Bruce Lee. If Only.

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

Know one could imagine what would have been if Bruce Lee worked for:

 

 

GD Y-Y

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Dragon]

[DragonClaws]

Bruce Lee visited the SB studios several times and often gave them advice about the fight choreography etc. I like the shots of him portraying the blind swordsman Zatoichi. GD-YY posted one in the first post, the middle picture at the bottom of the collage of costume images. He made an entry in his dairy mentioning that he planned to make a film with SB in late 73 Oct/Nov time. How the success of Enter The Dragon would have affected this we will never know.

 

Here's some images from when Lee & friend Unicorn Chan visited Shaws during the production of The Blood Brothers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

Fantastic photos 'EVERYONE'.

 

Baby:

 

 

Teenager:

 

 

Actor:

 

 

Kung Fu Student:

 

 

Kung fu Master:

 

 

 

Artist:

About Bruce Lee's art: http://louispearlgg.hubpages.com/hub/Lost-Sketches-drawn-by-Bruce-Lee#

The world knows Bruce Lee the martial artist and movie actor. Few however, have seen his drawings and his artistic talent. In the early 90’s Linda Lee compiled an exhibition of some of his sketches. It is my understanding that the original sketches were purchased by a Japanese collector and have not been in the public since then. For those of you who are interested you can see some of his martial arts sketches in Bruce Lee’s book, The Tao of Jeet Kun Do.

I was friends with a gentleman, since passed on, who had the collection in his possession at that time and was allowed to make a single copy of each sketch. He knew I had studied Jeet Kun Do kung fu under Bruce’s protege Danny Inosanto and attended the Inosanto Academy with Bruce Lee’s son Brandon Lee. Because of his kindness and my love for all things Bruce Lee, he kindly gave me the copies. I have had them since 1995 and consider them a cherished possession.

I would like to share them with you now and I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I do.

Originally there were seven sketches. I received only six. I have shown one certificate of authenticity I have the other five as well.

Kung FU Movie Super Star:

 

Bruce Lee the Legend RIP:

 

GD Y-Y

[Secret Executioner]

Awesome pictures in this thread. Bruce in a SB movie could have been interesting - he sure would have looked great by the pictures of him in various of their costumes.

[DragonClaws]

Those screen test shots have left fans with thoughts of what could have been for years now. They featured a lot of those images in the Golden Harvest documentary BL The Legend. Showing the portrait shots of Bruce doing his best Zatoichi impression.

 

Those old drawings GD-YY posted are very good. Lee's old art teacher kept a lot of his stuff. She also appears in the The Legend documentary, and they show some of his drawings. In the image below you can see a picture Lee drew during a break in the filming of Game Of Death.

 

 

 

[David Rees]

The test shots of Bruce in traditional costume posted at the top of this thread are not from Shaw Studio but were done at Golden Harvest. The ones posted below are from Shaw studio he shot i think in 1973. He did plan to start something with Shaws in Sept 1973 according to his diary, what a shame that never happened.

[DragonClaws]

That's true, Golden Harvest only used their own images because they already had the rights to them etc. The above shots you posted don't appear in The Legend Documentary because Shaw's didn't give them access to these pictures. The Shaw's screen tests were taken in the last few months of his life for another role. He was intending to play an historical figure and have his childhood friend and SB's director Chor Yuen direct the project.

[Secret Executioner]

Those shots in a Mandarin outfit are very nice. Bruce would have rocked the stache even better than Ti Lung did in The Blood Brothers (which also came out in 1973 BTW).

[SteyrAUG]

My only concern would be that Shaw Bros. might not have given him the creative freedom that Golden Harvest eventually did. Some of the best Shaw Bros. films are a result of the dramatic influence that Lee had on the genre.

 

Gordon Liu did some great films, but they were as much a product of Lau Kar-Leung as they were Gordon Liu. By his third film, Lee had almost complete control of most creative aspects, not sure that would have happened at Shaw.

[DragonClaws]

My only concern would be that Shaw Bros. might not have given him the creative freedom that Golden Harvest eventually did.o

That's a good point, in the letter he wrote to Run Run Shaw he said he would discuss terms and conditions when he arrived there in late 73. Lee had gone to their studio pre to seeing Raymond Chow at Golden Harvest. He turned them down when they offered him a one of their standard contracts. Lee had since become a big star, and I should imagine that gave him more of a chance to bargain for greater control of the project. He did plan to have his childhood friend direct the film too which would help him get more creative freedom perhaps?. I'm only taking a guess because this sadly never came to pass as we know.

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

Very Interesting DC.

 

GD Y-Y

[SteyrAUG]

 

That's a good point, in the letter he wrote to Run Run Shaw he said he would discuss terms and conditions when he arrived there in late 73. Lee had gone to their studio pre to seeing Raymond Chow at Golden Harvest. He turned them down when they offered him a one of their standard contracts. Lee had since become a big star, and I should imagine that gave him more of a chance to bargain for greater control of the project. He did plan to have his childhood friend direct the film too which would help him get more creative freedom perhaps?. I'm only taking a guess because this sadly never came to pass as we know.

I think the fact that Golden Harvest was a relatively new studio (founded 1970), compared to Shaw (founded 1958), and the fact that Raymond Chow left Shaw to form his own studio, meant they would offer Lee a lot more creative freedom than he'd have ever seen from Shaw Brothers. Shaw Brothers was a giant built on the success of a working formula and they saw little reason to change it because a guy from a super hero sidekick TV shows up looking for work.

 

To me, there are only two significant "what if's" regarding Bruce Lee.

 

1. What if he got the lead in the TV series "Kung Fu" as he hoped? Combined with the talents of Kam Yuen, David Chow and Keye Luke it could have been far more significant than "Enter the Dragon." With Bruce Lee in the lead role it might have gone into production as early as 1970 and could have been the most significant martial arts influence in history.

 

And of course...

 

2. What if Lee didn't die? What films might we have gotten by the late 70s? Each successive Lee film is so dramatically superior to the ones that preceded it, it is hard to comprehend what he might have done by 1978. In the space of a couple years we went from "The Big Boss" to "Enter the Dragon." Even if "Game of Death" was completed with Lee starring in new scenes with Bob Wall, Chuck Norris and additional confrontations with Dan Inosanto, it would have probably been game changing time...again. Lee being able to apply everything he learned from his experience with a Warner production, could have been taken back to Golden Harvest and it's truly hard to imagine what might have been possible.

 

I won't even try and ponder a possible Golden Harvest / Shaw Brothers partnership for a film in 1981. Bruce Lee would have been in his early 40s and Shaw was capable of films like "Blade Runner." Chuck Norris was about the same age and turned out decent enough films well into the late 1980s, he was probably half as capable as Bruce Lee when it came to sheer talent on the screen.

 

Sad to think we missed out on a Bruce Lee in his late 60s and 70s playing the white bearded master with amazing ability.

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

 

I think the fact that Golden Harvest was a relatively new studio (founded 1970), compared to Shaw (founded 1958), and the fact that Raymond Chow left Shaw to form his own studio, meant they would offer Lee a lot more creative freedom than he'd have ever seen from Shaw Brothers. Shaw Brothers was a giant built on the success of a working formula and they saw little reason to change it because a guy from a super hero sidekick TV shows up looking for work.

 

To me, there are only two significant "what if's" regarding Bruce Lee.

 

1. What if he got the lead in the TV series "Kung Fu" as he hoped? Combined with the talents of Kam Yuen, David Chow and Keye Luke it could have been far more significant than "Enter the Dragon." With Bruce Lee in the lead role it might have gone into production as early as 1970 and could have been the most significant martial arts influence in history.

 

And of course...

 

2. What if Lee didn't die? What films might we have gotten by the late 70s? Each successive Lee film is so dramatically superior to the ones that preceded it, it is hard to comprehend what he might have done by 1978. In the space of a couple years we went from "The Big Boss" to "Enter the Dragon." Even if "Game of Death" was completed with Lee starring in new scenes with Bob Wall, Chuck Norris and additional confrontations with Dan Inosanto, it would have probably been game changing time...again. Lee being able to apply everything he learned from his experience with a Warner production, could have been taken back to Golden Harvest and it's truly hard to imagine what might have been possible.

 

I won't even try and ponder a possible Golden Harvest / Shaw Brothers partnership for a film in 1981. Bruce Lee would have been in his early 40s and Shaw was capable of films like "Blade Runner." Chuck Norris was about the same age and turned out decent enough films well into the late 1980s, he was probably half as capable as Bruce Lee when it came to sheer talent on the screen.

 

Sad to think we missed out on a Bruce Lee in his late 60s and 70s playing the white bearded master with amazing ability.

Brilliant analysis S A.

 

Now, let us consider this thought, which is most intriguing to me.

 

That is, Bruce Lee playing the role of a villain.

 

1. Do you think Bruce would play a villain?

This pic serves to serve my point.

 

2. Would Bruce stick to his super-hero roles from the films before his death or would he welcome being a baddie?

 

 

GD Y-Y

[SteyrAUG]

I think eventually, to expand his skills as an actor, he'd have played some kind of villain or at least a very dark hero as we saw with his son Brandon in "The Crow." Lee would almost certainly have tried for some action role that didn't rely on martial arts, or at least not as much.

 

Ironically Bruce Lee very much wanted to be like Steve McQueen, and Steve McQueen wanted to be very much like Bruce Lee.

[SteyrAUG]

Just realized that we are both forgetting Lee did play a bad guy in "Marlowe." So I guess that takes care of that discussion.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

Just realized that we are both forgetting Lee did play a bad guy in "Marlowe." So I guess that takes care of that discussion.

Possible spoiler:

 

He was awesome in that movie until he decided to jump off the building  (in one of the more hilarious missed kicks of all-time).

[SteyrAUG]

 

Possible spoiler:

 

He was awesome in that movie until he decided to jump off the building  (in one of the more hilarious missed kicks of all-time).

Yeah, I can't believe it took me that long to remember it. It's one of my favorite films and even without Bruce Lee I'd still own it on DVD. It's kind of a sad film too, I think it really was his "best effort" at making it in Hollywood and you could tell he had been working hard on his accent so it wouldn't hold him back.

 

It's really another "what if" regarding Bruce Lee. Marlowe was probably the most impressive display of martial arts skill in any US movie up to that time. Lee was completely understandable to the point they made it part of the dialogue "Winslow Wong...that is I." This would put doubt on one of the stated reasons given for not casting him in the TV show "Kung Fu."

 

I really think Marlowe was Lee's breaking point. It should have opened doors for more work in Hollywood films but for whatever reason that didn't happen. It would be interesting to see what would have happened if the Kung Fu "boom" started as a result of US made Bruce Lee films, certainly higher production qualities would have existed. I guess this is sort of related to the "What if Lee got the lead role in the TV series "Kung Fu?"

 

The world really did get robbed with his early passing. We probably can't imagine the movies as they might have been. With a mere handful of films he went from a virtual nobody with a notable Hong Kong film success to the person who defined the martial arts film with what still might be the best film of the genre more than four decades later.

 

There have been more skilled martial artists, there have been more capable actors, but I don't think we've seen a combination of the two more capable than Lee ever. From the time I first saw Master Lee in "Enter the Dragon" and "Game of Death" in the early days of cable TV as a kid, he has been one of my most significant role models.