The romanticised touches don’t help this account of a private bout involving the martial arts star, pre-fame, in San Francisco
This is an odd, romanticised take on an incident in the early life of Bruce Lee in San Francisco, almost like a superhero “origin myth” story. It is based on the semi-legendary private bout he had in 1964, before he became famous, with the Shaolin master Wong Jack Man. Philip Ng convincingly impersonates the cocky, athletic Lee, and Wong – who is incidentally still alive at 77 – is played by Yu Xia. In real life, their fight may have been due to Wong disapproving of Lee teaching kung fu to Westerners, or it may have been a regular alpha-male faceoff. It certainly had nothing to do with the fanciful explanation concocted here: a gallant contest to appease local Chinatown gangsters who would stand to gain from betting and so agree to release...
This is an odd, romanticised take on an incident in the early life of Bruce Lee in San Francisco, almost like a superhero “origin myth” story. It is based on the semi-legendary private bout he had in 1964, before he became famous, with the Shaolin master Wong Jack Man. Philip Ng convincingly impersonates the cocky, athletic Lee, and Wong – who is incidentally still alive at 77 – is played by Yu Xia. In real life, their fight may have been due to Wong disapproving of Lee teaching kung fu to Westerners, or it may have been a regular alpha-male faceoff. It certainly had nothing to do with the fanciful explanation concocted here: a gallant contest to appease local Chinatown gangsters who would stand to gain from betting and so agree to release...
- 2/23/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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