We all know Bruce Lee from some particular fight scenes from his movies. There is the classic scene of Bruce versus Chuck Norris at the Coliseum in Rome in Enter the Dragon. There is the fight scene with a best spiritual movies tall Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in “Scenes of Death”. Who can forget the classic ending of Bruce running and jumping at his attackers in the final scene of “THE CHINESE CONNECTION”? With a lot of these classic movie scenes framed in memory, let’s take a walk through Bruce Lee’s movies.
This first movie, “GOLDEN GATE GIRL”, takes us way back to 1941. Bruce was only a couple of months old when this movie was filmed in San Francisco, where Bruce was born. No karate in this film. Entering this early into show business gives us an idea that film making was introduced to Bruce at a young early age.
Bruce’s first starring movie, “THE KID”, was filmed in Hong Kong in 1950, when Bruce was 10 years old. In this film you are starting to see a very personable and involved kid, who played very well for the camera. Bruce Lee’s father was a well known Chinese actor, who also starred in this film. Bruce Lee also worked with his father on a previous film, “THE BIRTH OF MANKIND”, in 1946.
Bruce moved to San Francisco, California in 1959, then moved to Seattle, Washington to complete is high school education. He later attended the University of Washington, where he enrolled in the drama, and also studied philosophy. All through this time, Bruce practiced the Wing Chun Kung Fu he had learned in Hong Kong from Yip Man. Through Bruce’s innovations, he mixed traditional kung fu, boxing, wrestling, and other fighting forms, to create his style of mixed martial arts, he called, Jeet Kune Do.
While expanding his practice and teaching of martial arts in the 1960’s, Bruce never forgot his background in films. This led to several TV roles including, “THE GREEN HORNET” and “BATMAN”, in 1966-1977. Bruce was also in “IRONSIDE” in 1967, “BLONDIE” in 1969, and “HERE COME THE BRIDES” in 1969. In 1971 Bruce also starred in some episodes of “LONGSTREET”. What was unique about his LONGSTREET role is he starred as himself, and taught his form of martial arts and martial arts philosophy. In 1971 Lee pitched a modern kung fu western show to Warner Brothers, which, of course, he was to star in. Unfortunately, Warner Brothers used the concept of a Shaolin priest wandering the cowboy west and awarded the role to David Carradine. At the time, David Carradine had never had any martial arts training. This let Lee know he was limited in what types of movies or roles he could play in the U.S. TV and movie market. In all fairness to Warner Brothers, Lee’s English may have been difficult for some people in the U.S. market to understand.
Bruce’s first movie in the U.S. after the 1941 “GOLDEN GATE GIRL” was “MARLOWE”, starring James Garner, as a somewhat rough characterized private detective. The movie was fairly mediocre, with Bruce playing a Chinese gang member who used karate and tore up James Garner’s office. In one scene James Garner fights Bruce Lee and somehow beats him. This is not a movie Bruce Lee is very well known for.
With Bruce Lee’s movie acting career going nowhere in the U.S., Bruce travels to Hong Kong and finds he is well known from the “GREEN HORNET” TV series. In Hong Kong TV series is known as the “KATO SHOW”. With his popularity in Hong Kong and Asia, Bruce decides to try his hand in the Asian film industry. In 1971 Bruce Lee stars in “THE BIG BOSS”, which is his first Asian Kung Fu/Martial Arts movie. This movie was filmed in Thailand, and became popular in Asia. Frankly, in my opinion this was not a very good movie. The fighting was not that good. The only unique part of the movie I remember was the bad guy throwing a knife at Bruce, which Bruce intercepts with a kick, which strikes the opponent in a killing blow to his body. The movie plot was based on workers in an ice factory being subjugated by the boss, who was also selling drugs. If I had never seen this movie, I would not have missed anything Bruce Lee represents. I’ll give it one star for historical purposes. Note: in the U.S. market this film is also known as “FISTS OF FURY”