Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly

[DragonClaws]

 

 

[DragonClaws]

 

Just getting round to reading Mr Polly's book on Three Leg's Lee, and it made some great first impression's. The writing style is easy to follow and it's got some great quotes. Might just be the best book I've read since Bruce Lee Conversation's. The last BL related book I purchased, a good five year's ago. While Mattew Polly is keen to show Lee as the human being he was. He's cleary not got an axe to grind either, it's far from being a cheap and sleazy tell all book.

 

Audio edtion.

[DragonClaws]

 

 

[DragonClaws]

 

I got through the last chapter of Mattew Polly's excellent book last night, that was one hell of a read. There's a lot to digest, but would still love to re-read many of the chapter's. Really gives fan's a lot to think about too, I'm still on the fence in regards to the heat stroke theory. It's certainly very possible that's what caused his premature passing. It's far from the many crazy fan theories that get tossed around online and in some other book's.

 

Who else here has got through reading this one?.

Edited December 2, 2019 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

 

[DragonClaws]

 

 

[DragonClaws]

 

 

[sifu iron perm]

I have become more infatuated with Bruce Lee..from his childhood and his struggle to find a place in Hollywood..

 

Especially the time frame of Bruce spending time with Mike stone, joe lewis then venturing to India with James Coburn..

 

there is so much to be uncovered?  

[Yihetuan]

I heard great things about Matthew Polly's book and really need to acquire a copy for my library.

[DragonClaws]

On 6/2/2020 at 11:34 PM, sifu iron perm said:

Especially the time frame of Bruce spending time with Mike stone, joe lewis then venturing to India with James Coburn..

 

Have you read Polly's book?, there's a great section on the trip to India and the failed Silent Flute project.

 

 

On 6/2/2020 at 11:34 PM, sifu iron perm said:

there is so much to be uncovered?  

 

There's still more to be uncovered, the Bruce Lee Estate might have a few gems tucked away in their archive?. There a lot of really great fans/collector's/authors who are trying to get more stuff out there. Things are slowly building to the 50th of Anniversary.

 

On 6/3/2020 at 3:06 AM, Yihetuan said:

I heard great things about Matthew Polly's book and really need to acquire a copy for my library.

 

Did you manage to get hold of copy from your local library?.

 

[sifu iron perm]

On 6/3/2020 at 3:06 AM, Yihetuan said:

I heard great things about Matthew Polly's book and really need to acquire a copy for my library.

it's pretty brilliant..a great thing to learn about Bruce is that he resisted  to give up his goal and dreams, the ultimate Go getter.

 

 

[Yihetuan]

On 8/15/2020 at 3:31 AM, DragonClaws said:

Did you manage to get hold of copy from your local library?.

 

 I managed to buy a used copy recently but I have been inundated with work and family & haven't had a chance to read it. I should've just bought the kindle version but I'm old school and like flipping pages manually. I'll get to it soon.

[DragonClaws]

On 8/16/2020 at 9:03 PM, Yihetuan said:

 I managed to buy a used copy recently but I have been inundated with work and family & haven't had a chance to read it. I should've just bought the kindle version but I'm old school and like flipping pages manually. I'll get to it soon.

 

Hi @Yihetuan, have you had any time to read Mattew Polly's book?.

[CliveReston]

I was a bit late to the party  on this one, but so well worth it. I think its the best bio on Bruce out there.

[reason108]

So, did Bruce have the sweat gland operation after he stopped filming G.O.D.? From what I remember, Bruce stopped filming G.O.D. in December. But, who knows? Perhaps then it would make some sense that if his next action film and overheating caused his death. But, Bruce was sweating during the underground lair scene in Enter after fighting all the guards (unless that was Hollywood magic - like squirting water on him or something else (glycerin?), between takes, perhaps to make it look like he was sweating). Or, would someone who have had their sweat glands removed still sweat profusely (as in that scene)? And, we know that Bruce first collapsed on May 10, 73; which was after filming, right. Yet, on that day, he was doing voice dubbing; no action in a hot studio. Maybe just talking in a hot booth at the studio. But, which would cause more risk, hours of takes in a hot studio or voice over in a booth? And, then dies in Betty Ting Pei`s apartment on 7/20/73. Betty was hot, but she wasn't movie studio hot with lights and no air conditioning. I'm no doctor, and maybe the removal of the sweat glands did cause or contribute to his passing. But, guessing the hash didn't help either which was found in his stomach both times right? Not sure I yet believe that we have conclusive evidence. 

[DragonClaws]

9 hours ago, reason108 said:

Bruce was sweating during the underground lair scene in Enter after fighting all the guards (unless that was Hollywood magic - like squirting water on him or something else (glycerin?), between takes, perhaps to make it look like he was sweating).

 

During the making of Enter the Dragon producer Paul Heller, tried to get some electric fans due to the excessive heat. He was unable to locate any in Hong Kong during production.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

Here are some quotes (things that interested me; and some errata and some questions both in brackets).  I'm going to do a few posts over the next few days.

[before/after death] “Plane tickets that had been purchased by Warner Bros. to take Bruce and Linda to New York for his guest appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson were exchanged for the passage of Bruce’s body and the family to Seattle.”
“…Bruce Lee’s great-grandfather was actually Dutch-Jewish.  He was born Mozes Hartog Bosman in Rotterdam on August 29, 1839.”
[something bothers me about this; research] “Imitating what the Europeans had done in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, the Japanese sought to kick all the Westerners out of East Asia and colonize it for themselves.”
“The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which was not repealed until 1943, prohibited all immigration of low-skilled of low-skilled Chinese laborers.”
“A healthy baby boy – five eights Han Chinese, one quarter English and one eighth Dutch-Jewish – was born at 7:12 a.m. on November 27, 1940.”
“… Grace selected his Chinese name Li Jun Fan …”
[really I hate asides like this] “…appropriately named law firm of White & White…”
[interesting combination which makes no sense] “…laissez-faire colonial rule…”
“In the three years and eight months of Japanese occupation, the population dropped from 1.5 million to 600,000.”
“Random civilians were killed for jujitsu practice, being thrown roughly to the ground repeatedly until unable to move and then bayoneted.”
[Japanese film not a HK film] “The only Hong Kong film made during the three years and eight months of subjugation was the Japanese propaganda film The Battle for Hong Kong (1942).
 “…the early 1950s Hong Kong film community was politically charged and ideologically divided between left-wing Communist sympathizers and right-wing Nationalists.”
“Wu Ngan would later become Bruce’s manservant when they were adults.  There was no one Bruce trusted more.  The other was Unicorn Chan, a childhood actor Bruce had met on the set of The Birth of Mankind (1946).  Unicorn would later help Bruce as an adult revive his movie career in Hong Kong.”
“It wasn’t until the 1960s that they began to record the audio separately and dub it in.”
“…ten-year-old Bruce entered La Salle in September 1951 as a fifth-grader.”
“He often called himself the Monkey King.”
“Bruce owned a switchblade, brass knuckles, and other improvised devices.”
“In 1952, a group of the top Cantonese movie directors, actors, and writers had set up their own production company – Union Film Enterprises, or Chung-luen in Cantonese.”
“After five years at La Salle, Bruce was expelled in 1956.”
“All evidence indicates that Bruce didn’t start practicing Wing Chun until after he was kicked out of La Salle.”
“After pantsing the boy, Bruce dragged out a can of red paint he had lifted from a construction site and painted the boy’s private parts red.”
“It was scheduled to be held in Macau, because Hong Kong colonial officials, who had fresh historical memories of the Boxer Rebellion, refused to sanction a martial arts duel in their territory.”
“In the short term, he had to be submissive; in the long run he planned to reverse the power dynamic.  This strategy, which Bruce employed throughout his life, was the key to his success.  He later repeated this technique with Steve McQueen in Hollywood in order to learn how to become a movie star.”
[How popular was Wing Chun in HK?] “Wing Chun’s growing popularity in Hong Kong was largely due to one man, Ip Man.”
“…learn the basics [of Wing Chun] from Wong Shun Leung…”
“In the mid-1950s, Hong Kong kids were jitterbugging to clean-cut American pop like Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock.””
“If any one of the young women in his life could be considered Bruce’s high school sweetheart, it was Pearl Tso.”
“Hong Kong was a port of call during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.
[uh director?] “…Hong Kong film director Michael Kaye…”
[on comedy; he was possibly in a couple more like Blame it on Father (1953)] “His first and only was Sweet Time Together (1956).”
“One of Bruce’s childhood idols was Jerry Lewis, and Bruce does a credible imitation of the master…”
[on Darling Girl (1957); no idea how he would know this] “It is the only time in life or on film that the Little Dragon ever ran away from a fight.”
“…Advisory Committee for the Prohibition of Drugs in 1959…”
“One of his father’s close friends, Master Shiu Hong Sang, was an expert in northern kung fu…”
[ha ha no it is not] “…The Orphan is Hong Kong’s version of Rebel Without a Cause…”
[on The Orphan] “It also became the first Hong Kong movie to break into the international market.  It was shown at the Milan Film Festival.”
“…three years that Bruce cleaned dishes and lived above Ruby’s restaurant…”
“… Edison Technical High School on 811 East Olive Street.”
“…he maintained a 2.6 grade point average and graduated with a high school diploma in eighteen months…”
[Chinese Youth Club]
[really?] “…conservative Chinese chauvinists like Ruby Chow.”

[masterofoneinchpunch]

“Bruce introduced them to Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai flicks but failed to convince them of the comedic genius of Jerry Lewis.”
“Bruce was like a brilliant young professor who refuses to teach introductory freshmen lectures and only keeps a group of graduate students to assist him with his own research and discoveries.”
“Bruce slowly created his onstage persona – a funny, philosophical, and fearsome character – which he would play, with slight variations, for the rest of his life.”
“…Bruce gained admission to the University of Washington on March 27, 1961.”
[I wish he named Yuen Wah] “In his later Hong Kong kung fu movies, all of his handsprings and backflips were done by a Cantonese Opera-trained stunt double.”
“When he left in 1959, Bruce considered himself the sixth-best in the school.  After four years away, he had only moved up to fourth.”
[on The Orphan; this just does not sound right; also don’t like “his new studio”] “…Chang Cheh …, was so impressed by Bruce’s performance he went to his new studio, Shaw Brothers, and asked them to sign the Little Dragon…”
[How true is this?] “He didn’t realize that eating quietly is taken as a sign that you don’t like the taste of the food.”
“…Bruce moved hi Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute from its dingy basement in Chinatown to 4750 University Way near the campus.”
 “The Space Needle had just been built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and its revolving restaurant towered over the city.”
“…Bruce his favorite meal – oyster sauce beef and shrimp with black bean sauce.”
“It was the first and only one Bruce Lee authored during his lifetime.”
“James and Bruce planned for their book, Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense, to be the first in a series…”
“It cost $600 to print one thousand copies, which James sold through his mail-order business for $5.”
“Bruce never got around to finishing this follow-up volume, although he continued to write extensive notes for it the rest of his life.  Some of these notes were published posthumously as The Tao of Jeet Kune Do.”
“Anxious to launch his kung fu empire, he made the decision to withdraw from the University of Washington after his junior year.”
“…newcomer from Stockton named Bob Baker.”
“On July 24, 1964, James and Bruce filed a simple permit with the city to open the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute, which they described as a “Chinese Self-Defense School,” on 4157 Broadway.”
“Because he couldn’t afford a wedding ring, James Lee’s wife, Katherine, loaned Bruce hers for the ceremony.”
[faulty comparison] “Miscegenation was the gay marriage of that era.”
“It wasn’t until 1967 that the Supreme Court outlawed all antimiscegenation laws in the aptly named case, Loving v. Virginia.”
“Taky Kimura was Bruce’s best man.”
“The Long Beach tournament proved to be Bruce’s debutante ball…”
[Interesting comparison; do you agree?] “Since Ming Pao Daily was Hong Kong’s equivalent of The New York Times…”
[There were several actors who played Charlie Chan not just Oland; I don’t think he painted his face] “Back then in the yellow-face era, white actors invariably played Asian parts with taped eyes and painted faces.  In sixteen films, Charlie Chan was portrayed by Warner Oland, a Swedish actor.  As a result, there was only a tiny pool of Asian actors with any serious experience – mostly they played villains in World War II dramas and pigtailed coolies in Westerns.”
“Previously, the only Asian to ever star in an American TV series was the Chinese American actress Anna May Wong, in The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (1951).”
“According to Chinese custom if a son is not present when his father dies, he must come crawling back to ask forgiveness.”
“Bruce hired the Mount Tai Photography House to take two hundred photos of Ip Man demonstrating Wing Chun techniques over the course of a week.”
“The first and last Asian male matinee idol was Sessue Hayakawa in the silent era of the 1910-20s.”
[this is not quite true; I really don’t think he was as big as either two] “He became an overnight superstar on par with Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. with The Cheat (1915).”
[I hate statements like this] “And unlike most producers, Dozier meant what he promised.”
“In mid-March, they moved into a tiny old-fashioned apartment on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Gayley venue in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.”
“As soon as Bruce arrived in L.A., Dozier enrolled him in acting classes with Jeff Corey…”
“In nine years of marriage this nomadic family moved eleven times.”
Van Williams on Bruce: “He was a very loyal friend.  He never talked bad about anybody behind their back or anything else.”
“Thordis and Bruce’s liaison lasted for a few months until their pasts caught up with them.”
“…he opened the Los Angeles branch of the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute in Chinatown at 628 College Street.  The open house seminar was held from 8 to 9 p.m. on February 9, 1967.”
“…his friendly Great Dane, Bobo – a slobbering, clumsy 150-pound dog…”
[I do not really agree with this] “Bruce’s problem as a teacher was that he could pass on his ideas, but not his talent, and you needed both for Jeet Kune Do to work.”
[really did this need to be said] “He was an atheist – perhaps because he could not tolerate the idea of an authority higher than his own.”
[really] “He was practical by nature, a bit of a materialist – all traits in the Hong Kong tradition.”
“His personal library would grow to more than 2,500 books.”
“One of his most important influences was the renegade Indian mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti.”
[really this is before the 1960s; it kind of goes against its own footnote] “Professional football players in the 1960s considered weightlifting to be dangerous and detrimental – many NFL teams banned it.”
[on roids] “While it is possible he tried them, there is no evidence to suggest regular use.
[on Stirling Silliphant]”…suffering from middle-age macho syndrome.”
[also, why] “Silliphant was enthralled with Bruce – a man crush.”
“…until the James Bond parody film Our Man Flint (1966) made Coburn a star.”
“Coburn became Bruce’s most dedicated Hollywood student, taking 106 private lessons with him over a three-year period.”
“…suffered from alcohol flush reaction.”
“…because over 35 percent of East Asians suffer from it.”
[sticker on his car Chevy Nova] “This Car is Protected By The Green Hornet.”
“On December 7, 1968, barely two months after moving into a house he couldn’t afford, Bruce bought a red 911 Porsche from Bob Smith.”
“…Robert [Lee] had become one of Hong Kong’s biggest teen sensations with his boy band, the Thunderbirds.”
[check] “Hawaii Five-O was the lone drama on American TV to feature multiple Asian characters in major roles. (Sadly, the same can be said of its reboot, launched four decades later in 2010.)”
[on Dean Martin; not sure this is true] “He was also too drunk.”
[this is really an overstatement] “Prior to The Sopranos and the advent of the Golden Age of Television, the boob tube was considered a vast wasteland.  While modern stars bounce between TV and cinema like they are interchangeable content platforms, movie actors used to prefer unemployment to television work.  And TV actors had almost zero chance of breaking into movies.”
“Sharon and Bruce continued their affair throughout the filming of Marlowe.”
[he was not right-wing evangelical at the time] “Even Chuck Norris, the right-wing evangelical Christian of the bunch, had an illegitimate child, which he confessed to in a chapter in his memoir entitled “A Sin That Became a Blessing.”
[on Marlowe] “Roger Ebert reserved his only praise for Bruce Lee’s two scenes, although he didn’t deem him important enough to use his name or get his ethnicity right…”
[this is stupid] “The American part of Bruce read self-help books, set down goals, and looked to the future.  The Chinese half required revenge.”
[really mysterious?] “…Senator Edward Kennedy’s mysterious accident at Chappaquiddick.”
“On August 3, 1970, exactly one year after Tate’s and Sebring’s funerals, he placed a 125-pound barbell on his shoulders and bent over from the wait while keeping his back straight – a “Good Morning” exercise.”

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

20 hours ago, masterofoneinchpunch said:

“Bruce introduced them to Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai flicks but failed to convince them of the comedic genius of Jerry Lewis.”
“Bruce was like a brilliant young professor who refuses to teach introductory freshmen lectures and only keeps a group of graduate students to assist him with his own research and discoveries.”
“Bruce slowly created his onstage persona – a funny, philosophical, and fearsome character – which he would play, with slight variations, for the rest of his life.”
“…Bruce gained admission to the University of Washington on March 27, 1961.”
[I wish he named Yuen Wah] “In his later Hong Kong kung fu movies, all of his handsprings and backflips were done by a Cantonese Opera-trained stunt double.”
“When he left in 1959, Bruce considered himself the sixth-best in the school.  After four years away, he had only moved up to fourth.”
[on The Orphan; this just does not sound right; also don’t like “his new studio”] “…Chang Cheh …, was so impressed by Bruce’s performance he went to his new studio, Shaw Brothers, and asked them to sign the Little Dragon…”
[How true is this?] “He didn’t realize that eating quietly is taken as a sign that you don’t like the taste of the food.”
“…Bruce moved hi Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute from its dingy basement in Chinatown to 4750 University Way near the campus.”
 “The Space Needle had just been built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and its revolving restaurant towered over the city.”
“…Bruce his favorite meal – oyster sauce beef and shrimp with black bean sauce.”
“It was the first and only one Bruce Lee authored during his lifetime.”
“James and Bruce planned for their book, Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense, to be the first in a series…”
“It cost $600 to print one thousand copies, which James sold through his mail-order business for $5.”
“Bruce never got around to finishing this follow-up volume, although he continued to write extensive notes for it the rest of his life.  Some of these notes were published posthumously as The Tao of Jeet Kune Do.”
“Anxious to launch his kung fu empire, he made the decision to withdraw from the University of Washington after his junior year.”
“…newcomer from Stockton named Bob Baker.”
“On July 24, 1964, James and Bruce filed a simple permit with the city to open the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute, which they described as a “Chinese Self-Defense School,” on 4157 Broadway.”
“Because he couldn’t afford a wedding ring, James Lee’s wife, Katherine, loaned Bruce hers for the ceremony.”
[faulty comparison] “Miscegenation was the gay marriage of that era.”
“It wasn’t until 1967 that the Supreme Court outlawed all antimiscegenation laws in the aptly named case, Loving v. Virginia.”
“Taky Kimura was Bruce’s best man.”
“The Long Beach tournament proved to be Bruce’s debutante ball…”
[Interesting comparison; do you agree?] “Since Ming Pao Daily was Hong Kong’s equivalent of The New York Times…”
[There were several actors who played Charlie Chan not just Oland; I don’t think he painted his face] “Back then in the yellow-face era, white actors invariably played Asian parts with taped eyes and painted faces.  In sixteen films, Charlie Chan was portrayed by Warner Oland, a Swedish actor.  As a result, there was only a tiny pool of Asian actors with any serious experience – mostly they played villains in World War II dramas and pigtailed coolies in Westerns.”
“Previously, the only Asian to ever star in an American TV series was the Chinese American actress Anna May Wong, in The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (1951).”
“According to Chinese custom if a son is not present when his father dies, he must come crawling back to ask forgiveness.”
“Bruce hired the Mount Tai Photography House to take two hundred photos of Ip Man demonstrating Wing Chun techniques over the course of a week.”
“The first and last Asian male matinee idol was Sessue Hayakawa in the silent era of the 1910-20s.”
[this is not quite true; I really don’t think he was as big as either two] “He became an overnight superstar on par with Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. with The Cheat (1915).”
[I hate statements like this] “And unlike most producers, Dozier meant what he promised.”
“In mid-March, they moved into a tiny old-fashioned apartment on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Gayley venue in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.”
“As soon as Bruce arrived in L.A., Dozier enrolled him in acting classes with Jeff Corey…”
“In nine years of marriage this nomadic family moved eleven times.”
Van Williams on Bruce: “He was a very loyal friend.  He never talked bad about anybody behind their back or anything else.”
“Thordis and Bruce’s liaison lasted for a few months until their pasts caught up with them.”
“…he opened the Los Angeles branch of the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute in Chinatown at 628 College Street.  The open house seminar was held from 8 to 9 p.m. on February 9, 1967.”
“…his friendly Great Dane, Bobo – a slobbering, clumsy 150-pound dog…”
[I do not really agree with this] “Bruce’s problem as a teacher was that he could pass on his ideas, but not his talent, and you needed both for Jeet Kune Do to work.”
[really did this need to be said] “He was an atheist – perhaps because he could not tolerate the idea of an authority higher than his own.”
[really] “He was practical by nature, a bit of a materialist – all traits in the Hong Kong tradition.”
“His personal library would grow to more than 2,500 books.”
“One of his most important influences was the renegade Indian mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti.”
[really this is before the 1960s; it kind of goes against its own footnote] “Professional football players in the 1960s considered weightlifting to be dangerous and detrimental – many NFL teams banned it.”
[on roids] “While it is possible he tried them, there is no evidence to suggest regular use.
[on Stirling Silliphant]”…suffering from middle-age macho syndrome.”
[also, why] “Silliphant was enthralled with Bruce – a man crush.”
“…until the James Bond parody film Our Man Flint (1966) made Coburn a star.”
“Coburn became Bruce’s most dedicated Hollywood student, taking 106 private lessons with him over a three-year period.”
“…suffered from alcohol flush reaction.”
“…because over 35 percent of East Asians suffer from it.”
[sticker on his car Chevy Nova] “This Car is Protected By The Green Hornet.”
“On December 7, 1968, barely two months after moving into a house he couldn’t afford, Bruce bought a red 911 Porsche from Bob Smith.”
“…Robert [Lee] had become one of Hong Kong’s biggest teen sensations with his boy band, the Thunderbirds.”
[check] “Hawaii Five-O was the lone drama on American TV to feature multiple Asian characters in major roles. (Sadly, the same can be said of its reboot, launched four decades later in 2010.)”
[on Dean Martin; not sure this is true] “He was also too drunk.”
[this is really an overstatement] “Prior to The Sopranos and the advent of the Golden Age of Television, the boob tube was considered a vast wasteland.  While modern stars bounce between TV and cinema like they are interchangeable content platforms, movie actors used to prefer unemployment to television work.  And TV actors had almost zero chance of breaking into movies.”
“Sharon and Bruce continued their affair throughout the filming of Marlowe.”
[he was not right-wing evangelical at the time] “Even Chuck Norris, the right-wing evangelical Christian of the bunch, had an illegitimate child, which he confessed to in a chapter in his memoir entitled “A Sin That Became a Blessing.”
[on Marlowe] “Roger Ebert reserved his only praise for Bruce Lee’s two scenes, although he didn’t deem him important enough to use his name or get his ethnicity right…”
[this is stupid] “The American part of Bruce read self-help books, set down goals, and looked to the future.  The Chinese half required revenge.”
[really mysterious?] “…Senator Edward Kennedy’s mysterious accident at Chappaquiddick.”
“On August 3, 1970, exactly one year after Tate’s and Sebring’s funerals, he placed a 125-pound barbell on his shoulders and bent over from the wait while keeping his back straight – a “Good Morning” exercise.”

I have to tell you, I recently watched some videos on JKD Kickboxing with Ted Wong, and to be honest, not very impressive, even for the time. I've had instructors like Bruce that were still active as competitors and held their students down, and Danny Inosantos even said Bruce would hide techniques and counters from his students. This is a big issue with Chinese martial arts (and some of it just seems like bullshit) that only a select few learn certain techniques, etc. If you have 50 students, but only 1 or 2 can fight, what do you do when there's a challenge? And how does that help the general populace? It actually looks silly when the Manchus storm the temple and untrained spearmen (and the Manchu/Chinese only did a month of weapons training) easily dispatch everyone except Fang Shih Yu and the few experts that survive. Meanwhile, in Judo or Jiu Jitsu, everyone learns the full syllabus. 

 

[masterofoneinchpunch]

“…he had injured his fourth sacral nerve, permanently.”
“For inspiration, he read all the works of Krishnamurti.”
[check] “…Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music made so much money at the box office it saved Warner Bros. from bankruptcy.”
“Kelsey is the primary source material from Enter the Dragon (1973).”
“After Longstreet aired, Bruce did a television interview with Pierre Berton, Canada’s top TV journalist.  Since it is the only TV interview with Lee still extant, every Bruce Lee documentary uses clips from it.”
“Longstreet was Bruce Lee’s breakout performance, the moment he began to realize his potential as a screen performer.”
“The Green Hornet had recently aired on Hong Kong TV and had become so popular with locals they nicknamed it The Kato Show.”
[really] “…Enjoy Yourself Tonight – Hong Kong’s version of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”
[really?] “…the constraints of two thousand years of Confucianism.”
“Bruce had already returned to America on April 16, 1970.  For the moment, Raymond Chow would have to continue his bitter fight against Run Run Shaw, Hong Kong’s last movie mogul, without the assistance of Bruce Lee.”
“By 1970, it [movies] was dominated by one man, Run Run Shaw.”
“As mainland China became more increasingly unstable in the 1930s, the brothers decided to move their operation to Singapore.”
“…buried more than $4 million in gold, jewelry, and currency in their backyard.”
[to Hong Kong] “Run Run moved there in 1957 to expand the family’s empire.”
“Unlike the didactic social message movies of Bruce’s childhood in the 1950s, Shaw’s films pushed no political agenda.”
[this is so far off] “The popularity of wuxia sword-fighting films declined in 1968 after Communist China’s premier, Chou En-lai, declared that Japan was the new imperialist force in the East.  Suddenly it became unfashionable to imitate samurai films.”
[I’m always wary of firsts in writing, he partially gets away with this by saying “major” and “entirely”] “Shaw Bros. revived this tradition with a distinctly anti-Japanese twist to suit the mood of the times with The Chinese Boxer (1970) – the first major movie to devote itself entirely to the art of kung fu.”
[check] “…becoming the second most popular Chinese movie in Hong Kong history.”
“By the end of the 1960s, Run Run had achieved a near monoploly on Chiense film production by defeating his main rival Cathay Films.”
[not true; TVB continued] “…that ended Shaw’s empire.”
“Raymond offered Run Run a deal.  He would set up a production company, Golden Harvest, under the umbrella of Shaw Brothers Studio.”
“Meanwhile, Jimmy Wang Yu fled to Taiwan.  To cut off any income and force him to return, Run Run sought an injunction from a Taiwanese court and took out advertisements in the local press warning producers that Jimmy could not legally work.”
[note: did poach Hsu Tseng-Hung as well] “The best Raymond could poach was Lo Wei, a competent, if not particularly brilliant, craftsman, who would later direct Bruce’s first two movies.”
[no idea where he gets this] “…Bruce Lee’s favorite actor, Shintaro Katsu.”
“The person he [Raymond Chow] really wanted to sign was Hong Kong’s most famous female action star, the actress Cheng Pei Pei – the “Queen of the Swords.”
[um not necessarily] “Hong Kong kung fu movies drew their fight choreography from Cantonese Opera, which often had combat scenes of fifty separate movements or more.”
[John Wayne?  Where did he get this term from] “On The Green Hornet, he saw the excessive use of the John Wayne punch as boring…”
[Someone please check on this] “…the “Amazing Three Leg Lee.” (When Bruce later acquired a reputation as a ladies’ man, the tabloid press had a field day with this nickname.)
“When he was a younger man, Lo Wei was a matinee idol in Shanghai.”
[still Lo Wei and King Hu did not do enough films in HK to be considered HK’s best director] “… he remade himself into a director and was eventually hired by Shaw Bros.  While, he may have lacked the visual genius of Hong Kong’s best director, King Hu, he was still a highly valued craftsman, who cranked out seventeen profitable movies for Shaw in less than six years.”

[masterofoneinchpunch]

1 hour ago, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

I have to tell you, I recently watched some videos on JKD Kickboxing with Ted Wong, and to be honest, not very impressive, even for the time. I've had instructors like Bruce that were still active as competitors and held their students down, and Danny Inosantos even said Bruce would hide techniques and counters from his students. This is a big issue with Chinese martial arts (and some of it just seems like bullshit) that only a select few learn certain techniques, etc. If you have 50 students, but only 1 or 2 can fight, what do you do when there's a challenge? And how does that help the general populace?  full syllabus.

I have no disagreement with this.  I hate when instructors do this.  Not hiding one or two things, but way too much.  A lot of the quotes I found interesting and I agree with.  Comments in brackets are the exception.

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

16 hours ago, masterofoneinchpunch said:

I have no disagreement with this.  I hate when instructors do this.  Not hiding one or two things, but way too much.  A lot of the quotes I found interesting and I agree with.  Comments in brackets are the exception.

The other way Bruce and 1000's of competitive instructors hold them down is through punishing a technique that is the right choice and not yet perfected. A student throws a hook kick and the instructor kicks him in the nuts instead of just avoiding the kick and critiquing during sparring. Rory Miller talks about that a lot in meditations on violence. How can you build up a repertoire if you are always flinching? 

[DragonClaws]

On 1/6/2021 at 2:16 PM, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

Danny Inosantos even said Bruce would hide techniques and counters from his students. This is a big issue with Chinese martial arts (and some of it just seems like bullshit) that only a select few learn certain techniques, etc.

 

 

Do you think this was due to a business plan?, to keep people coming back. If you've taught everything you know, then there isnt the same incentive to return for more classes?. Surely the whole pointing of teaching self defense, is to share all of what you know with your students.

 

[NoKUNGFUforYU]

3 minutes ago, DragonClaws said:

 

 

Do you think this was due to a business plan?, to keep people coming back. If you've taught everything you know, then there isnt the same incentive to return for more classes?. Surely the whole pointing of teaching self defense, is to share all of what you know with your students.

 

This is just pure selfishness. And yes, a business plan. I've been told that people would bribe Ip Man to get the supposed "secrets". They guy was a junkie, so he needed the dough. And Wing Chun was not a popular system. It was only after Bruce became a star that all the interest was generated. If you really watch HK films pre the Chinese Boxer, and even after, many of the modern characters take Judo and Karate, as they were more modern and effective. I hate to burst people's bubble, but my brother in law grew up in the 60's and 70's HK and Japanese arts were very popular. Many of the action stars took Karate (Wang Yu, Lo Lieh, Chan Sing, Tung Li, Ti Lung, Fu Sheng, Bruce Liang to name a few) and when you see the old spy movies, that is what the good guys train in. Part of the reason is with Japanese arts, what you see is what you get. And James Lee, Bruce Lee's student who wrote several books said that all the excess forms with repeated movements were simple a way to get tuition fees out of the students. If you look at many of the forms or kata of northern Shaolin the same moves are repeated in different order. Despite what they would have you believe, that they were created 1,000 years ago by "battle tested monks defending the monastery" they were actually put together from bits and pieces in the 1930s. There would be plenty of people that did not know this, as it was mainland/Taiwanese history and didn't jibe with the idea of an ancient, deadly martial art with hidden secrets.

[DragonClaws]

8 hours ago, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

I hate to burst people's bubble, but my brother in law grew up in the 60's and 70's HK and Japanese arts were very popular. Many of the action stars took Karate (Wang Yu, Lo Lieh, Chan Sing, Tung Li, Ti Lung, Fu Sheng, Bruce Liang to name a few) and when you see the old spy movies, that is what the good guys train in.

 

A lot of the English guys who worked on the first run of James Bond films were Judo guys or grapplers.

 

8 hours ago, NoKUNGFUforYU said:

It was only after Bruce became a star that all the interest was generated. If you really watch HK films pre the Chinese Boxer, and even after, many of the modern characters take Judo and Karate, as they were more modern and effective.

 

Do you think Judo and Karate had eliminated a lot of the more flowery and useless movements?.

 

On 1/5/2021 at 5:21 PM, masterofoneinchpunch said:

Here are some quotes (things that interested me; and some errata and some questions both in brackets).  I'm going to do a few posts over the next few days.

 

Some impressive notes/posts there @masterofoneinchpunch, overall what did you think of the book?.

Edited January 7, 2021 by DragonClaws