Original subtitles

With you.

Let's just put it this way.

I have no fear of opponent in front of me.

But I am very self-sufficient that they do not bother me.

And that should I fight? Should I do anything?

I have made up my mind and that's it, baby.

You better kill me before.

Bruce Lee said that when to a radio microphone in Hong Kong.

In December 1971, 19 months later, he was dead.

He was 32.

Decades later, the most famous director in Hollywood called him arrogant and put

him on the ground in a movie.

The people who actually stood in front of him tell a very different story.

The fight in Oakland that nobody was allowed to film, what he did to a

teenage stuntman named Jackie Chan, and a lunch on the last day of his life.

Stay for that one.

First, the director.

His daughter Shannon says her mother saw a very different man.

My mom always said that the way he was in his films, the way he was in

interviews, was the way he was.

Like, that's the man. That way of speaking, that intensity, that poetic

essence, the energy of him, that's how he was. On camera, off camera, at home,

with friends, teaching, filming.

That was his...

Tarantino has said the stuntmen on the Green Hornet couldn't stand Bruce and

that a judo champion named Gene LaBelle was brought in to humble him.

This is Gene LaBelle.

Bruce could beat us all.

And I don't mean it would be a struggle. I mean, he could beat us all and we

didn't have a chance.

This was in an actual fight situation where I tried to hit him. I tried to

knock him out.

We tried to hurt this kid because he was always embarrassing us.

demonstrations, and just in general.

And Jackie Chan, who has been kicked by just about everyone.

No, human being, just human being, cannot like a cartoon, you know, how

fast? That's the fastest you can be. Even Muhammad Ali, you know, right now,

Tyson, the punch, fast, but you still can see.

When Bruce Lee kick, you don't shake your eyes, because when you shake your

eyes, you cannot see Bruce Lee kick. You know how fast?

A genius, a legend, or an arrogant man who got lucky?

So how good was Bruce Lee, really?

Andre Morgan produced his films in Hong Kong.

He saw a problem nobody in the movie business had ever had.

In terms of the way Bruce would fight in real life and the way he fought on the

screen, there are obviously some differences.

The adjustments that we make for all martial arts on camera, he had to slow

down some of his actions and some of his gestures had to be exaggerated in order

for them to be caught by the camera.

More than anything, he actually had to slow down.

He had a tremendous speed in real life, but it was too fast for the camera.

Joe Lewis was a karate world champion.

He sparred with Bruce.

especially his speed. I always thought he was like the fastest guy who ever

stood in front of me.

He had incredible, what I call kind of a Zen level of consciousness. In

psychology, we call it the implicit level of consciousness.

You didn't know when he was going to squeeze that trigger.

And he always knew when you weren't ready.

He had blinding speed, especially with his hands.

And I know that's because he stood in front of me.

And he popped me a few times.

So I always told people, I know how hard Bruce Lee could hit.

I know how fast he was, because he nailed me.

Bob Wall fought him on screen in Enter the Dragon.

On that set, Bruce cut his hand on a real glass bottle, and a rumor started

that he was going to kill Bob Wall.

He started to spin, and as he spinned, he jammed his fist into the glass.

And so Freddie Weintraub called me and said, you know,

There's a rumor that Bruce is going to kill you. And I went back after his hand

was well and we shot the rest of the scene where he sidekicks me and he

sidekicked me so hard. I mean, Bruce hit like a mule that in one of the scenes

when he hit me, I flew back and one of the stuntmen behind me, his arms got

broken from the impact. And all Bruce had to do was come up and kick me in the

face or in the neck and I'd have been in serious trouble.

Well, clearly he didn't do that.

And so there really was no... But years before any of that, there was Oakland.

1964.

Bruce was 24, teaching Kung Fu to anyone who walked in, including people who

weren't Chinese.

Some in Chinatown didn't like that, so they sent a challenger.

Wong Jack Man.

No cameras.

Only a handful of people in the room.

Bruce's friend Leo Fong talked to him, right after.

He said, here, talk to Bruce, he's going to tell you the whole thing.

So I picked up the phone, and then Bruce, he picked up the phone.

He says, hey, Leo.

He said, the sucker, chicken shit, all he did was rant.

And I said, well, what happened? What really happened? He said, well, here's

what happened.

He brought about 10 people with him, and then he says to me, let's talk about

rules.

And I said, hell with rules. And I started falling in class with him like

this.

Wong Jack Man's side always told it differently.

But Bruce was angry, not at the other man, at himself.

By his own count, the fight took three minutes.

He thought it should have taken seconds.

So he threw out almost everything he'd been taught.

So that was the birth of JKD in Oakland, and I was there when it happened.

Then Hollywood came calling, and then it hung up. There was going to be a TV

series about a Shaolin monk in the American West.

Bruce believed it was meant for him.

He talked about it himself on Canadian television that same year.

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 said, well, we don't know how the

audience are 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 is not going to be on.

I see. You see, because unfortunately, such thing does exist

in this world.

The part went to David Carradine.

So Bruce went home to Hong Kong and made the big boss.

It broke every box office record in the city.

Then Fist of Fury broke it again. A teenage stuntman was working on that

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

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

Then they call up, Jackie, can you do that?

Because I said, hi.

A year later, on Enter the Dragon, Jackie was back.

And this time, Bruce hit him for real.

just one one stick and hit my right here then i i do nothing

i just doing the normal things a reaction fall down then he also very

good you know he doesn't say a lot of people when you hurt oh sorry no he just

continued until director said cut god you know i

i ready you know yeah

No, the blood, don't have blood, just, you know, a growl like this. I said, no,

no, no, you know, stuntman, you know. I said, that's OK.

No, no, no.

Then Bruce did something nobody expected.

Finished, but we need two more stuntmen at night.

I keep that one.

He just keep me, I keep Jackie.

Very appreciated.

Yes, I think he appreciate me and also he want to...

Earn more money. Yeah, let me earn more money, because from noon until nine,

that's a wrap.

Then I can double. Back in Los Angeles, he charged up to $250 an hour.

Steve McQueen paid it.

So did James Coburn.

He said, I've got a one-inch punch that's better than anything you did. And

I said, really? I'd like to see that. And he said, get a pillow. So I stood

up. put a pillow in front of me and bang 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. Man, that looks like fun.

McQueen was his friend and a world-class driver.

Pat Johnson heard what happened when Steve took Bruce for a ride.

Gears down, spins it around, does a total 180, stops the car and he says, he

looks over and he says, well, what do you think, Bruce?

And Bruce isn't there.

Bruce. And he looks down. Bruce is down in the footwell, covered up.

And he gets up. I can't use the language that Bruce used, but he said, McQueen,

I'll kill you. I'll kill you, McQueen. I'm going to kill you. And Steve said,

his eyes open, he said, uh-oh, here is Bruce Lee, angry, the toughest guy in

the world.

He's angry. He wants to kill me. So Steve said he took off and started going

as fast as he could on the highway. He said, Bruce, calm down. And Bruce is

saying, Steve, slow down.

Slow down. And Steve said, You won't hit me, will you, Bruce?

No, no, you won't touch me, will you? No, no, you won't hurt me, will you? No,

no, just stop the car! Stop the car!

And then there was Chuck Norris, a karate world champion, and the man Bruce

chose for the most famous fight of his career.

I want to do a movie now with a fight scene that everyone will remember.

And I want to do it in the Colosseum in Rome, like two gladiators fighting.

And I want you to be my opponent.

So kiddingly, I asked Bruce, well, who wins, Bruce?

He says, I win.

I'm the star of this movie.

Which I knew he was going to say.

And I said,

yeah, I see.

You want to beat the world champion? Because I held the world title at the

time. He says, no, I want to kill the world champion.

Quick favor. This channel is just one person.

If Bruce's story meant something to you, the buy me a coffee link below keeps the

next one coming.

Thank you.

In May 1973, Bruce collapsed while recording sound for Enter the Dragon.

Doctors found swelling on his brain.

He flew to Los Angeles for tests.

Chuck Norris had lunch with him.

And he said, I'm going to see the doctor because I've got some problems. I'm

getting dizzy and passing out.

So I want to find out what it is.

So anyway, so he goes to the doctor does the whole thing Anyway, we get after he

does we get back together and I said how'd it go? He's well, the doctor says,

you know, he's 32 saving. He's the same age as me We're both 32 and he said the

doctor says I'm like an 18 year old kid

Two months later, in Hong Kong, George Lazenby, the man who had just played

James Bond, was about to make a film with him.

And I said, don't bother coming to dinner tonight because I'm leaving

tomorrow.

And he said, no, I said, I'll be there, I'll be there.

And I was having dinner with Raymond Chow in a Japanese restaurant, which is

Bruce's favorite food.

And I said to Raymond, he's never been late in three days. I better give him a

call. He said, he's not at home, he's with his girlfriend.

I said, give me the number.

Betty, Betty, Tim, I think her name was.

And I called her and she said, I can't wake him up. I said, I'm calling back in

five minutes. If you don't wake him up, I'll call an ambulance because she

didn't want to get the bad publicity.

And I called back and she said, he's in an ambulance going to the hospital.

I said, well, he'll be okay. And then I got to my hotel room and the phone was

ringing. Bruce Lee's dead.

What do you think?

What could you say?

The official cause was swelling of the brain, a reaction to a common headache

pill. Six days later, Enter the Dragon opened.

He never saw it.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was flying through Asia on his way to see him.

I was leaving Malaysia. I was going to stop in Hong Kong and see him. So I took

the plane from Kuala Lumpur down to Singapore to catch my connection on

either to Hong Kong or Manila.

I was going to go home by Hong Kong and see Bruce.

And when I got down to Singapore, all the papers had big, fat headlines about

Bruce was dead.

Jackie Chan heard it on the street.

I was, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I was over on the street, I

run Jim Sa Chui.

And some people, hey Jackie, Bruce Lee died. I said, no.

You kidding? No, it's serious.

Then, I started run, go on the taxi.

I just tell the taxi, put on the FM, you know, AM or something.

Just about 15 minute later, then the news come.

Famous action star, then I,

He left behind a son, Brandon, eight years old.

Well, you know, I was only eight and a half when my dad passed away, so we did

a lot of things together. We just didn't have a lot of time to do them in. And do

you remember him very well?

Yes, I do.

That's quite unusual, isn't it? Lots of people, when their parents die young,

they kind of block it all off and forget loads.

You know, it's...

Kind of an involved conversation, but I did for a while. There was a period of

time where I didn't think about it much.

But as I got older, it kind of came back.

In 1993, Brandon was killed in an accident on the set of The Crow.

He was 28.

He's buried next to his father in Seattle.

Dan Inosanto helped carry Bruce's coffin.

To me, that was mind-boggling for me. I'm now 74.

But there really has not ever been a day that I haven't thought about him.

At least once, maybe twice, or three times, or four times, or five times

through the day.

So, was he arrogant?

Linda Lee was married to him for nine years.

She was asked what he would want people to say about him.

Bruce would be most proud to say, and to have people say about him, that he

was a real human being.

He was vibrant, and he was full of life, and he was the real thing.

On Canadian television, they asked him if he thought of himself as Chinese.

You still think of yourself 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.

32 years, four finished films, and every fighter who came after him is still

trying to catch up.

Be water, my friend.