The Real Bruce Lee

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The Real Bruce Lee
Directed by Jim Markovic
Produced by Serafim Karalexis
Dick Randall
Written by Larry Dolgin
Dick Randall
Starring Bruce Lee
Bruce Li
Dragon Lee
Running time 93 min.
Language English
IMDb profile

The Real Bruce Lee is a martial arts documentary. It begins with a brief biography of Bruce Lee, and shows scenes from four of his childhood films, Bad Boy, Orphan Sam, Kid Cheung, and The Carnival, each sepiatoned and dubbed to English. Next, there is a three-minute highlight reel of Lee imitator Bruce Li. Finally, there is a feature-length film starring Lee imitator Dragon Lee, which is obviously modelled after Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury.

The version of the film that is commonly distributed in the West on public domain-type DVD and video labels runs 93 minutes in length. Another version of the film runs 120 minutes.

Curiously, IMDB lists the film as being released in North America in 1979, with a Hong Kong release in 1973 - the year of Bruce Lee's death, and a full year before Bruce Li's first film. It is possible that the version released in 1973 in Hong Kong was comprised solely of the Bruce Lee childhood footage, and the Bruce Li and Dragon Lee footage were added by the North American distibutor.