Life of Bruce Lee
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The Greatest Concentration of Bruce Lees life was spent trying to become better at both martial arts and acting. Bruce lee was born on November 27, 1940 in San Francisco California. He was born at Jackson street hospital to Lee Hoi-Chun and Grace Lee. They named him Jun-Fan, meaning “Return again Lee” in hopes he would one day return to the US. His father was originally from china but he was in America a traveling opera star.
In 1941 Lee returned to Kowloon, Hong Kong with his family. At the young age, Lee was a child star; he was involved in the growing eastern film industry. His first film was called “The Birth of Man Kind” and in 1958 he was in “The Orphan”. Lee was sometimes credited as “Little dragon Lee”, “Su-Lung Lee”, “Vam Lee”, “Xialong Li”, and “Lee Siu Long”. Most of Lees childhood was spent on the streets of Hong Kong, This is where he got into many fights and later decided to find a way to discipline himself for it.
In 1952 Lee entered La Salle College, a catholic boy school. The schools in Hong Kong are all called colleges so; Ill deliberate on which is a college and which is a school. In 1959 Lee went to St Francis Xavier College, (which is a high school).
I think one can make the assumption that Lee, like all other high school students got picked on from one time or another. As I said before Lee was constantly getting into fights and needed a way to channel his anger and discipline himself. Now some people count to ten and others jus take deep breaths, but Lee was different. He would vent his short temper and anger through a force no one could have imagined. It was through the ancient art form of unarmed fighting that would one day bring him international stardom. Lee found Wing-Chung or as many people know it as Kung Fu. He studied Wing-Chung under the instruction of Yip Man. He learned as far as the second hand form and part of the wooden dummy form. He also learned the third hand form with weapons under Wong Sheun-Leung, William Cheung. His studies were spent from 1954 to 1959 and he trained nearly every day. Lee made Wing-Chung famous in Hong Kong by winning numerous challenge matches against other martial artist.
In the year 1959 Lee returned to the U.S. in search of what we like to call the American dream. He returned to his birthplace at San Francisco, California. He then moved from there to Seattle, Washington. Since he didnt finish Wing-Chung and he had bigger opponents to face he was forced to incorporate other martial arts into his fighting style. This eventually led him to form and teach “Jeet Kun Do”, “The Way of the Intercepting Fist”. He began his teaching after encounter with some racist white boys at the gym, one day after getting out of college for the after noon. He got into a dispute with one of boys racism and due to issues with his fathers death in Korea he hated all Asian people. The boy challenged Lee and so he fought him and 3 other men by himself. Now I know what youre thinking, its Bruce Lee the greatest martial artist ever, he could whoop anybody. Its true that Lee was great, but let us face the fact that this is before Lee perfects his fighting style and these we 4 grown American men. Lee only weighed about 135lbs and couldnt be any taller than 5″9 or so.
He finished his major at the University of Washington in 1963, which he majored in philosophy. Later that Year Lee wrote “Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical art of Self Defense”. This book did not have Kung Fu in it. It was simply self-defense tactics that normal people and even kids could use. In 1964 Lee moved to Oakland, California after marrying Linda Lee back in Seattle. In 2965 his first child was born, it was a boy. His name was Brandon Lee. Then Lee moved to Los Angeles in 1966, where he could pursue his dream of being on the silver screen. Unfortunately racism was still a big issue in Hollywood and nobody would hire and Asian American actor unless they would act dumb and ignorant for the camera.
In 1969 Lee had taken all one could take with the racism issue so after the birth of his daughter Shannon Lee headed back to Hong Kong in the hopes that he might be able to make a movie. He struck it big when he made his own first movie “Big Boss”. It was on of the first of many movies that brought lee International Stardom.
In 1973 “Enter the Dragon” was released. He played the leading Role as Billy Lo. Taken out of his monastery, Lo was asked by the government to infiltrate a suspected drug lords island. The island held a martial art tournament every 4 years. There were no weapons aloud except your hands and of course Lee had no problem with that issue. Lee ends up solving the crime and killing the drug lord who was responsible for killing his sister. “Enter the Dragon” was Lees last completed film. Lee was working on a film called “Game of Death”. It was based around a character known as Bruce Lee, who was an uprising movie star, but when some crime lords ask lee to join them in their rule of the city and lee turns them down, things get ugly. Lee is asked several times to join the crime ring and he turns them down every time, but Lees resistance brings his downfall when Lee has to fake his own death just to stay alive. Lee plans his own funeral out and everything is going to plan, but Lee was seeking revenge. He went to the mansion of the crime lord in disguise in an attempt to kill him. He didnt shoot him or anything he wanted him to be punished so he fought him and right before he could strangle the man, the crime lords men chased him away. They find that Lee is actually still alive after