100 Years of Movie Posters: Bruce Lee

Thursday, 27 February 2014

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee (born Lee Jun-fan in Chinatown, San Francisco on 27 November 1940) was a martial artist, Hong Kong action film actor, martial arts instructor, filmmaker, and the founder of Jeet Kune Do. Lee was the son of Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-Chuen. He is widely considered by commentators, critics, media and other martial artists to be one of the most influential martial artists of all time, and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. He is often credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.

Lee was raised in Kowloon, Hong Kong with his family until his late teens. He was introduced to the film industry by his father and appeared in several films as a child actor. Lee moved to the United States at the age of 18 to receive his higher education, and it was during this time that he began teaching martial arts. His Hong Kong and Hollywood-produced films elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity and acclaim, sparking a surge of interest in Chinese martial arts in the West in the 1970s. The direction and tone of his films changed and influenced martial arts and martial arts films in Hong Kong and the rest of the world.

He initially trained in Wing Chun and Boxing, but later rejected well-defined martial art styles, favouring instead the use of techniques from various sources, in the spirit of his personal martial arts philosophy, which he dubbed Jeet Kune Do (The Way of the Intercepting Fist).

On 20 July 1973, Lee was in Kowloon, Hong Kong, having dinner at the home of Betty Ting Pei, a Taiwanese actress. Later Lee complained of a headache, and Ting gave him an analgesic (painkiller), Equagesic, which contained both aspirin and the muscle relaxant meprobamate. Around 7:30 pm, he went to lie down for a nap. When Lee did not turn up for dinner, Chow came to the apartment but could not wake Lee up. A doctor was summoned, who spent ten minutes attempting to revive him before sending him by ambulance to Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Lee was dead by the time he reached the hospital. The official finding was death due to a cerebral edema, caused by a reaction to the head-ache tablet.

Fans world-wide were shattered that their idol had passed at such a young age, and nearly thirty thousand fans filed past his coffin in Hong Kong. Steve McQueen and James Coburn were among the pall bearers. (Wikipedia)