Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Ng See-Yuen |
| Starring | Bruce Li Unicorn Chan Chu Chi-Ling Fung Ging-Man Alan Chui Chung-San |
| Cinematography | Wing Chen |
| Editing by | Mike Harris |
| Release date(s) |  October 28, 1976 (Hong Kong) |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Language | Cantonese |
| IMDb profile | |
Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth, originally released as Li Hsiao Lung chuan chi and also known as Bruce Lee: True Story, is a 1979 Bruceploitation biopic that stars Bruce Li (A/K/A Ho Chung Tao) as famed martial artist Bruce Lee. The film chronicles his life beginning with Lee leaving China to go to University in Seattle. Most of the benchmarks of Lee's later life (cast on The Green Hornet, marriage to Linda Lee, stardom in Hong Kong, untimely death) are covered, with a somewhat less tenuous relationship to the truth as in previous Lee biopics.
[edit] Reaction
Fans of Bruceploitation movies almost universally consider this the best of the low-budget Bruce Lee biopics that was released during the 1970s, and some call it Bruce Li's best film as well.
In his three-part Bruceploitation essay for Impact Magazine, Dean Meadows writes:
"This was a bigger and better production, providing a larger budget, international locations and the name Ho Chung Tao on the opening credits. Upon its release, earlier, scandalous elements of the exploitational deluge had all but disappeared. Overlong scenes of the Little Dragon "in action" with Betty Ting Pei were absent from the production and the full contact fury that people had been waiting to see from a Bruce Lee bio-pic was finally realised. Every director can of course be afforded a little artistic license and whilst a number of fight scenes were completely fictionalised, Ng See Yuen had undoubtedly created a fitting tribute to the memory of the undisputed "King Of Kung Fu". With first class choreography, Ho Chung Tao mirrored the Little Dragon in a number of standout fights."[1]
Outside of fan circles, the film is predictably received with less enthusiasm. The Time Out Film Guide, for example:
"Numbingly unimaginative and exploitative biography. Would you trust a film that opens on a '70s street scene and captions it 'Hong Kong 1958'?."[2]
[edit] Inaccuracies
Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth is one of the more accurate Bruce Lee biopics, in that it offers a reasonable facsimile of Lee's life without resorting to scandal or speculation (except in the final scene). That being said, it is still plagued by a number of inaccuracies.
- Lee is seen being challenged by extras on movie sets. These incidents are technically true, although the film blows them out of proportion.
- The fight scene in Rome is pure fiction, as most of the other action sequences.
- Lee never used the strange electric exercise machines he is shown using in this film. Also, the filmmakers reportedly were inaccurate about much of the rest of his exercise regime.
- Lee never performed martial arts competitively.
- Lee was not rejected for the lead role on the TV show Kung Fu until after he returned to Hong Kong in the early 1970s (most biographies and biopics fudge the facts as this film did to make the story more interesting).
|
||||||||
