 1967, Bruce appeared opposite Raymond Burr in an episode of the TV show,

a man called Ironside, as a karate instructor.

He came on the show and did a part, and of course we got to know each other.

We could always talk off, you know, off the set.

He liked me because I had a rough idea of how he worked, and I took falls for him.

And a lot of the stuntmen didn't understand

because his style was moving very rapidly.

He was very shy then, very sweet, very retiring, and the kind...

and then he would explode with this energy, and

the juxtaposition of it was really startling.

It was very difficult for me to get to know him, but I looked at screen credits

and they said, this guy's name is Bruce Lee, because I never met the guy before.

He beat me up 37 times before I knew his name.

At this time, Bruce had become more and more disillusioned with the Hollywood scene.

His desire to exploit his martial arts prowess on the big

screen seemed unattainable within this Western culture.

He wanted to be a movie star, and he wanted to use this in order to exemplify his art.

And, you know, to make money and do the things that he

wanted to make more money than Steve McQueen per film.

And did for one film, anyway.

However, the prospect of another TV series, Longstreet, seemed to offer a

chance to reveal his own personal philosophy of

jeep kundo, or the way of the intercepting fist.

Well, it began.

It was an idea of strolling solifants, and they made a... to our television movie.

And strolling was very much interested in what the martial

arts at that time, and was taking lessons from Bruce.

And suggested that we use him as a recurring character, and wrote the pilot

script of the series, which followed the concept of the movie quite closely,

to introduce and set up the situation and the

relationship between the Franciscus character and Bruce.

He was not what you call an actor.

He was a personality, and his real... I think he

became pretty good as an actor a little bit later.

But his main forte was doing the martial arts thing, and he capitalized on it.

They always wanted to be ready to do it.

And before his scenes came up, because we didn't shoot the martial arts

stuff all the time, he was like preparing and being ready.

And that's why I always felt that he was ready to go any moment.

And this is a true story.

I walked into my office to meet Bruce, who presumably was going to be there.

And he grabbed me.

He was hiding behind the door.

And he grabbed me from behind and held me from behind.

And for a moment or two, I didn't know what it was.

I was totally stunned.

And he wouldn't let me go.

And I couldn't get away from him.

And so our introduction tended to favor him somewhat more than me, but I had

control of the scripts after that, which he became aware of.

I became much more respectful of the kind of things that he did.

You know, instead of the grut and punch, you know, that's kind of a delicate,

almost ballet.

I felt that he would lose a lot of energy.

He would lose a lot of esteem doing the television

show by doing a film for Southeast Asia.

Anyway, he would do what he said, just doing film for Southeast Asia.

And I said, do the films, go there and do the films.

You'll achieve something.

The first couple of films, you know, you'll learn how to do it.

And the second and the third, you'll be able to do it.

Really well, and you'll be the king of the heap by that time.

And certainly it turned out that way.

It was just a good guess on my part.

Through syndication of the Green Hornet in the Far East,

Bruce had unwittingly become something of a national hero.

And one couldn't live in Hong Kong in those days without being aware of Bruce Lee.

It was during his trips back home to Hong Kong that his luck began to improve.

And he was offered a two-picture deal by

producer Raymond Chow at Golden Harvest Studio.

The curious thing is, of course, to read what Bruce wrote

about the martial arts, about Jeet Kune Do and so forth.

It was very kind of soft and minimalist approach to martial arts.

And then you see him on the screen, and all of a sudden he's, oh my God,

what's happening here?

Bruce realized very well that there's a big difference between

martial arts as a martial art, as a study, if you like.

And how to express that on the screen.

So he knew both sides.

And I think this was a big factor.

A, he knew what to do, and B, he had the ability to do it.

And he had this amazing persona.

This character just came roaring out through the screen.

He was a real scholar as far as martial arts went.

And he was probably the only real true martial artist that I ever knew.

Because he would come over to the house with a new kick, a new side kick, a new bar.

Something new, and he would develop the thing and practice it.

And something that you'd never see before.

That's why he was so good.

You know, all of these things that guys are doing nowadays were invented by him.

Or at least they were developed by him.

Who's Lee's first film for Golden Harvest was The Big Boss.

Released in America and Fists of Shuri, the movie

broke all box office records from Southeast Asia.

When Raymond saw the results of The Big Boss, you know,

he recognized immediately that this was something special.

Implausible and most Chinese movie actors.

And at that time, Chinese movies, people were leaving over for 24 wars and

flying through the air with a sword, you know.

And Bruce brought it down to hand-to-hand combat, fist-to-fist combat.

And it's only right there.

There's a way that when a camera very relaxed, you know, very casual and dull to

earth and that's what you're like about him.

Radio and months of television, mainly because I knew him quite well.

He got terribly cocky later in life and didn't want to talk to ordinary reporters.

But I had a reasonably good relationship with him.

And whenever I rang him up to speak to him, he always turned off and did something.

I think you'd probably agree, Bruce, that the thing that's limited,

the appeal of Chinese films to Western audiences is that

it's very unusual to find a Chinese actor who can act.

And when I say that, I mean act in the Western started.

Yes, it definitely has, you know.

Because when I first arrived, you know, I get the green hornet, you know,

television series back in 65.

And as I look around, I mean, I saw a lot of human beings.

As I look at myself, I was the only robot there.

Because I was not being myself and I'm trying to accumulate external security,

external technique, or other way to move my arm the way, but never to ask and say,

what Bruce Lee would have done.

Bruce's next film, Fist of Fury, known in the States as the Chinese

Connection, went on to break the box office receipt of its predecessor, the Big Box.

Bruce Lee was working on Fist of Few.

They're not enough stuntmen.

And also in that time, I kind of like the fastest stuntmen in the Hong Kong.

They need a stunt guy to double the Japanese, go through the window.

Then they call up, Jackie can't do that, because I

send the hide, the body looks like the Japanese guy.

So I said, okay, I'll do it.

After I do the stunt, then Bruce Lee comes to haunt me.

Oh, what's your name?

My name is Jackie.

Oh, you're good.

You're great.

Hi.

I kick low.

When Bruce Lee after punch... Ah, like this?

I punch... You know, I totally different than Bruce Lee.

I thank you.

I thank Bruce.

Because everything learned opposite Bruce.

Nobody can beat him.

Okay, everybody can beat me.

So he punch angry, I punch funny, do a lot of funny face.

Everything went down.

Then totally opposite than Bruce Lee.

Third

film was released through his newly formed production company, Concord Pictures.

Adopting the roles of writer and director as well as star, he said about bringing

his western filmmaking experience to bear on the Hong Kong movie industry.

Well, I was a friend of Raymond Childy, producer of Golden Harvest.

And I heard that he was looking for me to be in one of his films.

So I happened to be walking by his office one day

and decided to just go in and see what it was.

And he said, can you shoot tomorrow?

We've got one with Bruce Lee.

And I actually wasn't familiar with Bruce Lee at the time.

And so when I said, why not, I haven't done that before.

So I said, we'll pick you up at eight o 'clock in the

morning and we started shooting that next morning.

He was always very happy, made everybody feel good.

And even though he was a bit of a perfectionist, making sure that he was

right, because this was a very important film to him.

He still enjoyed working with all of us.

And he was a great guy, really a lot of fun.

I'm going to make you famous.

You might not be rich, but I'll make you famous.

I'm a steak.

He didn't get upset.

He made a joke about it.

This

time I'd left the States and made two pictures for $30,000, $35,000 for Raymond Chao.

And he became, he was like the Beatles.

I mean, he was the most popular guy in the world.

And we started to do, we were going to do

with our own money and together with Raymond.

And Teddy actually said, well, you know, what are you guys doing?

What's going on?

And he said, well, we're going to do this picture.

He said, well, we want to be part of it.

And they came in sort of after we had already started going.

The

first time a major American film company has

come to Hong Kong to make a movie this size.

Engages a huge cast and crew to work on the direction of Robert Klaus.

This was a film that just came together, which may not never, you may not never see

us come like this again, because of all the ingredients, Bob Wall, John Saxon,

myself, Anna Capri, all the ingredients were there.

At the time, Bruce Lee gave me a call.

He was making a film and told me to go to Golden Harvest Studios.

Bruce Lee asked me to deal with us because we already knew each other.

He was very good at the cast and crew working for him.

And he was always very forceful with the producers.

Co-producer Fred Weintraub has to cope with the

language of various of a multinational cast and crew.

Sometimes four or five translators are used in a rehearsal.

Among the Chinese in the company, there are many different dialects.

Whenever there was a problem and there were lots of communication problems with

the Chinese, the whole working ethic there is very...

If you've been there, then you know about, this

is somebody's rice bowl so you don't touch it.

I mean, it was so hot when we were filming the mirror scene.

And I wanted to have fans up on top of the set to blow out the hot air.

And nobody would put them up because nobody knew whose

job it was because it had never been done before.

And Christians wouldn't do it because everybody's afraid

that they're going to take work away from somebody else.

But nobody would run into things like this, which happened often.

We'd get Bruce and Bruce went in there and they would die for him.

I mean, he was just so revered.

The guy was big-time over there.

So he couldn't even walk the streets.

They just loved Bruce Lee.

For an illusion with an illusion, 8,000 mirrors are brought in to form a set.

The cinematographer plans to film a violent, ballet-like action of Bruce Lee

and Shun King in slow motion to get the scene in new-dimension and action pictures.

The first days of shooting were really amazing because Bruce wouldn't come out.

I mean, Bruce did everything to avoid starting.

He just had this wind rolling here.

He wanted to do some thinking.

And we finally started shooting without him.

We just shot road shots.

And just because we had a unit there, we were ready to go.

What is the scene where he's in his room and Anna Capri

parades in all these girls for him to pick a girl.

Because he's seen, he didn't have to move.

And he was physically, he was a wreck.

I mean, if you look at the scene carefully,

I mean, you can see his mouth is trembling.

I mean, he was just so anxious and nervous.

Not that he wasn't good, but he was important for him.

And this was his first starring English line.

I mean, this is, you know, everything that he was hoping for it to be.

A gift, Mr. Lee.

If you don't see anything you like, there was a go at the fees tonight.

Which bill, sir?

The owner of this card.

Oh, yes.

Another one.

I'll send it to you.

I worked with the acting instructor right before that for this movie.

And my attitude with that movie was like, the way my instructor trained,

I took private lessons from this acting instructor here in Los Angeles.

And he trained me to play this part like Muhammad Ali, cocky, arrogant.

You know, and, you know, most people might think that's really me, you know,

in real life.

But he had me playing like real cocky, real arrogant, you know, and so it was fun.

I enjoyed it.

And, you know, we brought back the sound effects which

everybody uses now what they used in the Chinese films.

I mean, there's a... you know, I mean, totally fanciful.

A martial arts academy forms the background for

a dangerous and complicated fighting sequence.

Two hundred students and masters will participate in an all-out battle.

He hurt himself a few times because it's harder, you know, to

do a full extension kick and stop short of hitting the person.

I mean, so he would have to stop himself.

And that sometimes, you know, he injured

himself a few times, not hurting other people.

Fighting techniques are carefully choreographed by Bruce Lee and the director.

Discipline and coordination are the only protection against possible lethal accident.

Under this drive for perfection, Lee and the other actors put in over 12

hours of work to recreate a single Kung Fu sequence.

They could band down, sit it all.

They have screen presence.

Okay?

Bruce and I, we had more than screen presence.

We had that, but we had a rhythm.

We had a style.

We had timing.

Bruce had soul.

He had beat a rhythm.

Now look.

And I think personally not to be real subjective, but I don't know of any

martial arts, martial artists that has ever projected that on screen.

The company's drive for the ultimate and authenticity.

The exacting precision must be maintained.

We knew

we were making a terrific action piece.

We had no idea.

It would catch on the way it did.

It was a great opportunity.

It opened up doors for me.

In Hong Kong, the greatest Kung Fu fighters in the world

are keeping alert under the intense physical strain.

There is no other...

Doing things he passed out, he passed out for a half hour.

And scared him to death.

Didn't know what the hell it was.

And so we came over and had a full examination,

like the doctors gave him a green bill of health.

On May 10th, 1973, while dubbing sound effects for Enter the Dragon, Bruce

mysteriously collapsed following a series of dizzy spells.

He was throwing his own... all the editing sounds and everything himself.

That's probably one of the things he was dedicating

himself so much to that he was exhausting himself.

He was rushed to hospital and given a neural examination.

The drug manifold was prescribed to reduce an apparent brain swelling.

He was never going to let him down.

If he couldn't do one thing, he would bang.

He would do it over, but it was always very focused on his work.

He was doing something one day.

Damn, he was hitting me with the BOG, the finger jab.

And I said, well, you're so damn fast.

He says, no, I'm not fast.

I said, well, you're faster than anybody I've seen.

He says, I found many people.

People faster than me.

He said, I had to learn to be deceptive.

On July 20th, Bruce had arranged a meet with Raymond

Shao to discuss casting ideas for Game of Death.

That evening, he stopped off to pick up Hong Kong starlet Betty Ting Pei.

While at her home, he suffered another attack.

She gave him a painkiller and he went to lie down.

Bruce never awoke.

His body reacted to the drug.

And this, in turn, triggered a cerebral edema.

Attempts to revive improved feudal.

And he was pronounced dead by doctors at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

It was hard to believe.

I mean, what happened is one of those freaks, medical freaks.

That strange that a man of Bruce's prowess in that death would be a complete,

beautiful, physical, complete mess would have a

broken vessel in his brain that would cause his death.

The man was in such a physical specimen.

It was just hard to believe that at that age he'd gone.

The phone rang and my mother picked up the phone.

She was behind me.

I heard her crying real hard.

I turned around.

I saw something that she heard herself.

I asked her.

I said, what happened?

She said, Bruce died.

I said, no.

Can't be.

I don't believe it.

I don't believe it.

I was one.

The street I run, James Ojai.

Then some people, I said, Bruce Lee died.

I said, no.

You kidding?

No, he's serious.

I was in Japan when he passed away.

And a lot of the people there, he was such a hero at that time they were in mourning.

And you'd see people crying on the streets.

I still have a mission, and I can see him in my mind right now.

Just as though he hasn't been gone.

Like if we walked through the door, he'd just go up and shake his hand again.

It's like he hasn't been gone.

Because he's that close, you see?

He's that type of a person.

You don't forget.

It just left me in totally shock because it was a man that was, in my eyes,

just totally invincible.

Bruce Lee's body was finally laid to rest at the Lakeview Cemetery, Seattle,

on July 31, 1973.

Matter of fact, we didn't really head home to me until, I don't know how long it was,

maybe a couple months later, when they had the funeral.

Not a month later, so funeral in the state chair.

And before the funeral, I walked up to the coffin.

Then I saw him laying there.

And then I just broke down.

They had to cry.

Bruce Lee had a lot of celebrities coming in town.

Steve McQueen was in and James Colburn.

They were part of the full boroughs.

He completed his life.

I don't know what more he could have done.

I mean, his influence is still felt.

It's still being felt.

My dad started training me as soon as I could walk.

He trained me while he was alive.

And after he passed away, I just kind of kept at

it because I didn't really think about it much.

You know, you get started as something.

You just continue with it.

And my dad had a circle of students that were close

to him and so they were friends of our family.

And one of those men, Danny and Asanto, continued to be my teacher.

So it was kind of a nice unbroken line.

He did a thing.

Before he left, this was really fantastic.

In such a short amount of time, he was recognized by almost the whole world.

In 73, when Bruce died, that bombarded with mail and calls about Bruce and they

want to continue and learn his method of martial arts.

And then I agreed, let's open up the Kali Academy.

We named him the Kali Academy.

I said that we can share and continue Bruce's teaching.

My dad left a really wonderful legacy.

And I meet people all over the world who really admired him and admired his work.

And really have been very positively affected by it, too.

Bruce is always young.

Everybody remembers what he was as a great kickboxer.

And he's immortal in that respect.

There's only one Bruce Lee in this world.

It's not possible to have another one.

If anybody wants to be a Bruce Lee, it's not possible.

Here's a man that had so much to offer.

And he was not an ego maniac.

He was a nice guy.

I don't think he was probably anybody as big

or ever will be as big as he was worldwide.

He's like everybody as a fan of Bruce Lee.

Young and old, final setting to a very beautiful story.

A young man who doomed a force and then faded.

He had that neck.

He had that timing, the flexibility, rhythm.

It was beautiful to watch.

He

wanted to be the top.

At

such a short amount of time, he was recognized by almost the whole world.

In 1940, Lee Hui Chun, a successful Chinese actor, arrived in America on a

performing tour, accompanied by his pregnant wife Grace and their children.

He was in this Chinese theatre, you know, in a kind of

traveling troupe that went round all over the world.

Overseas were, but they are the Chinese communities.

By November, it was clear that Grace would be unable to travel any further,

due to the imminent arrival of their third child.

She remained in San Francisco, while her husband continued the tour to New York.

On the 27th of that month in 1940, at the Jackson Street Memorial Hospital,

she gave birth to their second son.

The Chinese name of Jun Fan, or return again, was chosen,

meaning someday he would return to the city of his world.

He was given the English name, Bruce, by the doctor attending delivery.

The child was destined to become a legend during his short life, inspiring a

fascination in the martial arts for millions of people worldwide.

His name was Bruce Lee.

Indeed, even from an early age, after the families returned to their home

in Hong Kong, his love of fighting became a

constant source of problems with Bruce's parents.

As brother Henry, his teacher at La Salle Primary School, testifies.

One day, he really knocked out the son of one

of the child chiefs, and they were after him.

They waited for him around outside the school.

He saw refuge in all places, the first dining room.

All these serious old monks, you know, and they were standing around the table,

just waiting to say great.

And in that Bruce, you know, around the table twice, and

fit straight into the terrible room, lock himself in.

La Salle, actually, is one of the most prestigious men.

To me, he never gave trouble.

Now, while I didn't give him a chance, perhaps I

took the initiative and didn't give him a chance.

He played all the games that the other little boys played,

but I think his main chief interest was in Kung Fu.

And after school, he crapped his back and after

the Kung Fu school, the father of the great master.

And his style of Kung Fu was wing chin.

I think he kind of fell in love with the Wing Chun concept more so than others,

because he felt that it was a little bit more

direct than a little bit less classic in nature.

He started training martial arts when he was about fourteen, because, you know,

he got beaten up in school.

He was a very mischievous type of person.

So anyway, after that beating, he took it on himself that, you know,

he should really, first of all, develop himself physically.

And also, he wanted to protect himself.

And also, I guess, you know, it was sort of inborn in him that he has this thing

whereby he, to him, like fighting movements, agility,

you know, all this thing is very important to him.

All right!

Hold it!

If you want to fight, I'll take you on.

His fighting got so bad that they were like, you know, people from police

department at the college, you know, summoning my mother over there and,

you know, sort of warning my mother saying that, you know, it should there be any

more fighting from Bruce, you know, any more reports about

his fighting that he'll, you know, he'll be arrested.

So my mom, you know, of course, you know, talked to my dad and my dad

decided that it'll be best for him to change environment, change friends.

So... And they have friends like my father had

a friend from the Opera, you know, in Seattle.

And they contacted and they made arrangements whereby

Bruce could stay there and go to school there.

In April, 1959, Bruce Lee boarded the ship of the American

President's Line for the 18-day Trans-Pacific Crossing to the USA.

My dad only gave him $100 US, you know, when he got on the boat.

And then, of course, the room and the board was all taken care of, but just

$100, I mean, for who knows how long, right?

He supplemented his father's allowance by giving

dance lessons to the first-class passengers.

One of his cousins, I believe, was a cha-cha teacher.

He instructed, you know, dancing.

So he showed Bruce, dance test while Bruce was

showing him martial arts, you know, when he tried.

So they traded, and Bruce wanted to have a partner to dance with him, but he didn't

want to pick one of his girlfriends because he's

fearing that the others might get jealous of something.

So he said, okay, I'll be neutral.

I'll pick Robert, because he already showed me all the dance steps.

So...

Can you imagine, I mean, a seventeen with a nine-year-old,

you know, type thing or eight-year-old, you know, kid dancing?

Taki Kimura and Roy Hollingsworth were introduced to

Bruce in Seattle and soon became devoted students.

They would later go on to teach his art of Jun Fan Gong Fu.

I first met Bruce Lee about 1959.

I'd seen some karate and judo and different things like that, and I felt

like, well, it's this nineteen or eighteen-year-old kid going to show me, but.

..

When we got together and he was asked to, you know, to

demonstrate something to me, why it was just incredible.

And I thought, my God, this is really with him.

You know, you realize right away that you wanted

to be part of this, and you wanted to learn this.

And here I am, still learning.

At that time, Bruce was living with a Chinese family that was kind of sponsoring

him up here, and he wanted to get out on his own.

And so, at that point, we made a suggestion, why don't you start a school?

And then we can all pay you, you know, tuition.

Back about 1960, Bruce and our group of people were practicing with him.

We decided to start a little school here, and so this is the first school that we

from this pillar to that pillar was one room with an

upstairs, and we practiced both downstairs and upstairs.

I thought he put a cross to the students really what he wanted them to do.

And in very straightforward manner, and there was no, you know, hocus pocus,

it was just straight fundamental martial arts.

He had a very innovative, brilliant mind, and he could look at something,

and even at the age of 18, he could look at something, and

just a split second pick out the wheat from the channel.

And tell you what was good and what wasn't in.

So he modified the Wing Chun concept, a great

deal, and those are the things that he taught us.

He was actually drawing knowledge from talking Roy, and from my uncle,

Fred, who was a judo sensei.

Since his arrival in Seattle, Bruce pursued his academic education,

and enrolled on a philosophy course at the University of Washington in March 1961.

He continued to teach martial arts, opening another school within the

university campus, and often gave public demonstrations.

It was during one of these at Garfield High

School, where he met 17-year-old Linda Emery.

Just prior to 64, he had met Ed Parker, who was a temple of Karate, and he was

part of one of the guys that really started

the martial arts concept in the United States.

He was impressed with his abilities and the things he could do, and so he would

invite Bruce down as a guest demonstration in all the tournaments.

One of Ed Parker's students at the time, Richard

Bostillo, missed these demonstrations by Bruce.

With his explosive power and speed, I was in awe.

Everybody was in his hand, sensitivity, trapping.

I've never seen things like that before.

His grappling, his punching, his kicking were never seen before, a witness.

And I told my buddies, you know, we ought to work over a guy like this.

Truth in the martial arts.

Bruce used to always believe in his training that you need to make contact in

any kind of obstacles or training equipment.

This is what Bruce and I had in mind where something would give upon impact.

This would represent the head, the body, and the legs.

The head shot, he would give and something that would give this way.

The body shot, he used to like to work his one-inch punch from here.

Or the kick, back this way.

Sometimes the leg hit back this way, back here.

So all of these, he used to like have to work with resistance against obstacles.

By June 1964, Bruce decided his future success lay in California.

He abandoned his philosophy studies and left

Taki Kamura in charge of the Gung Fu school.

And during these times, he was exposed to some of the honored guests like Blake

Edwards and some of these movie star people.

And that's how he became in contact with some of the movies that they were making,

the TV series that they were making like Batman.

And of course they came up with the green hornet and

they wanted him to come down and be interviewed for that.

The green hornet was the break Bruce had been seeking, a way for him to demonstrate

his martial arts through the medium of television.

He and Linda had married in August 64 and together with their babies on Brandon

moved to Oakland, California in May of the following year.

And as I understand, I think Bill Dozier went to one of the Kung Fu shows and saw

him at the Long Beach Auditorium or something.

And you know, he said, there's Kato.

It was a vigilante type thing and to me it was more like

a James Bondian type deal that they were going to do.

I don't think I met Bruce until the press party.

Adam introduced us both and we were there and this first time I met Bruce and we

really didn't have much time sit down and talk or anything else.

I liked him from the moment I met him.

He was constantly training.

Yes, he was very, very diligent in that he was

always working out and training and always in motion.

He kind of ran people around the set nuts because he

was always doing his kicks and this, that and the other.

And I remember a number of times I was standing there watching the thing,

you know, like this and I'd feel up.

He had jumped up in the air and reached out with his toe and picked you on the air.

Well that stopped when one of the grips was standing there and just as he did it,

he turned to the right and the guy hit him in the jaw.

And this look at his jaw.

He hit you in ten different spots and as a something you

wouldn't know to grab your jaw and say that hurt or your stomach.

So the stunt coordinator did his best to slow Bruce Lee down because the western

way they accepted is the old John Wayne method where you reach from left field,

tell a story and hit the man.

He liked so 37 kicks and 12 punches.

If you design a part for somebody to fit into, who better than Bruce Lee?

I mean he was Kato and you know the things that he did just set that whole thing

aside and I think made a heck of a show on it.

He was always so full of enthusiasm for his martial arts.

He was teaching even when he was doing this.

He had his own little school down in Chinatown somewhere.

You had to be invited by a member.

You could just walk in the door.

Someone has to bring you in.

A painted window so it's just a small school to a smaller school context.

And I was fortunate to belong to that first Chinatown final

class that Bruce had in the 19th to late 64, not 66 or 67.

He was called in the John Fung Gong for Institute.

People don't know that Lee John Fung was Bruce Lee's first name.

And that's what he named his school after Lee John Fung Gong for Institute.

I got to a point where I didn't think I was learning a whole lot more.

I was learning how to punch and kick, but I'd had it after about two years.

If Bruce hadn't come along I probably would have dropped out and I bet that was it.

Because I wasn't learning that much more that I thought was really useful.

Bruce was famous for the thing.

He had a one-inch hit he would do.

I mean you could stand there and brace yourself.

And he would literally move his hand one inch and send you across the room.

And he used to practice his one-inch punch for his wrists, elbow and shoulders.

Most people don't understand the coordination and the

fluidity of all these joints in his one-inch punch.

Holding this hand here, he'd hit this wrist out.

Then he'd extend the elbow.

And it'd be one sound to know that you've got to snap.

So I've got a one-inch punch that says better than anything you did.

And I said really I'd like to see that he's got a pillow.

So I stood up, put a pillow in front of me, and he said I'm banged like that.

Knocked me into the chair.

The chair fell down.

I rolled over into the corner with a one-inch punch.

I got up and I said let's go to work.

And that looks like fun.

It's like a kind of whip, you know, the rack at the end of the whip.

You want to get all of your energy to go right through and

right bang and have it happen right at the end of that crack.

And it would, you know, if you got it right, if all of your energy was flowing,

boom, you'll be right in there and right back again.

It was even though I was too old.

By then I was 37 years old.

It was just so good I couldn't quit.

And I thought gosh, it was like learning a new flipper, a new back hands wringer.

Everything went out of there, you'd learn something new.

It was just too damn good to quit.

Bruce's favorite front leg kick would be his stomp or his side kick.

And let's get in the pressure and get in the weight behind

the body is what he used to practice with constantly.

And Bruce was the only one at that time who could really move this.

So I was flicking away, you know, like he had called it.

So it's too flicky, flicky, flicky.

It's flicking every time.

That'll be in there.

Always lead with your little finger.

And it goes out there.

And so he was saying he was saying, okay, now this is the way you do it.

And he kicked this bag.

I guess it was about a 150 pound bag.

And it went flying.

I was busted it in the middle.

It went flying out into the lawn.

It was filled with rags and rags.

We were picking up rags for months around there.

A little bits and pieces of rags.

It was all over the lawn.

And that was really in the town.

And it shocked him as much as he said.

Oh, I'm sorry.

He found out that I was firing worker into Wilder and got the idea.

I might be able to build something for him.

So that was the beginning of my relationship

where I started making training equipment for him.

Because as a matter of fact, some of the training

equipment he's been working with was rather crude.

And most of the equipment didn't come up to his standards.

This is what we call a lopsar hand getting contact.

This position, this, this way, or any which way.

And now we have our students pull back just to get that feel.

And so on this lopsar, when your lops pull this hand, we'll call a BOG or finger jab.

You can get one or two.

Sometimes they can come back this way and pull.

These are all pulling to stimulate a human arm.

And this is what Bruce used to do.

Way ahead of his time working on contraptions or resistance equipment.

You know, sometimes I'd be over at his house

on Sunday and I'd have him all to myself.

And there was people who wanted to hire him, you

know, movie stars and a lot of money and everything.

And I'm getting all afternoon for nothing.

You know, nothing.

This is insane.

A guy makes $2,000 a week.

He can charge people anything he wants for private lessons.

And here I spend all afternoon with him, you know.

I noticed that he had several very famous students, like James Colburn, Steve

McQueen, and most of all, of course, that big gentleman, Kareem Abdul-Jibah,

he's tall, seven foot two.

And I still remember he would come to a house and he

would have to bend down just to get across the door.

But he was a very nice gentleman.

I'll never forget getting kicked by Kareem Abdul-Jibah, a sidekick to the chest.

He knocked me back about nine feet, just right in the air.

When he would achieve a level of performance, you would think would be complete.

And perfect, he'd go beyond it, go beyond it.

It's stretch.

There was no limit in performance.

In development, either one, there is no perfection.

In October 1967, Bruce appeared opposite Raymond Burr in an episode of the TV show,

a man called Ironside, as a karate instructor.

He came on the show and did a part.

And of course, we got to know each other.

We could always talk off the set.

He liked me because I had a rough idea of how he worked and I took falls for him.

And a lot of the stunt men didn't understand

because his style was moving very rapidly.

He was very shy then, very sweet, very retiring.

And then he would explode with this energy and

the juxtaposition of it was really startling.

It was very difficult for me to get to know him.

But I looked at screen credits and I said, this guy's name is Bruce Lee.

I never met the guy before.

He beat me up 37 times before I knew his name.

By this time, Bruce had become more and more disillusioned with the Hollywood scene.

His desire to exploit his martial arts prowess on the big

screen seemed unattainable within this Western culture.

He wanted to be a movie star.

And he wanted to use this in order to exemplify his heart.

And, you know, to make some money and do the things that

he wanted to make more money than Steve McQueen per film.

And did for one film anyway.

However, the prospect of another TV series, Longstreet, seemed to offer a

chance to reveal his own personal philosophy of

cheap kundo or the way of the intercepting fist.

Well, it began.

It was an idea of sterling sylophants.

And they made it to our television movie.

And sterling was very much interested in what the martial

arts at that time and was taking lessons from Bruce.

And suggested that we use him as a recurring character and wrote the pilot

script of the series, which followed the concept of the movie.

Quite closely to introduce and set up the situation and the

relationship between the Franciscus character and Bruce.

He was not what you call an actor.

He was a personality.

And his real... I think he became pretty good as an actor a little bit later.

But his main forte was doing the martial arts thing.

And he capitalized on it.

He always wanted to be ready to do it.

And before his scenes came up, you know, because we didn't shoot the

martial arts stuff all the time, he was like preparing and being ready.

That's why I always felt that he was ready to go any moment.

And this is a true story.

I walked into my office to meet Bruce, who presumably was going to be there.

And he grabbed me.

He was hiding behind the door.

And he grabbed me from behind and held me from behind.

And for a moment or two, I didn't know what it was.

I was totally stunned.

And he wouldn't let me go.

And I couldn't get away from him.

And so our introduction tended to favor him somewhat more than me, but I had

control of the scripts after that, which he became aware of.

I became much more respectful of the kind of things that he did.

You know, instead of the grut and punch, you know, that's kind of a delicate,

almost ballet.

I felt that he would lose a lot of energy.

He would lose a lot of his steam, doing the television show, where by doing

a film for Southeast Asia anyway, he would do film for Southeast Asia.

And I said, do the films go there and do the films.

You achieve something.

The first couple of films, you know, you learn how to do it.

And the second or third, you'll be able to do it.

Very well, and you'll be the king of the heap by that time.

And certainly it turned out that way.

It was just a good guess on my part.

Through syndication of the Green Hornet in the Far East,

Bruce had unwittingly become something of a national hero.

And one couldn't live in Hong Kong in those days without being aware of Bruce Lee.

It was during his trips back home to Hong Kong that his luck began to improve.

And he was offered a two-picture deal by

producer Raymond Child at Golden Harvest Studio.

The curious thing is, of course, to read what Bruce wrote about the martial

arts, about Jeet Kune Do and so forth, is very kind

of soft and a minimalist approach to martial arts.

And then you see him on the screen and all of a

sudden he's, oh my God, what's happening here?

But Bruce realized very well that there's a big difference

between martial arts as a martial art, as a study, if you like.

And how to express that on the screen.

So he knew both sides.

And I think this was a big factor.

A, he knew what to do and B, he had the ability to do it.

And he had this amazing persona.

This character just came roaring out through the screen.

He was a real scholar as far as martial arts went.

And he was probably the only real true martial artist that I ever knew.

Because he would come over to the house with a new kick, a new side kick, a new bar.

Something knew when he would develop the thing and practice it.

And something that you'd never see before.

That's why he was so good.

You know, all of these things that guys are doing nowadays

were invented by him, or at least they were developed by him.

Bruce Lee's first film for Golden Harvest was The

Big Boss, released in America and fists a fury.

The movie broke all box office records from Southeast Asia.

And Raymond saw the results of The Big Boss.

He recognized immediately that this was something special.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

And

most Chinese movie actors.

And at that time, Chinese movies were leaping over 24

walls and flying through the air with a sword, you know.

And Bruce brought it down to hand-to-hand combat, fist to fist combat.

And it's really right there.

It's very good for the camera and very relaxed.

Very casual and comfortable and that's what they're like about him.

I think three or four occasions I interviewed him for radio and monthly

television, mainly because I knew him quite well.

He got terribly cocky later in life and didn't want to talk to ordinary reporters.

But I had a reasonably good relationship with him.

And whenever I rang him up to speak to him, he

always turned up and did something good for him.

I think he'd probably agree, Bruce.

The thing that's limited the appeal of Chinese films to Western audiences is that

it's very unusual to find a Chinese actor who can act.

And when I say that, I mean act in the Western started.

It definitely has, you know, because when I first arrived there, you know,

I get the green hornet, you know, television series back in 65.

And as I look around, I mean, I saw a lot of human beings.

As I look at myself, I was the only robot there.

Because I was not being myself and I'm trying to accumulate external security,

external technique, or other way to move my arm, the way

I've never to ask and say what Bruce Lee would have done.

Bruce's next film, Fist of Fury, known in the States as the Chinese

Connection, went on to break the box office receipt of its predecessor, The Big Box.

Bruce Lee was working on Fist of Few.

And they're not enough stuntmen.

And also in that time, I kind of like the best stuntmen in the Hong Kong.

They need a stunt guy to double the Japanese, go through the window.

Then they call up, Jackie can't do that, because I

tend to hide, the body looks like a Japanese guy.

So I said, okay, I do it.

After I do the stunt, then Bruce Lee comes to Hong me.

Oh, what's your name?

I said, my name is Jackie.

Oh, you good, you're great.

Hi, I keep low.

When Bruce Lee after punch, like this, I punch,

you know, totally different than Bruce Lee.

I thank you, I thank Bruce, because everything learned opposite Bruce.

Nobody can beat him.

Okay, everybody can beat me.

He keep, hi, I keep low.

He punch, angry, I punch, funny, do a lot of funny face.

Everything went down.

Then, totally opposite than Bruce Lee.

Third

film was released through his uniform production company, Concord Pictures.

Adopting the roles of writer and director as well as star, he said about bringing

his western filmmaking experience to bear on the Hong Kong movie industry.

Well, I was a friend of Raymond Child, a producer of Golden Harvest.

And I heard that he was looking for me to be in one of his films.

So I happened to be walking by his office one day

and decided to just go in and see what it was.

And he said, can you shoot tomorrow?

I've got one with Bruce Lee.

And I actually wasn't familiar with Bruce Lee at the time.

And so, but I said, why not?

I haven't done that before.

So, we'll pick you up at 8 o'clock in the morning

and we started shooting that next morning.

It was always very happy, made everybody feel good.

And even though he was a bit of a perfectionist, making sure he was right,

because this was a very important film to him.

He still enjoyed working with all of us.

And it was a great guy, really a lot of fun.

I'm going to make you famous.

You might not be rich, but I'll make you famous.

A mistake he didn't get upset.

He made a joke about it.

And so it was the.

..

This time he'd left the States and made two

pictures for $30,000, $35,000 for Raymond Child.

And he became, he was like the Beatles.

I mean, he was the most popular guy in the world.

And we started to do, we were going to do

with our own money and together with Raymond.

And Teddy actually said, well, you know, what are you guys doing?

What's going on?

And we said, well, we're going to do this picture.

And he said, well, we want to be part of it.

And they came in sort of after we had already started going.

To make a

movie this size engages a huge cast and crew

to work on the direction of Robert Klaus.

This was a film that just came together, which may not never...

You may not ever see a film like this again, because of all the ingredients.

Bob Wall, John Saxon, myself, Anna Capri, all the ingredients were there.

At the time, Bruce Lee gave me a call.

He was making a film and told me to go to Golden Harvest Studios.

Bruce Lee asked me to deal with it, because we already knew each other.

He was very good at the cast and crew working for him.

And he was always very forceful with the producers.

Co-producer Fred Winthrop has to cope with the

language barriers of a multinational cast and crew.

Sometimes four or five translators are used in rehearsal.

Among the Chinese in the company, there are many different dialects.

Whenever there was a problem and there were lots of communication problems with

the Chinese, the whole working ethic there is very...

If you've been there, then you know about, this

is somebody's rice bowl, so you don't touch it.

I mean, it was so hot when we were filming the mirror scene, and I wanted to have

fans up on top of the set... and blow out the hot air.

And nobody would put them up, because nobody knew whose

job it was, because it had never been done before.

And you know, Christians wouldn't do it, because everybody's afraid that they're

going to take work away from somebody else.

But nobody would run into things like this, which happened often.

You know, we'd get Bruce and Bruce went in there and they would die for him.

I mean, he was just so revered.

The guy was big-time over there, so he couldn't even walk the streets.

They just loved Bruce Lee.

For an illusion, with an illusion, 8,000 mirrors are brought into form the set.

The cinematographer plans to film the violence, the ballet-like action of Bruce

Lee and Shum King in slow motion, to get the

scene in new-dimension and action pictures.

The first days of shooting were really amazing, because Bruce wouldn't come out.

I mean, Bruce did everything to avoid starting.

He just had this wind rolling here.

He wanted to do some thinking.

And we finally started shooting without him.

We just shot road shots.

And just because we had a unit there, we were ready to go.

And he finally came in the very first scene we shot.

It is the scene where he's in his room and Anna Capri

parades in all these girls for him to pick a girl.

Because he's seen, he didn't have to move.

And he was physically, he was erect.

I mean, if you look at the scene carefully,

I mean, you can see his mouth is trembling.

I mean, he was just so anxious and nervous.

Not that he wasn't good.

But he was important for him.

This was his first starring English line.

I mean, this is everything that he was hoping for it to be.

A gift, Mr. Lee.

If you don't see anything you like, there was a go on the feet tonight.

Good girl, sir.

The owner of his dog.

Oh, yes.

Another one.

I'll send it to you.

I worked with the acting instructor right before that for this movie.

And my attitude with that movie was like...

The way my instructor trained, I took private lessons

from this acting instructor here in Los Angeles.

And he trained me to play this part like Muhammad Ali, cocky, arrogant.

You know, and most people might think that's really me, you know, in real life.

But he had me playing like real cocky, real arrogant, you know.

And so it was fun.

I enjoyed it.

And, you know, we brought back the sound effects which everybody uses now,

what they used in the Chinese films.

I mean, there's a... you know, I mean, totally fanciful.

A martial arts academy forms the background for

a dangerous and complicated fighting sequence.

200 students and masters will participate in an all-out battle.

He hurt himself a few times because it's harder, you know, to

do a full extension kick and stop short of hitting the person.

So he would have to stop himself.

And that sometimes, you know, he injured

himself a few times, not hurting other people.

Fighting techniques are carefully choreographed by Bruce Lee and the director.

Discipline and coordination are the only protection against possible lethal accident.

Under this drive for perfection, Lee and the other actors put in over 12

hours of work to recreate a single kung fu sequence.

They hit Van Dam, Seagal.

They have screen presence.

Okay?

Bruce and I, we had more than screen presence.

We had that, but we had a rhythm.

We had a style.

We had timing.

Bruce had soul.

He had beat a rhythm.

Now look.

And I think, personally, not to be real subjective, but I don't know of any

martial arts, martial artists that has ever projected that on screen.

The company strives for the ultimate authenticity.

The exacting precision must be maintained.

We knew

we were making a terrific action piece.

We had no idea.

It would catch on the way it did.

It was a great opportunity.

It opened up doors for me.

In Hong Kong, the greatest kung fu fighters in the world

are keeping alert under the intense physical strain.

Doing

things he passed out, he passed out for a half hour.

And scared him to death.

Didn't know what the hell it was.

And so we had a full examination and, you know,

like the doctors gave him a clean bill of health.

On May 10, 1973, while dubbing sound effects for Enter the Dragon, Bruce

mysteriously collapsed following a series of dizzy spells.

He was doing his own, all the editing, sounding, everything himself.

That's probably one of the things he was dedicating

himself so much to that he was exhausting himself.

He was rushed to hospital and given a neural examination.

The drug manifold was prescribed to reduce an apparent brain swelling.

It wasn't that we'd never get him done.

If he couldn't do one thing, he would bang.

He would do it over.

But it was always very focused on his work.

He was doing something one day.

Damn, he was hitting me with the BOG, the finger jab.

And I said, well, you're so damn fast.

He says, no, I'm not fast.

I said, well, you're faster than, you know.

Anybody I've seen, he says, I found many people faster than me.

He said I had to learn to be deceptive.

On July 20, Bruce had arranged a meet with Raymond

Shao to discuss casting ideas for Game of Death.

That evening, he stopped off to pick up Hong Kong starlet Betty Ting Pei.

While at her home, he suffered another attack.

She gave him a painkiller, and he went to lie down.

Bruce never awoke.

His body reacted to the drug, and this in turn triggered a cerebral edema.

He tends to revive improved feudal, and he was

pronounced dead by doctors at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

It was hard to believe.

I mean, what happened is one of those freaks, medical freaks.

That strange that a man of Bruce's prowess in that death would be a complete,

beautiful, physical, complete mess would have a

broken vessel in his brain that would cause his death.

The man was in such a physical specimen.

It was just hard to believe that at that age, he'd gone.

The phone rang, and my mother picked up the phone.

She was behind me, and I had, you know, crying real hard.

I turned around, I saw something that she heard herself

or something, but I asked her, I said, what happened?

She said, Bruce died.

I said, no.

Can't be.

I don't believe it.

I don't believe it.

I was the one in the street.

I run James Ojai.

Then some people... I said, Bruce Lee died.

I said, no.

You kidding?

No, he's serious.

I was in Japan when he passed away, and a lot of the people there,

he was such a hero at that time they were in mourning.

And you'd see people crying on the streets.

I still have visions of him, and I can see him in my mind right now.

Just as though he hasn't been gone.

Like if we walked through the door, we'd just go up and shake his hand again.

It's like he hasn't been gone, cause he's that close, you see.

He's that type of a person you don't forget.

It just left me in a totally shocked, because he was a man that was,

in my eyes, just totally invincible.

Bruce Lee's body was finally laid to rest at the Lakeview Cemetery, Seattle,

on July 31st, 1973.

Matter of fact, we didn't really head home to me until, I don't know how long it was,

maybe a couple months later, when they had the funeral, not a month later,

so funeral in the state here.

And before the funeral, I walked up to the coffin, and then I saw him laying there.

And then I just broke down.

They had to cry.

First we had a lot of celebrities coming down.

Steve McQueen was in, James Cobain.

They were part of the full boroughs.

He completed his life, I think.

I don't know what more he could have done.

I mean, his influence is still felt, still being felt.

My dad started training me as soon as I could walk.

He trained me while he was alive, and after he passed away, I just kind of

kept at it, because I didn't really think about it much.

You know, you get started at something, you just continue with it, and my dad had

a circle of students that were close to him, and so they were friends of our family.

And one of those men, Danny and Asanto, continued to

be my teacher, so it was kind of a nice unbroken line.

He did his thing.

Before he left, this was really fantastic.

In such a short amount of time, he was recognized by almost the whole world.

In 1973, when Bruce died, that bombarded with mail and calls about Bruce,

and they want to continue and learn his method of martial arts.

And then I agreed, let's open up the Kali Academy.

We named him the Kali Academy.

I said, we can share and continue Bruce's teaching.

My dad left a really wonderful legacy, and I meet people all over the world who

really admire him, who admire his work, and really

have been very positively affected by it, too.

Bruce is always young.

Everybody remembers what he was, as a great

kickboxer, and he's immortal in that respect.

Dynamic people you could ever meet and admire.

There's only one Bruce Lee in this world.

It's not possible to have another one.

If anybody wants to be a Bruce Lee, it's not possible.

Here's a man that had so much to offer, and he was not an ego maniac.

He was a nice guy.

I don't think he was probably anybody who's

bigger ever will be as big as he was worldwide.

He was like everybody as a fan of Bruce Lee.

Young and old, a final setting to a very beautiful story.

A young man who doomed a force and then faded.