Original subtitles

[camera rolling]

[horn blaring]

[Man] Test X2, take one, speed.

Now look directly into the camera Bruce,

directly at it,

and now give me a three-quarter this way and hold it,

and give me a profile that way all the way, good, hold it.

Now come back to a profile on the other side and hold that,

give me a three-quarter on that side

and then give me a right into the camera again.

All right, now the camera will pull back.

[somber music]

[wind blowing]

And Bruce, show us some Gung Fu movements.

Well, it is hard to show it alone

but I will try to do my best.

[Man] All right, maybe one of the fellows will walk in.

-Do you mind walking- -[Man] Yeah, it would be-

-Go ahead. -[Man 2] Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Although accidents do happen, but, you know... [laughs]

There are various kind of strikes,

it depends on where you hit

and what weapon you will be using.

To the eyes, you will use fingers, don't worry.

To the eyes,

or straight at the face from the waist, everything up.

Hold on just a minute,

let's move this gentlemen around this way

so you're doing it more into the camera.

Okay, is well.

[Shannon] I'm sure that my father did not fully appreciate

the behemoth that he was up against,

how deeply systemic it is.

That said, I don't think he was naive,

he just believed in himself so deeply.

There is the finger jab, there's the punch,

there is the back fist and then low.

Of course then to use leg straight at it

going, or come up...

[Shannon] He knew had something to share

that was worthwhile,

and he knew how hard he was willing to work.

He was kinda worried.

[Man] Yeah, he has nothing to worry about.

[dramatic music]

[water gushing]

[lively music]

[man speaking in the background]

[Linda] He was rejected by Hollywood

and so he had to show them

that an Asian could be a strong leading man.

[airplane engine roaring]

[lively South Asian music]

And so when an offer came

for Bruce to make the first film over in Hong Kong,

he decided that he would go

and just see how it was and how he was accepted.

And so we went to the midnight premiere of The Big Boss,

the first showing of The Big Boss.

Bruce hadn't seen it yet and Bruce always told me

that Hong Kong people really react to film.

If they don't like it,

you're gonna get booed out of the theater.

[lively upbeat music]

[Sam] Big Boss, the script wasn't that well-written,

the production quality was pretty low,

but just Bruce Lee himself was earth shattering.

[kicks and punches thudding]

That persona and that energy,

that kind of love affair with the camera,

was very, very immediate and very, very powerful.

-[kicks thudding] -[men groaning]

[suspenseful music]

[kicks and punches thudding]

[Bruce groaning]

[dramatic suspenseful music]

[Bruce] 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 arts.

[dramatic music]

[kick thudding]

[dramatic music]

[kicks thudding]

[knife clanging]

[Linda] So we're sitting in the back

and the theater is full and when it's over,

the whole theater was absolutely silent.

Nothing.

All of a sudden, everyone started cheering and yelling,

clapping and standing up, they just went nuts about.

They cheered Bruce, they knew by then he was in the audience

and they carried him out of the theater.

It was amazing, it was wonderful.

So then he knew he was onto something.

[Jeff] When it succeeds beyond all of his expectations,

I think he's just as surprised as anybody else.

This is his first real taste of movie stardom.

[Andre] To give you an idea in those days,

if a movie broke one million Hong Kong dollars

which was about 120,000 in U.S.

that was a big deal in Hong Kong.

Wow, that made you a movie star,

and if your movie did two million, you were a superstar.

[calm music]

[speaking in foreign language]

[dramatic suspenseful music]

[Man] Bruce Lee is incredible.

Bruce Lee didn't like to waste any time,

he wouldn't beat about bush, he'd go very direct.

[Reporter] Is Bruce Lee your hero?

Yes.

Tell me what you like about him.

He always wins the bad guy, he's a very quick mover.

[Man] I mean, he's not an action man like Eastwood or Bronson.

I suppose he's more like a Nuryev.

[dramatic music]

[camera clicking]

[car honking]

[xylophone music]

[Andre] Hong Kong in the 1970s was a very dynamic

and a very exciting city.

A lot of diverse communities.

It was an R&R center for the U.S. Military

during the Vietnam War.

So it was the city that partied 24 hours a day.

It was sort of a fun, anything goes, wild, wild east.

[Sam] China had been dominated

and humiliated by the west for about 100 years.

So there's a lot of memories, a lot of anger.

[dramatic music]

[Jeff] This is a Hong Kong now

that's experiencing its own youth revolution.

Student protests in the streets,

a lot of tension between the British colonial authority

and the native folks in Hong Kong.

[dramatic music]

The police are coming through,

they're throwing stuff at us.

This is an anti-British demonstration.

[Doug] Bruce felt that British colonial rule

then was something that was corrupt.

[Kareem] He was very much a nationalist in that sense

that he wanted the Chinese people

to be free and independent.

[lively music]

[Andre] When Big Boss worked,

he wanted to double down and do it again.

But he wanted the next movie to be bigger and better

and it was.

Fist of Fury was a far bigger production.

[people vocalizing]

And Fist of Fury was really an opportunity

for Bruce to showcase how he thought a leading man should act and dress

and how the fight sequences should be choreographed.

[shouting in foreign language]

[Sam] It was set in Shanghai, during the colonial era.

[speaking in foreign language]

Shanghai was occupied, humiliated,

dominated and insulted by foreigners.

[speaking in foreign language]

[punch thudding]

[dramatic drums beating]

[mean groaning]

[Sam] Bruce Lee distills a lot of emotion

into a very, very passionate explosion.

[dramatic music]

[whistle whistling]

[Doug] That was 1972 in Hong Kong

and it caught that moment in a colony

where people were saying,

"Yes, the days of us being second-class citizens are over,

and high time."

[kicks thudding]

[men groaning]

[Sam] Fist of Fury not only was directed

against Japanese colonials, but also western people too.

It's hugely, hugely cathartic.

[dramatic music]

[glass breaking]

People are starting to react really strongly

against the racism of the west.

[man gagging]

[speaking in foreign language]

[suspenseful music]

[Andre] By then, Bruce understood that,

even though he hadn't exactly had huge success

yet in Hollywood,

he understood that Hollywood was the big game.

It was, you know, the main attraction, it was center stage

and Hong Kong would always be a sideshow.

[man groaning]

So the question became,

do you think we can sell our films to the world?

-[dramatic music] -[men screaming]

[Host] This is The Pierre Berton Show.

Bruce Lee, Mandarin Superstar,

recording December 9th, 1971 in Hong Kong.

Bruce Lee faces a real dilemma,

he's on the verge of the stardom in the United States.

But he's just achieved super stardom

as a film actor here in Hong Kong.

So what does he choose, the east or the west?

Now what are you gonna do?

Are you gonna be able to live in both worlds,

try and eat your cake and eat it too?

I am gonna 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.

[Pierre] Hollywood sure as heck hasn't.

[Bruce] You better believe it, man.

[calm music]

[camera rolling]

[girl giggling]

[Shannon] I have really only

very abstract memories of him.

I remember our house,

I remember going to Golden Harvest Studios,

I remember glimpses of him.

But I remember very clearly what he was like energetically.

Like, what it was like to be in his presence,

to be loved by him, to be played with,

like, all of those things.

And the other way that I know him is through his own words.

[lively acoustic music]

[Narrator] May 16th, 1960.

"Dear Hawkins, now I am really on my own.

Since the day I stepped into this country,

I didn't spend any money from my father.

Now I am working as a waiter

for a part-time job after school.

I'm telling you, it's tough, boy,

I always have a heck of a time.

Well, my friend, do get well soon.

Your friend, Bruce."

[Andre] When Bruce first came to Seattle,

he had moved from Hong Kong at age 18

because he was in too much trouble there

and his family figured he needed a fresh start.

[Ruby] He's a very handsome young man

and very resourceful.

He told me that he wanted to prove to his father

that he could go to university without him.

[lively music]

[Leroy] Bruce, when I first met him, was a slight man.

I think at the time he weighed about 135 pounds.

He used to call me Roy.

[Jeff] When Bruce moves to the U.S.,

his identity is suddenly a minority,

a Chinese minority in a white country.

He has to face the conundrum that all immigrants face.

Who am I gonna be, what is my identity?

How do I express myself?

And how in U.S. society, can I even be seen?

[Shannon] So my father worked at Ruby Chow's restaurant,

and at the same time he was studying Wing Chun,

but just on his own.

He was always interested

in what other martial arts were taking place in the area.

A lot of the Japanese arts were fairly popular

like karate or judo, but not Chinese gung fu.

So he saw that there was an opening for this, if you will,

and so he got some people to take some lessons with him,

like in a parking garage and various locations.

It was a very nontraditional approach to martial arts.

[Dan] A lot of Chinese at that time

usually did not teach westerners.

He was sort of looked down upon in the community

and he broke the barrier.

[Man] Bruce literally opened his school up

to anybody that wanted.

He could care less if you were Chinese or not Chinese.

[men groaning]

[Jeff] He has to figure out ways to mask his accent.

He becomes very much attuned

to the rhythms of young American life.

He's seeing working-class folks,

he's seeing people of color

and that's shaping his idea of who he should become.

[Leroy] He learned a lot about America

from the 10 guys that he took under his wing.

For good or bad, we taught him the American way.

[pen scribbling]

[Narrator] Who am I?

That is the age-old question asked by every man

at one time or another.

Though he looks into a mirror and recognizes his own face,

though he knows his own name and age and history,

still he wonders, deep down, who am I?

[Amy] The thing is,

I don't think we could ever forget what we are

because of what we look like.

We can never walk away from that.

[lively music]

I taught him the importance of racial pride.

He felt that attractive

the fact that I would not put up with any BS

and that also existed in him

because he was very ethnocentric himself.

I felt that I apologized to nobody for nothing

and especially being Japanese-Americans,

because of the second World War.

He knew my experiences through the relocation camps.

[Reporter] More than 100,000 men, women and children,

all of Japanese ancestry,

removed from their homes to reduce a military hazard

at a time when danger of invasion was great.

Each family upon arrival at the relocation-

[Amy] The Japanese were incarcerated.

You can call them concentration camps,

but they called them relocation camps.

[dramatic music]

To face the Japanese and to do the job thoroughly,

we have got to understand them thoroughly.

[Andre] I think that the Asians scene in America,

as a white American, it was a very confusing thing

because the Japanese were the bad guys, right?

They were the "slant-eyes"

that had fought against the Americans in World War II

and they were really terrible and inscrutable.

[airplane engine roaring]

[Reporter] Destruction upon unarmed cities and their-

[Andre] On the other hand, the Vietnamese,

they were gooks and they were really bad

because they were communist.

[loud banging]

And the Chinese were the great anomaly.

Was China a good guy or was China a bad guy?

[Jeff] The Chinese were brought in as early as the 1830s

for one reason, which was to service cheap labor

in the building up of the west.

The stereotype is that they're submissive,

silent, incredibly industrious.

[whip cracking]

And what we see is the rise

of a working class white movement

led by Irish-American laborers.

They're able to whip up a frenzy against Chinese-Americans

and because of that,

the Chinese Exclusion Act passes in 1882.

This is the first time there's been an explicit ban

on one group of people.

Literally, the Chinese are not seen as human.

I ask you if you will rise in your places

and fight with me to restore America to the Americans.

[crowd applauding]

We were like a victim of rape

and a victim who has been raped of his constitutional rights

does not like to talk about it

nor does point the finger at the one who is guilty,

but he looks at himself

as being responsible for that unspeakable crime.

[band music]

[Man] Through the experiences

and histories of these folks,

Bruce comes to understand how he appears to white Americans.

Asians have been completely other-ized.

[audience clapping]

[Leroy] Jesse and Bruce and I would go Out,

we'd swap girlfriends.

So that everybody was with the wrong race.

[lively music]

And we would go around

to see if anybody wanted to say anything about that.

[Amy] We would all go to the Buddhist church dances,

rhythm and blues, but mostly the popular stuff also.

I called him a kinetic genius.

When I first taught him how to do a double pirouette,

all he did was just watch me.

He reproduced it down to the iota and that was amazing, wow.

Fantastic dancer and that kinda thing,

but romantically awkward.

[fireworks blasting]

We just kinda drifted apart.

I mean, Bruce had a lot going for him

but it wasn't enough for me.

[Narrator] September, 1962.

Dear Pearl, this letter contains my dreams

and my ways of thinking.

As a whole, you can call it my way of life.

Ideas are what America is looking for.

Ideas have made America what she is.

And one good idea will make a man what he wants to be.

When you drop a pebble into a pool of water,

the pebble starts a series of ripples

that expand until they encompass the whole pool.

This is exactly what will happen

when I give my ideas a definite plan of action.

Warm regards, Bruce.

[Shannon] My father opened his first official school,

called the Jun Fun Gung fu Institute, in Seattle in 1963.

[Leroy] That was a transition time

but once he found out, "I Can make money doing this,"

all the original people just dropped out.

Looking back on it, Bruce always had an agenda.

He was a product now not a friend and a teacher

and so he opened that studio and that's where he met Linda.

[Linda] His goal all his life

was to show the beauty of his Chinese culture to the world,

and so he started with me.

[somber music]

We were both at the University of Washington

and we would go to this area

where there were tall white columns and a big grassy area,

and we would practice gung fu.

He was very outgoing, very personable,

very hands-on with showing you how to stand and what to do.

"Okay, Linda, you put your arms like this."

He threw me over his shoulder

and I'd lay flat on the ground

and he leaned over and he said,

"How would you like to go to the Space Needle?"

"Sure, I'd love to," so that was our first date.

[calm music]

He loved the lifestyle that you could lead in America.

And at that time he wanted to establish gung fu schools

all across the nation, he had big dreams, big aspirations.

[somber music]

He wanted me to experience eating Chinese food

and seeing Chinese movies.

He took the whole group of gung fu students

and we went to the Cocosi Theater

to watch the movie called The Orphan.

[lively classical music]

When he appeared on the screen,

and he was actually the star of it,

I was totally shocked, taken aback.

Here he was, a movie star.

I was kind of, like, looking at him like, "Is that you?"

And he said, "Yes."

But he didn't think that was anything super.

To him it was like, "That was my job when I was a kid."

[lively music]

[Alex] Ah, a diplomat.

[Bruce laughing]

[Jeff] Bruce Lee is born in San Francisco Chinatown,

the closest thing on the U.S. continent to Hong Kong.

It's the biggest Chinatown by far,

owing to immigration of Chinese laborers

because of the gold rush.

[Jeff] The reason that Lee Hoi-Chuen

and his opera troupe end up in Chinatown

is they find that they can make good money touring the U.S.

[Shannon] My grandmother came along

on this particular trip,

and she was pregnant with my father at the time.

That is why my father was born in San Francisco.

[Man] He is an American citizen.

[baby cooing]

[Sam] Bruce Lee's been acting in films,

ever since he was a baby.

He literally grew up on the set of the Hong Kong cinema

in the backstage of the Cantonese opera.

[man singing in foreign language]

[Robert] During 1940 after Bruce was born,

my grandmother was talking to my father over the phone,

saying, "Hey, there is gonna be a war

pretty soon in Hong Kong with the Japanese."

But my father, being very Chinese, family is number one.

We're gonna bring Bruce home.

I mean, if anything should happen,

it's gonna be a whole family.

[Interviewer] And you moved to Hong Kong shortly after?

[Bruce] Yes, when I was three months old.

[Rob] My father came from a very poor family of fishermen.

My mother's uncle was Hong Kong's first millionaire,

his name was Sir Robert Ho Tung.

[South Asian music]

[woman speaking in foreign language]

[Rob] I think we were pretty well off.

We had two maids, we had a chauffeur.

My father also took care of his older brother's family.

So there was, like maybe about 15, 16 people at all times.

Bruce was a free spirit.

He's always been a ruffian type of guy.

I mean, not good at schooling but good at fighting.

[people chattering]

I remember a lot of celebrities

would come by my father's house.

One director/producer,

noticed that Bruce was a very active person.

He said, "Well, maybe you should give him

a small little role, you know?

Seems like he was born with that talent to be an actor."

So my father let him play a couple of small roles first.

[young Bruce speaking in foreign language]

[Sam] The movie The Kid,

which he starred at the tender age of nine,

he symbolized someone

who came from just a lot of profound suffering.

[speaking in foreign language]

It's this Chinese phrase... [speaks in foreign language],

savoring the sweet while remembering the bitter.

Nostalgia for suffering.

[speaking in foreign language]

[Rob] My father at first didn't want

him to be in showbiz,

but then the movies that he was making were doing very well.

He was one of the top child actors so he allowed it.

[Robert] In school people were looking at him

and say, "Hey, who you think you are?"

And then a few guys just ganged up and beat him up.

So he said, "I'll need to learn something

to defend myself when the need comes."

[Bruce] Man is always in a learning in process.

[Kareem] Ip Man had a broad sense

of what martial arts was about.

He wasn't just in a narrow space

and I think Bruce Lee really was his ideal student.

[Narrator] My instruction at the time would come up to me

and say, "Long, relax and calm your mind.

Forget about yourself and follow the opponent's movement.

Let your mind do the counter movement

without any interfering deliberation.

Above all, learn the art of detachment."

[water gushing]

After spending many hours of meditation and practice,

I gave up and went sailing alone in the junk.

On the sea I thought of all my past training

and got mad at myself and punched the water.

Right then, at that moment, a thought suddenly struck me.

Was not this water the very essence of gung fu?

[water running]

This water, the softest substance in the world,

only seemed weak.

In reality, it could penetrate

the hardest substance in the world.

That was it, I wanted to be like the nature of water.

[calm music]

[Rob] At that point,

he already was pretty good at Wing Chun

and there was another style called Choy Li Fut,

and one will always go against the other.

And they will always fight on rooftops.

Bruce will come back with bruises

or something with a black eye.

My father would not tolerate that kind of fighting.

[car horn blaring]

[lively music]

[Sam] In his 1960 film, The Orphan,

basically, Bruce Lee was playing himself in some ways,

a juvenile delinquent.

[woman shouting]

[dramatic music]

[loud footsteps]

[Rob] The straw that broke the camel's back

was when an undercover cop get a hold of my mother,

"Your son has been fighting and we are worried

that he might be involved in gangs later on.

If he doesn't stop what he's doing now,

we will have no choice but to arrest him."

My father said, "Well, since he was born in United States

and we have good friends over there

that can take care of him, why don't we just send him back

and let him try it on his own, see what happens?"

[people chattering]

[man speaking in foreign language]

[Rob] I remember the day before he left, I was asleep

He woke me up, "Robert, I'll be leaving Hong Kong tomorrow

and not knowing what I'm going into."

I've never seen him that uncomfortable before.

He was troubled, he didn't know what to expect.

He was scared.

He was just an 18-year old and that was it.

My father sent him to United States

with only $100 in his pocket.

[calm music]

[phone ringing]

[man groaning]

[Linda] When we were dating, we did go to a lot of films.

And one of them was Breakfast at Tiffany's.

[man screaming]

Mickey Rooney just looked ridiculous,

Bruce was just ashamed

that his Asian culture would be represented that way.

If you don't stop that phonograph right this minute,

I'm going to call the police department.

[Jeff] When you saw Asian Americans on screen,

they were usually crazed, maniacal, robotic stereotypes

or serving white folks.

[Man] The coolie makes $0.10 a day.

Nobody to ladies and kind to gentlemen,

please to introduce myself.

[Sam] Hollywood had always treated Asian people

in blatantly racist ways.

[audience laughing]

[Man] We got 39 chopsticks.

[audience laughing]

No, stacked like pagoda.

[audience laughing]

[Andre] Hollywood would take a white person

and make 'em play a Chinese,

as opposed to putting a Chinese in the role.

Talk to Nancy Kwan, talk to the actors

that had been here in those days.

Yes, who is this?

[Nancy] I can't think of any Asian leads

at that time, really.

They were all played by Caucasians.

John Wayne played Genghis Khan.

By who's lead do you cross my land?

My blood says take her.

[Andre] The Chinese community

didn't really raise hell about it,

even though it was outrageous, casting white people?

Life even at its best is hardly endurable.

How can you be so unfeeling,

what kind of a man are you anyway?

[Amy] But even glasses and small frames,

no muscularity at all.

I think for most Asian males,

it was imprinted in their brains that this is what they are.

[Man] Asian-American leads,

if they're men, they can't kiss white women.

They can only kiss Asian women, if at all.

Well, you tilt head to one side

and I too head to other.

[calm music]

Clever, these Chinese.

[Man] There's really no role for an Asian-American

to express another side of their humanity.

[lively music]

[Narrator] October 20, 1963.

To the sweetest girl, from the man who appreciates her,

Linda, to live content with small means,

to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,

await occasions, hurry never.

In other words, to let the spiritual,

unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common, Bruce.

[Linda] The fact that Bruce chose to marry

a Caucasian person was an expression

of how he felt about America already.

There were still a number of states

that outlawed interracial marriage, it was

looked down upon.

My mother had a harder time

with accepting that Bruce and I would get married.

My mother tried to get us to wait,

but we had already made plans.

After she got to know him,

she really loved him and thought he was great.

[suspenseful music]

[Dan] I met Bruce Lee in July of 1964,

demonstrating at the first International

Karate Championships in Long Beach.

[Barney] It was Bruce Lee's first real exposure

to the masses.

[Bruce] Kung fu is originated in China.

It is the ancestor of karate and jujitsu.

It's more of a complete system and it's more fluid,

by that I mean it's more flowing.

There is continuity and movement

instead of one movement, two movement and then stop.

The best example would be a glass of water, why?

Because water is the softest substance in the world,

but yet it can penetrate to the hardest rock,

granite, you name it.

You cannot grasp water, you cannot punch it and hurt it.

So every gung fu man is trying to be soft like water

and flexible and have depth itself to the opponent.

[Dan] Bruce Lee of that time period

was searching for what he called the truth.

[Barney] Basically he just tore apart the different styles

and was promoting simplicity and lack of tradition.

[Dan] No one thought like that, he thought outside the box

and I just fell in love with the stuff he was showing me.

[thunders rumbling]

[Shannon] 1964, 1965 were pretty pivotal years,

there was a lot going on.

[Narrator] To Taki Kamura, February 1, 1965,

our baby's here.

Name, Brandon B. Lee, a big, healthy boy, of course.

[birds chirping]

[somber music]

[Linda] One week after Brandon was born,

Bruce's father passed away, and that was unexpected

and Bruce was just really crushed.

I mean, that was a terrible loss for him.

[somber music]

[Robert] He was crying. You know, he was crying real hard.

Because at that point he knew

that even though his father had sent him to United States

with only $100 in his pocket, it was good for him.

[somber music]

Before he went to the United States,

he was looking for the external stuff.

He's got his looks, he's got his flashy clothes.

He figured that's how a human being should be.

But when he got to the United States,

he understood what life is really all about,

to be independent, to be responsible for yourself.

And not only yourself, but your family.

[Shannon] I was at home, the phone rang

and it was William Dozier's office.

I had no idea who that was, they said he was a producer.

[thunders rumbling]

As we now know, at that 1964 Long Beach tournament,

there was someone in the audience

by the name of Jay Sebring,

a hairdresser to the stars in Hollywood.

Jay saw my father give this exhibition

and he was really, really impressed.

And he happened to know that his client, William Dozier,

who was a Hollywood producer,

was looking for an Asian actor

for a show that he was casting.

[Linda] So, wow, when Bruce came home

and I said, "You won't believe this.

There was a call from this producer in Hollywood

who wants you to come down and have a screen test."

And he was shocked, he was so surprised.

[calm music]

Bruce had never expressed to me

any aspirations for becoming an actor again,

because he was still concentrating on his goal

of opening martial arts schools around the country.

[alarm beeping]

[Man] Test X2, take one speed.

Now, Bruce, just look right into the camera lens, right here

and tell us your name, your age, and where you were born.

My last name is Lee, Bruce Lee.

I was born in San Francisco in 1940, I am 24 right now.

[Man] I understand you just had a baby boy?

Yeah.

[Man] And you lost a little sleep over it, have you?

Oh, three nights. [laughs]

[Man] And tell the crew what time-

[Linda] And that screen test is exactly how Bruce was.

Well, it's mostly in the morning-

[Linda] He was a very outgoing, confident person.

So he knew what to do

and he just presenting himself as who he was.

[Man] All right, now the camera will pull back

and Bruce, show us some gung fu movements.

This is a Crane Form.

Start off.

[Bruce yelling]

The Tiger, that start like a tiger,

using claw to claw the face

or the beak of the crane to the eyes, move.

This is some of the movement involved.

[Man] Thank you very much.

This is what we mean by simplicity.

[Linda] They were so impressed with Bruce's screen test

that they wanted to find a property for him.

So they paid Bruce $1,800,

which was the most money we'd ever seen in one place,

to hold Bruce for 18 months.

Excuse me.

[people screaming]

[Reporter[ The violence we saw was quite.

We saw Negros hosed and beaten,

harassed with dogs and cattle prods.

[Andre] The '60s was a time of great upheaval

and social change

because it was the culmination of the civil rights movement

with Martin Luther King, the marches on Washington.

Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair?

Who taught you to hate the color of your skin

to such extent that you bleach to get like the white?

[audience clapping]

[Linda] There were tragedies in that time,

and Martin Luther King were killed.

Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight.

[people screaming]

[Linda] Bruce felt that the country

was in trouble at that time

because of all this racial clashes.

[Kareem] Bruce was aware of the black liberation movement.

He expected black Americans would stand up for their rights.

[people screaming]

[Jeff] As African-Americans are building massive support

to advance the civil rights

and human rights of all Americans,

the pushback is, well, African-Americans are too loud.

Look at these Asian-Americans.

If they were silent and docile like Asian-Americans,

then maybe they'd be more successful.

As an American whose ancestors came from Japan,

I have become accustomed to a question,

why can't the negro be like you?

[Man] In that shameful hierarchy of race in America,

Asian people were treated better

than black Americans were treated.

[Man] So the model minority myth

is a stereotype of Asian-Americans as compliant,

who are assimilating, never make a fuss

about discrimination, poverty or exclusion.

They just put their heads down, work hard,

following the rules that white society lays down for them.

[Sam] We Asians were never treated

as full-fledge human beings,

but as a very narrow spectrum of humanity.

And that to me, is blatant racism.

[dramatic orchestral music]

[Linda] So Bruce was still waiting

on what was gonna happen in Hollywood.

Finally when they said they were going to go ahead

and make The Green Hornet, then we settled in Los Angeles.

Well, here the both of them come.

Here is Bruce Lee, he's playing Kato,

and Ben Williams, who will be doing The Green Hornet.

[Jeff] The way that Bruce finds a way into Hollywood

is to play a sidekick, literally the Asian servant.

Well, I'll say it the Chinese way

[speaks in foreign language], thank you very much.

[Man] And The Green Hornet

is where he begins to break open the model minority myth.

I think it's easier for me to tell you

what Green Hornet will not be.

It will not be an imitation of Batman.

Green Hornet will stand very much on its own.

Let's roll, Kato.

[Man] He is Kato, the person whose job it was

to just drive the Green Hornet around.

They see Bruce and his physical kinetic gifts

and they say, "There's gotta be some sort of a way

that we can use this on screen."

[Shannon] When he was in The Green Hornet,

they were sending him to an acting coach

but the acting coach was like, "There's no dialogue."

[Narrator] Dear Mr. Dozier,

Kato is an active partner of The Green Hornet

and not a mute follower.

I'm not complaining but I feel that an active partnership

with The Green Hornet will definitely bring out

a more effective and efficient Kato.

My aim is for the betterment of the show.

[Shannon] And so they gave him a lot more speaking parts.

If we ever meet up with that masked gung fu man again,

I want him.

[Shannon] He had to fight tooth and nail

for every centimeter of ground that he got.

[Man] I was number two.

Maybe with the idea to become number one.

[Jeff] I mean, Bruce is treated as if he were an extra.

And so this pay equity issue is a perfect example

of the second-class treatment that non-white actors faced

at that point moment.

[Man] Who's the strange fellow on the bicycle here?

[Man 2] I think his name is Bruce Lee.

He looks very familiar as Kato.

Well, you need any help?

[all laughing]

Yeah, a little gung fu going on around here?

What is gung fu, Bruce?

Well, gung fu is a Chinese form of combat.

Arts like karate or jujitsu derive from gung fu.

Now you're originally from San Francisco...

[Dan] When he went into the Hollywood scene,

he once told me, "I can educate people faster through film

than I can by writing a book

or opening 100 schools here in America."

Don't you have some karate schools

or something in San Francisco?

-In Oakland, really. -In Oakland?

Yeah.

And did you open up a school down here or what?

No, not yet because, you know, every day we're shooting

and it's pretty busy.

ABC, where I'll be seeing you in The Green Hornet.

I am Bruce Lee, inviting you to join me every Friday night

on most of these ABC stations.

[Jeff] Bruce comes onto the screen, he ignites it.

He leaves an impression on folks all around the world.

His very presence on screen is a protest in and of itself.

As Asian-Americans, as people of color,

we get affirmation from the culture around us, right?

Being able to see another person on screen

who looks like you is galvanizing.

It makes you feel like you're supposed to be here.

It makes you feel like you can do things

that you maybe didn't think you could before.

[Sam] Of course he find out

that the right place turn out to be the wrong time.

Because America and Hollywood may be ready for change

but not that much change.

-[somber music] -[typewriter keys clicking]

[Man] The Green Hornet was canceled

because it just didn't do great in the ratings.

[somber music]

[Linda] When Green Hornet was canceled,

that was a very vulnerable time for him.

He was very disappointed, very down but he reset his goals.

During that time, he read books,

he also did so much writing.

So that was a profitable time for him as well.

Bruce was doing a number of things to make ends meet.

Sometimes he got an acting role, which is not very often,

and sometimes he was the stunt coordinator.

[Nancy] We did the film The Wrecking Crew together.

He was fun, he was great to work with.

Bruce would come up to the house, hang out.

And Bruce had a plan that he was gonna become

a big gung fu martial arts movie star.

I said, "Go for it."

He refused to play any parts

that were demeaning to Chinese people

and for the next few years, he had very few parts.

[Shannon] It would've been really easy for him

to sort of get stuck in a hamster wheel

if he was just going to do it

the way Hollywood wanted to do it.

[punches thudding]

[Linda] It was tenuous,

we just never knew where the next paycheck might come from.

And we went through some very lean times.

But even though we were struggling,

we had a lot of time together.

Shannon was born and I tell you what,

she had him around her little finger

from the moment she was born.

She was just adorable to him, he doted on her.

And so for me, those were really happy times.

Our family was all together,

Bruce was available to be with the kids a lot

and that was a happy time.

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 wanna learn Chinese martial arts?

Because of the movie role?

Not really, I mean most of them you see,

to me at least the way, when I teach it,

all type of knowledge ultimately means self-knowledge.

So therefore they want to learn to express themselves

through some movement, be it anger, determination

or whatsoever.

[video rolling]

[mean groaning]

[Bruce] Here is the natural instinct and here is control.

You are to combine the two in harmony.

-[Interviewer] Ying yang. -[Bruce] Right, man, that's it.

Okay, now let's run it back and see what happens.

[child laughing]

[speaker speaking off mic]

Is it turned on? I wanna save you this one.

[Jeff] Bruce fits right in with the counterculture.

He is as a martial arts teacher,

sort of Asian guru in a way,

bringing deep and ancient wisdom of the east

to these white folks on the west coast.

[Linda] Steve McQueen was at the height of his career

at that time, as was James Coburn.

Ted Ashley, the Chairman of Warner Brothers.

I think it was kind of a thing to do

'cause Bruce had a number

of those Hollywood type old white males

that wanted to be known

for hanging out with this cool Chinese guy.

[Diana] One of my earlier memories

is being at Uncle Bruce's Bel Air home.

Brandon and I would run through the hallways of the house

and then we would come busting through the doors,

right in the middle

of where my godfather's talking philosophy

and he has a circle of different students all around him.

It kind of almost had this bohemian kind of spirit to it.

You had all these people from different walks of life,

I just assumed this is the way the world was going to be

growing up.

[Kareem] I met Bruce through a mutual friend,

the Editor of Black Belt Magazine.

He said, "Bruce is in teaching a tradition style

but it's very interesting and it's innovative."

[Announcer] Seven foot, one inch high,

[background noise drowns the speaker]

The highly-publicized sophomore is unstoppable.

[Kareem] Bruce was interested in all sports.

He felt that everybody in the world

might have just a little bit to contribute

to the canon of martial arts.

[calm music]

[camera clicking]

[men groaning]

[Robert] After training,

Bruce mostly spends his time in his study.

He has a Sony videotape machine

that plays tapings of Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Lewis,

black boxing champions were the pride of black Americans.

-[dramatic music] -[audience applauding]

[Jeff] He was open

to all these different types of influences.

What he would study would be

where their power was coming from.

And he would think about what worked better

for his particular body.

I must tell the audience that Bruce Lee

had a bit part or a supporting role

in the Longstreet series,

and this had an enormous effect on the audience.

What was it?

I think the successful ingredient in it

was because I was being Bruce Lee.

Like I say, honestly express myself at that time.

-[man shouting] -[dogs barking]

There's this thing you do.

In Cantonese... [speaks in foreign language]

The way of the intercepting fist.

-Intercepting fist, huh? -Or foot.

[Bruce groaning]

You see, to reach me you must move to me.

Your attack offers me an opportunity to intercept you.

In this case, I'm using my longest weapon, my side kick,

against your nearest target, your knee cap.

This can be compared to your left jab in boxing,

except it's much more damaging.

Hey, at least you're gonna teach me all these.

I cannot teach you, only help you to explore yourself,

nothing more.

All right, come one let's some of those kicks.

[Sam] The 1960s influenced Bruce Lee greatly,

an age of experimentation, disillusionment,

existential angst was way high.

There was a very conscious attempt

to challenge the established western way.

[Frank Chin] I live here, my grandmother lived here, she died here.

So I belong here. Now, I hate this place.

If I were an outsider, I'd just burn it down

and say, "Split, leave it."

But because this is my home, ridiculously,

absurdly, cruelly my home, I don't wanna go like that.

So I'm fifth generation

and the sixth generation is growing up now,

I don't wanna see another generation

just completely mind-wrecked.

I don't wanna 'em to grow up with the either/or thing,

so they feel that they're born foreigners.

[Jeff] Before 1968, we were Orientals.

Orient means the east and the east in compared to what?

If you look at the way that folks shift

to beginning to name themselves publicly Asian-Americans,

what you see is the shift in saying,

"We're not gonna be defining ourselves

in relationship to the west, wherever the west is.

We're gonna define ourselves from within."

Bruce, at the same time, is fighting to get his philosophies

and his ideas onto the screen.

Don't charge me blindly, you gotta listen, listen.

Now, you don't get to burn our deal.

Huh if you don't heal a bird, you cannot heal your opponent.

[Shannon] My father continued to try

to get roles in Hollywood.

I just want to be left alone to live like an American,

you are archaic.

And you're a fool

to think that you can break away from us

merely because you choose to.

[Shannon] He did get some roles on Marlowe

and Longstreet and some other things.

But I think a lot of people who worked in the studio system

saw him as a novelty.

He realized pretty quickly that the impact

that he was wanting to make was not gonna be possible

just by auditioning for roles.

He felt like the only way for him to showcase himself

was to create his own roles.

[images rolling]

[Paul] When Bruce first came to our attention

and we'd seen his TV shows,

we realized that there was something there.

And so we came up with this series about a Shaolin monk

who came to America to help the Chinese on the railroads.

[Linda] Bruce had conceived of the idea

which became the Kung fu TV series eventually.

He had presented it to Warner Brothers,

he was very excited that they liked this idea.

[Nancy] So I said, "I don't know, Bruce."

I said, "I don't know if they are ready in Hollywood

to accept a Asian as a lead in a TV series."

He said, "You wanna bet?"

So, yeah, okay, I bet, so we made a bet.

[Tom] And it was an afternoon meeting

in my lovely office at Warner Brothers.

-Mr. Marlowe? -Yes.

[Tom] And he slammed my door shut with his foot

and started swinging this nunchuck.

And it was whizzing by my nose

and I'm like, "What's going on here?"

And Bruce said, "Feel my arm."

And it was like touching a rock.

$500.

And for whom I'm I doing this nothing?

Winslow Wong, that is I.

[Tom] We talked about the role in Kung fu

and of course Bruce would love to do it.

But the bottom line

was Bruce's accent was gonna be a little tough

on the American television audience.

Okay.

[loud banging]

[glass breaking]

[Tom] In the television world,

there were only three clients.

There was no reason commercially to diversify

for the sake of diversification.

No one of them could take a chance

on going too far out of the mainstream

'cause you lose that giant television audience

and you're screwed.

[camera clicking]

[Kareem] There's bias in the film industry

against people who weren't white.

So Kung fu, which was written for Bruce,

the people at the studio decided

that America was not ready for an Asian hero.

And they gave the part, I forget the guy's name now.

[Man] The series, Kung Fu with...

[Nancy] And of course the TV series went out to be Kung Fu

and David Carradine starred in the TV series.

[Tom] ABC got a lot of flack for it,

I got a lot of flack for it,

Warner Brothers got a lot of flack for it.

But at the end of the day,

you have to be able to sell what you're out there selling.

I didn't find one Asian actor

that I thought I could sell to ABC.

[dramatic music]

[Jeff] Hollywood is racist because America is racist.

Those images that Hollywood then puts out

reinforce American's racism.

It's a vicious cycle, it just goes in circles.

[calm music]

[Shannon] And he was like,

"Okay, that is what is happening right now.

So how do I move around that and change my course?"

And I think the key was that he didn't get stopped,

he didn't let himself be stopped.

He's like, "I get it and I've already made up my mind.

I'm doing this so I'm just gonna keep pushing forward."

[helicopter blades whirring]

[calm music]

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 gonna take a non-American"?

Unfortunately, such thing does exist in this world,

like, I don't know, certain part of the country,

where they think that business-wise it's a risk,

and I don't blame them,

I mean, in the same way it's like 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.

But that's all right.

You still think of yourself as 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 wanna sound like 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.

[Linda] He felt the sting of being rejected.

[suspenseful music]

And Bruce was just crushed.

He couldn't understand it, he said, "What, why?"

I mean, he was so hurt

and just disgusted with the whole system

and he was determined to do something about that

in his own way.

[Narrator] Dear Ted,

I am sorry to hear about the outcome of the warrior.

Well, we cannot win them all

but dammit, I'm gonna win one of these days.

[airplane engine roaring]

[Interviewer] How did you discover Bruce Lee?

[Raymond] Well, I first saw him

in an interview on television in Hong Kong.

He did some fantastic things.

[Linda] When Brandon was five,

he and Brandon made a trip to Hong Kong.

That's when he was recognized

as being Kato in The Green Hornet.

Everybody in Hong Kong knew he had made good in American TV.

[Man] I just called him,

I pick up the phone and called him.

But he said, "If you want to make good action films,

kung fu films, you should do ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, you know?"

I said, "Yes, yes, but if you'll help me,

together I'm sure we can build something."

[water running]

[Narrator] The truth is I am a yellow-faced Chinese,

I cannot possibly become an idol for Caucasians,

not to mention rousing the emotions of my countrymen.

Because of this, I decided to come back

to serve the Chinese film industry.

[Andre] He was the prodigal son that had returned.

[dramatic suspenseful music]

[Linda] It was exciting to live in Hong Kong,

it's a very exciting city.

It's a little bit harder to live there with a film star,

because as he became so popular there,

it became harder for us to go out and about

without him being mobbed by fans and stuff.

First of all, the word superstar really turn me off

and I'll tell you why,

because the word star, man, it's an illusion.

I mean, I do not look upon myself as a star.

I really don't, I mean, believe me, man, when I say-

[Sam] When Bruce Lee returned to Hong Kong,

it was difficult for him to gel

with the rest of the film industry.

For one thing, he was American-educated.

Oh yeah, he is this... [speaks in Chinese]

half a devil figure.

You think you're a big shot

because you came back from America?

Uh-uh.

[Andre] Being a mid-Pacific man, by definition,

there were gonna be people that would attack him.

[Jeff] To say that Bruce is mid-Pacific

is to say that he's neither Chinese nor American.

Somebody who lives between both worlds.

[Linda] Sometimes I walked into a store or something

and hear the clerks

say things uncomplimentary about me in Chinese,

of course they didn't realize that I understood them.

I think people looked at Bruce

as this magnificent specimen of a Chinese man

and why did he marry this plain Caucasian girl?

[Sam] So it's a mixed part of things.

Stigmatized, hated, resented but on the other hand,

respected and envied and even worshiped sometimes.

[speaking in foreign language]

[Andre] After Big Boss and Fist of Fury,

Raymond was willing to listen to his ideas

about directing and about story lines.

[people laughing]

[Shannon] He wanted everything

that he was going to do undertake to do

to be of the best possible quality that it could be.

[Diana] He made fighting on screen dialogue

and really there was subtext to what he was expressing.

[Man] The way he integrated the east and west,

he at once introduced a lot of western thinking,

western film making.

For example, the character played by Chuck Norris

was not the cartoon villain of Fists of Fury,

but he's a respectful karate fighter.

[kick thudding]

[dramatic music]

That evolution is very, very important.

[background noise drowns the speaker]

-[crowd applauding] -[punches thudding]

[kicks and punches thudding]

[dramatic music]

[crowd applauding]

[Andre] By the time we were doing Way of the Dragon,

Warner Brothers has realized

that there was more to Bruce Lee

than they'd originally imagined.

And by then, Bruce had started working on the Game of Death.

[Kareem] Bruce called my home

and said, "Hey we got a movie going, can you come over?"

It was, like, September

but I did have ten days where I could get to Hong Kong.

And he said, "Look, I can't pay you yet."

They hadn't financed the film yet.

We shot our scenes, then it was time for me to go.

[men groaning]

[kicks and punches thudding]

[Jeff] Bruce began sort of a dream project

called Game of Death.

It's exactly at this moment,

the moment at which he's established

not just as an actor but as a writer and a director,

that Hollywood begins to realize

what it is he actually has to offer.

[Bruce sighing]

[Fred] So I went to Hong Kong.

At this point Bruce was dying to do an international film.

Raymond Chow was completely against the idea

of losing his star.

And so I negotiated with Raymond over and over

but it looked like it was all finished,

at which point the night before I left,

Bruce and I and Raymond and everybody went out for dinner.

And at dinnertime I said, "Bruce, it's a shame

you're never gonna become an international star

because Raymond will not make a deal."

And Raymond looked at me and he went blank

and he said, "All right, I'll make the deal."

And that's how they became partners

with Warner Brothers and myself in Enter the Dragon.

[calm music]

[Linda] It had a little bit of a hard time

getting off the ground

because Bruce was not happy with the script.

He wanted to put some things in it

that would give the film a little more substance.

Bruce refused to start, he refused to go to the set

and the American crew was there

and everything was costing money and everything,

and Bruce didn't wanna show up on the set.

[boat engine roaring]

[Shannon] I'm sure he was at times,

a very challenging person.

He was full of fire and intensity.

[Andre] He could be a young punk.

He wasn't always the gentleman, Jim Dandy.

He'd tell you the stories, he was an [beeps] from time to time.

Bruce had the same sort of insecurities

that all successful actors have.

Is everybody supporting my project?

Are they doing what's best for me and for the movie?

[Linda] Finally, he got his way.

What was that, an exhibition?

We need emotional content.

[Linda] Any time in the film,

if that is a little bit philosophical,

that is something that Bruce put into the script.

[kick thudding]

That's it.

-How did it feel to you? -Let me think.

[slap reverberating]

Don't think, feel.

It is like a finger pointing away to the moon.

Don't concentrate on the finger

or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

[Nancy] What he was trying to do

was to make the kind of films that he wanted to make.

His vision...

Never take your eyes off your opponent, even when you bow.

[man speaking in foreign language]

[Paul] We didn't start out

to make the success of Enter the Dragon,

we started out to make the best film we could with Bruce.

As it started, we realized we had tapped into something

really, really spectacular.

There was Bruce, doing what he was destined to do

and it felt wonderful.

He was electric.

[Doug] There's something very unique about stars,

there's an integrity to their humanity

and they are who they are,

and they're very comfortable within their own skin.

That was a large part of what mesmerized people about Bruce.

[man screaming]

[suspenseful music]

[Nancy] I think he loved it, being famous.

That's what he wanted, that was his goal.

Now I don't know, maybe when he got there

and he says, "Well."

You become famous but then you have to sustain it.

Fame costs, yeah, it's very costly.

[Dan] The only thing I can remember he says,

"Here in Hong Kong, I just don't know who my friends are."

And I said, "What do you mean?"

He says, "You don't know if they want a part in the movie,

that's why they're being friendly with me."

So I think he felt very lonely.

I don't think I would wanna have his life.

You don't have any private time,

you don't have any time to be yourself.

[Linda] In May, 1973, he did collapse

and that was a very scary time.

[Robert] He came over with Linda and Raymond Chow

for a physical.

One of the doctor told him

that he's got a body of an 18-year old.

[Man] We just sort of played

around in the gym a little bit.

He said, "I'm fit as a fiddle."

And that's the last time I saw him.

[roaring]

[water running]

[Andre] I remember it very well,

we started in the morning at the studios

for a meeting with George Lazenby, myself

And he was complaining of a headache, a migraine headache.

Then George showed up and we talked for awhile,

he was actually in very good spirits.

We were anxiously looking forward

to the release of Enter the Dragon.

And Bruce was gonna be flying to L.A.

to do The Tonight Show.

Bruce and Linda and the kids

were all gonna be there for the opening of the movie.

He was the same energetic, full of ideas, laughing,

whatever, except he had a migraine.

Betty was Betty Ting-Pei, we had been talking with Betty

about her having a part in the movie, The Game of Death.

He showed up for lunch, she gave him Equagesic

and he decided to lay down,

take a nap, to get rid of his headache.

And she let him sleep

and then when she tried to wake him up,

she couldn't wake him up.

[somber music]

[water gushing]

[Linda] I was called by Raymond Chow

and said to come to the hospital.

And I said, "Why, what happened, what happened?"

And he said, "Something like the time before."

[siren wailing]

And so I went to the hospital, they brought him in,

and actually by that time he was already gone.

It was unbelievable.

Of course I was devastated but I was there, I saw him.

[Robert] The phone rang

and I notice my mom started to cry,

I said, "What's going on?"

A friend of hers called her

saying that Bruce passed in Hong Kong.

I said, "No, come on, it's a joke, right?"

The friend asked her to turn on the four o'clock news.

[speaking in Chinese]

[somber music]

[Andre] The forensic pathology came to the conclusion

that it was the Equagesic that caused the cerebral edema,

from which he never awoke.

[Linda] I think that people wonder about his death so much

because they can't believe that this 32-year old,

very strong, very virile man is just gone.

So yes, they keep questioning and coming up with theories

and all of that.

But it don't matter, he's gone.

[girl giggling]

[birds chirping]

[Shannon] I remember certain things.

The funeral was such a crazy situation with so many people,

it was just chaos.

[speaking in foreign language]

[Linda] I was shepherded through the crowd.

It was almost like being numb.

[crowd chattering]

[Andre] Linda, two steps in front of me,

and I've got Shannon sitting on my arm.

And Brandon is down beside me and there are two more

of our Golden Harvest people on the other side,

and we're trying to make our way into the memorial hall.

[speaking in foreign language]

[Linda] My two children beside me, it was stressful.

[calm music]

I didn't feel I had the opportunity to

[crowd chattering]

[Andre] Literally ten days later in the States,

Enter the Dragon was opening.

[Paul] Warner Brother went all out with it.

We premiered at Grumman's Chinese Theater.

They closed off Hollywood Boulevard for a dragon parade.

[Andre] I ended up looking at the outside of the theater,

totally bedecked in the artwork of Enter the Dragon,

with a line around the block.

Jesus, this is Bruce Lee

and he didn't live long enough to see the outpouring.

[Narrator] Even though I, Bruce Lee, may die someday,

without fulfilling all my ambitions, I feel no sorrow.

I did what I wanted to do.

What I've done, I've done with sincerity

and to the best of my ability.

You can't expect much more from life.

[Andre] Standing at the back of the theater,

watching your film on the screen,

and sensing that you have an audience that is loving it,

I mean, we all did,

we all wished he could've seen what it became.

[calm music]

[Andre] The fact that he didn't live long enough

to see the impact that he and those four movies would have,

is personal tragedy.

[Sam] If he had not die so young,

his myth would not be so compelling,

so profound and so touching.

[Kareem] I know Bruce woulda had a greater impact

if he had lived longer,

but I don't think that diminishes in any way

what he was able to achieve.

[Diana] He provided a safe environment for me,

as this biracial child growing up

and made me see the potential of my future,

of what the world could be.

[Andre] He was east meets west,

but he understood how to try and bridge it.

He was a very unique individual.

[Linda] He is that man that he was when he died

and he'll always be regarded that way.

I think he has superseded his own expectations,

and that he is a guiding light

for people all over the world.

[Dan] I don't think there's been a day in my life

that I haven't thought about him, what can I say?

I loved the man.

[crowd chattering]

[cameras clicking]

[man speaking over radio]

[Linda] I decided to have him buried in Seattle

because he loved the time he spent there.

At least I could approach him and say goodbye

and it was easier.

I knew what he wanted,

he wanted me to take care of his children,

raise his children, so we just marched on.

It was not easy.

[Shannon] As a martial artist,

one of the most important concepts

is the notion of bridging the gap,

bridging the gap between me and my opponent,

bridging the gap between me and my dreams.

[Bruce screaming]

I see my father as a person

who was interested in creating these bridges

and keeping them open for people to travel across.

20 years later, when my brother passed away,

my father's writings were given to me

and I started reading them,

and I remember just feeling cracked open.

The medicine for my suffering I had within me

from the very beginning, but I didn't take it.

The ailment came from within myself

but I didn't observe it until this moment.

That, I don't know, suddenly put my fate in my own hands

and if you are willing other take up the mantle

of healing yourself, being your own fuel,

being your own light, then you can shift your perspective

and you can forge your own path.

[Linda] His philosophy was one of self-actualization.

Don't accept that you are this stereotype image

that is cast upon you by others.

Find what is worthwhile about yourself and express it.

I said empty your mind.

Be formless, shapeless, 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.

[lively music]

[Announcer] We proudly welcome

to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Bruce Lee.

[crowd clapping]

[Man] One, two, three.

[people applauding]

[speaks in foreign language]

My dad left a really wonderful legacy

and I meet people all over the world

who really admire him, admire his work

and really have been positively affected by it too.

[Reporter] Like many of his generation,

collector Jeff Chin faced discrimination.

That period in 1973, it was like magic,

like overnight, Chinese males became the big men on campus.

[nunchuck hissing]

[Reporter] Over 700 people

showed up at the Warned Brothers Studio,

with the hope of being the successor to the late Bruce Lee.

Did you anyone at the audition

who reminded you of your husband?

Nobody having the character of Bruce.

[crowd shouting]

His mom and his brother are with us now

to tell us more about the man

karate experts are now calling the Galileo of martial arts.

Why did he assume such mythical proportions in life

and even more so, after death.

He has really a dynamic personality

and he can really project that personality

in front of the screen or in front of people.

Sometimes when you talk about Bruce,

you use the present tense-

I still do, I always will.

[somber music]