Hey, Ronin, definitely one from the martial artist's dessert tray. I stumbled across it on AMC but it may be floating around the dojo.
The director assumes that you already know a little about martial arts and who Bruce Lee is. He mostly focuses on 1960-1973 and doesn't even discuss Lee's death. There's an extensive interview with Lee's widow, who's been through a lot considering that she's also Brandon Lee's mother. John Little discovered 12 minutes of "lost" footage of Bruce Lee's last project and devotes the documentary to explaining its origin before showing it.
I enjoyed learning that Lee was the Green Hornet's TV character "Kato". Little also claims that Lee was the creative force behind the TV series "Kung Fu", his most poignant experience with Hollywood racism. Other scenes & fights with Chuck Norris are great, but I especially liked the movies of Lee's demonstrations at karate tournaments & private lessons. (At one point three of his students were all national champions.) Lee's original Hollywood screen test is almost as enjoyable as the clips of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's "low" round kicks sailing over Lee's head.
From the perspective of a martial arts student, I think Lee's work was profound yet lost in the stereotypes. Hollywood racism was nothing compared to the outrage of expat Chinese martial artists who discovered that Lee was teaching Gung Fu to Bay Area gaijins. It was even more interesting to learn about the controversy of Lee's audacity to update Gung Fu into a modern, efficient fighting style instead of a centuries-old martial-arts dance. His Jeet Kun Do reminds me of classic tae kwon do trap fighting, and I wonder how much the Koreans borrowed from the Chinese. I had no idea that Lee worked so hard to use his "no way as the way" metaphor in his fight scenes, especially the "lost" footage.
This is especially inspiring as I watch the tae kwon do grandmasters bicker over new equipment, kicking styles, and scoring rules. I think we need to lock them all into a room with this video to inspire them to stop politicking and start making decisions...
The director assumes that you already know a little about martial arts and who Bruce Lee is. He mostly focuses on 1960-1973 and doesn't even discuss Lee's death. There's an extensive interview with Lee's widow, who's been through a lot considering that she's also Brandon Lee's mother. John Little discovered 12 minutes of "lost" footage of Bruce Lee's last project and devotes the documentary to explaining its origin before showing it.
I enjoyed learning that Lee was the Green Hornet's TV character "Kato". Little also claims that Lee was the creative force behind the TV series "Kung Fu", his most poignant experience with Hollywood racism. Other scenes & fights with Chuck Norris are great, but I especially liked the movies of Lee's demonstrations at karate tournaments & private lessons. (At one point three of his students were all national champions.) Lee's original Hollywood screen test is almost as enjoyable as the clips of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's "low" round kicks sailing over Lee's head.
From the perspective of a martial arts student, I think Lee's work was profound yet lost in the stereotypes. Hollywood racism was nothing compared to the outrage of expat Chinese martial artists who discovered that Lee was teaching Gung Fu to Bay Area gaijins. It was even more interesting to learn about the controversy of Lee's audacity to update Gung Fu into a modern, efficient fighting style instead of a centuries-old martial-arts dance. His Jeet Kun Do reminds me of classic tae kwon do trap fighting, and I wonder how much the Koreans borrowed from the Chinese. I had no idea that Lee worked so hard to use his "no way as the way" metaphor in his fight scenes, especially the "lost" footage.
This is especially inspiring as I watch the tae kwon do grandmasters bicker over new equipment, kicking styles, and scoring rules. I think we need to lock them all into a room with this video to inspire them to stop politicking and start making decisions...