Originally published in the July-August 2018 issue of Film Comment
By R. Emmet Sweeney
Fast and Furious: The martial-arts star was a force unto himself and a pioneer of flexible fighting styles
Bruce Lee: A Life (By Matthew Polly, Simon & Schuster, $35)
A transcendent figure in the history of martial-arts and action movies, Bruce Lee was long overdue for a door-stopping biography. Matthew Polly has filled the void admirably with Bruce Lee: A Life, a meticulously researched tome that follows Lee’s days as a delinquent youth through his long climb to icon-hood and tragic, controversial death. With his feline athleticism and nerve-popping intensity, Lee was a transfixing presence who developed a polyglot type of screen fighting that remains the norm today (and was a major influence on MMA). Dismissive of traditional forms of kung fu, Lee instead borrowed from everyone, incorporating Wing Chun, fencing, and boxing–whatever looked good on film.
American-born but raised in Hong Kong, he spent his life pulling from (and oscillating between) Eastern and Western cultures. His dad was a star in the knockabout Chinese opera, but spent more time in opium dens than at home. Lee acted out in response, a kid brawler who pulled a knife on one of his teachers, proving more proficient at street fights (and cha-cha dancing–he was an HK champion) than homework. Eager to improve his fighting skills, he trained in Wing Chun, an obscure form of kung fu that emphasizes close-quarters combat. He was taught by Ip Man (currently being immortalized in an ongoing series of films starring Donnie Yen). Lee’s good looks and rebellious streak landed him roles in teen movies, but this nascent career was cut short when his parents, fed up with his near-criminal behavior, shipped him to stay with friends in San Francisco and Seattle.
Polly depicts Lee as fanatically determined to become a star and outshine his father. He was a health-food nut who trained nonstop, his body freakishly chiseled in an era when the John Wayne barrel-chested physique was considered the peak of masculinity. It was his quick-twitch physicality that attracted the attention of his kung fu students as well as studio executives. There are some fascinating tick-tock accounts of how Lee finally got his breakthrough role of Kato in The Green Hornet TV show (1966-67), and how impossible it was for Asians to get cast as anything other than manservants–eventually forcing him back East to make his breakthrough film The Big Boss (1971).
Through his many failures and late spectacular success, Lee continued to hone his martial art Jeet Kune Do, which rejects a totalizing system for a changeable one that adjusts to the fighter’s particular skills. He called it “the style of no style,” and it’s what made a Bruce Lee fight so unpredictable and thrilling. His sudden passing at age 32 spawned wild conspiracy theories that Polly studiously debunks, allowing Lee to emerge back from myth and into the reality of his extraordinary life.
R. Emmet Sweeney 