All language subtitles for Greste

You are watching a
master at work.

Bruce Lee:

Five feet, seven and a half inches tall,
135 pounds of martial art dynamite.

Hong Kong, in February of
1973, is a bustling island...

of modern industry and
commerce that plays against...

a backdrop of culture and
tradition that has remained...

largely unchanged for
over 1,000 years.

The biggest news coming from
within the city these days...

is the rapid growth of its
motion picture industry.

Formerly an enterprise of no consequence
to anyone but local theater owners...

the Hong Kong movie industry is
now attracting the attention...

of the most powerful film
studios in the world.

The reason for this sudden surge
in interest is the meteoric...

rise to fame of a 32-year-old
man named Bruce Lee.

Lee's dynamic on-screen presence,
coupled with an audience empathy...

that cuts across all
cultural boundaries...

have resulted in his films
shattering box office records.

Producers the world over have
come to see in Lee the key...

that will unlock the door to
the future of the industry.

They begin to flood the young artist with
offers that a year ago would've been...

impossible for him
to have imagined.

After years of battling against
cultural and professional bigotry...

economic and emotional hardship, and
the exhausting effort required...

to sustain the integrity
of his art...

Lee's perseverance has
finally been rewarded.

He has become the most sought after
motion picture actor in the world.

With such power now
at his disposal...

Lee could easily choose to rest on his
laurels and play it safe by making...

the kind of formula pictures that are
now being offered him on a daily basis.

But the very notion of
formulas and methods...

hold no appeal whatsoever
for this young man.

Instead, Lee is presently in the midst
of filming The Game of Death...

what he terms a multi-level film,
in which his personal philosophy...

of martial art is being
presented for the first time.

He's returning to this film
after a brief hiatus...

having spent the fall of the previous
year filming three sequences...

the finale, it turns
out, of the film.

Lee performs the work and assumes the
responsibility of eight people...

in the creation of this film.

He's the director, the producer, the
choreographer and screenwriter.

In addition to having a hand in set
design, cinematography and lighting.

And, of course, he's
the leading actor.

Martial artists who are not accustomed to
the camera must be taught how to sell...

a strike or a reaction for
optimal dramatic effect.

Again, this falls to
Lee to look after.

Take after take of precision martial
art choreography is performed.

Lee will spend, in some instances,
up to four days filming...

what will turn out to be only
a five-minute fight sequence.

Lee is most demanding
of himself.

In this shot, involving his
handling a nunchaku...

an ancient Oriental weapon that was
originally used as a rice flail...

Lee will shoot no less than 10 takes
to capture one small sequence...

that will appear on screen
for a mere 3.5 seconds.

He wants his films to have the stamp
of realism and believability.

Filming of The Game of Death is suspended
in October of 1972 when word reaches...

the set that Warner Brothers is now
interested in co-producing his next film.

It will mark the first time in the history
of East-West relations that a Chinese...

and American film studio work
together on a motion picture.

Lee views the co-production as a step
toward raising global understanding...

of Chinese culture...

and of having Chinese films accepted
into the international market.

Did you look at many Mandarin
movies before you started...

playing in your first one?
- Yes.

What did you think of
them when you saw them?

Quality-wise, I have to admit that
it's not quite up to the standard.

However, it is growing and it is getting
higher and higher and going toward...

that standard which I
would term quality.

Lee and his business
partner, Raymond Chow...

fly to Los Angeles in
November of 1972...

to complete negotiations with Warner
Brothers for what will prove...

to be Lee's last and biggest
film, Enter the Dragon.

January to April of 1973, Lee gives over
to the filming of Enter the Dragon.

Again, he will oversee every aspect of
its production and post-production.

By the time his schedule allows him to
resume working on additional ideas...

for The Game of Death, it's mid-July
of 1973, the final week of his life.

July 20, his last day on Earth, he will
spend discussing script ideas for the film.

On this fateful day, Lee will,
in characteristic optimism...

look ahead to
September 20, 1973.

He will write in his daytime
diary for this date...

of his intention to resume
filming The Game of Death.

These will prove to be the
last words he will ever write.

Lee's passing hits the residents
of Hong Kong like a tidal wave.

Disbelief, shock, anger.

There was so much more the
young man had to accomplish.

So much he had to live for.
And now, nothing.

Upon Lee's passing, so too...

passes the movement towards realism in
Eastern cinema that he had pioneered.

Almost immediately, action films will
revert to being unbelievable and hokey.

Ironically, during an audio dictation
that Lee makes only weeks prior...

to his passing, he comments on this
distinction between his films...

and those made by other, less
dedicated production companies.

I can tell you that as more
Bruce Lee films are shown...

the audience will
soon realize...

not only in acting ability but in physical
skill as well, they will see the difference.

Five years after his passing, excerpts from
the film Lee had worked so feverishly on...

during the final months and hours
of his life, are edited into...

a film featuring Lee's
title, The Game of Death.

But the film bears no comparison to
Lee's original multi-level vision.

Without Lee's choreography notes,
script-outline and motif...

the producers are uncertain what to
do with the 100 minutes of footage...

they have in their possession.

Moreover, they discover that Lee
was such a perfectionist that...

of the 100 minutes of footage they have
in hand, two-thirds turn out to be...

outtakes and retakes, shots that
Lee himself had discarded...

for sequences in the film that he felt
were beneath his standard of quality.

They deem only 11 minutes
and 7 seconds...

of the footage to be worthy
of inclusion in their film.

The rest, approximately 21
minutes worth, they discard.

Intercutting actual footage of Lee into
fight sequences involving lookalikes...

and even using cardboard cutouts of
Lee's head, the end result is...

viewed by many as an exploitive
and grotesque joke...

played on the great
artist's legacy.

By now, even Lee's
most zealous fans...

are beginning to believe that
the original footage is gone.

And that it will never be possible to see
the footage Lee shot in its entirety...

nor to ever learn what his original
storyline for the film was.

In the fall of 1994, during research
conducted for a multi-volume book series...

based on Lee's surviving writings,
Lee's original script...

and choreography writings for The
Game of Death are recovered.

The writings confirm what
had long been suspected...

that Lee had shot considerably more
footage for The Game of Death...

than had been seen to date.

Another unexpected surprise is discovered
among his choreography writings.

His hand-written storyline,
12 pages in length...

and containing all scene breakdowns
and select dialogue passages...

the original storyline stands in sharp
contrast to the one presented in...

the film released
under the same name.

After the discovery of
Lee's script notes...

a search to find the missing
footage is launched.

It will last some six years, but
then the miraculous happens.

The original 35mm film
footage is located.

After having been separated for
over a quarter of a century...

Bruce Lee's original footage and
script notes are finally reunited.

Over the course of this film, you'll
see this footage as Bruce Lee...

had intended for it to be shown,
and you'll also come to...

understand the struggle he
had to undergo in order...

to bring it to the big screen.

And perhaps along the way, you'll
come to know the real Bruce Lee...

the man behind the legend,
a little better as well.

Water is the softest
substance in the world...

but yet it can penetrate
the hardest rock...

or anything, granite,
you name it.

Water, also, is insubstantial.

By that I mean you cannot grasp hold of it.
You cannot punch it and hurt it.

Every gung fu man is
trying to do that...

to be soft, like water, and flexible
and to adapt himself to the opponent.

It is February of 1965 in
Los Angeles, California...

where a 24-year-old Bruce Lee is
in the midst of auditioning for...

a TV series that
will never be made.

In 19 months, he will be known
to American audiences as Kato...

from The Green Hornet.

In five years, he'll discover a
truth that will forever alter...

the course of martial
art history.

And in eight years, he'll be the most
famous motion picture actor in the world.

But that's all in the future.

Today, he's unknown.

- You went to college in the US?
- Yes.

- And what did you study?
- Philosophy.

Bruce Lee's interest in philosophy, defined
by the Western ethos as love of wisdom...

is a passion that will remain with
him for the remainder of his life.

Lee has been teaching
Americans about...

Chinese philosophy and culture for six
years, lecturing in the Pacific Northwest...

on the subtleties
of Chinese thought.

His great passion, however, is gung fu,
an ancient Chinese fighting art...

unknown in the America of 1965.

Lee's scrapbook from this period of his
life reveals brief descriptions of many...

of the arts and traditions of the
venerated masters of gung fu.

America's only knowledge of the martial
arts in 1965 are judo and jujitsu...

two Japanese arts that were taught to
her servicemen during the Korean War.

Lee regards himself as an ambassador
for Chinese martial art...

teaching all who'll listen about
the ways of the Chinese masters.

You told me earlier today that karate
and jujitsu are not the most...

powerful or the best forms
of Oriental fighting.

What is the most powerful
or the best form?

It's bad to say the best...

but in my opinion gung
fu is pretty good.

Would you tell us a
little about gung fu?

Gung fu originates in China.

It is the ancestor of
karate and jujitsu.

It is more of a complete
system and it's more fluid.

By that I mean, it's more flowing,
there is continuity in movement...

instead of one movement, two
movements, and then stop.

I see. What's the difference between
a gung fu punch and a karate punch?

A karate punch is like
an iron bar, "whack."

A gung fu punch is like an iron chain
with an iron ball attached to the end...

and it goes "whang,"
and it hurts inside.

Okay.

Lee has studied a system of gung fu for
the past nine years called wing chun...

and is considered one of the art's most
talented and articulate exponents.

His teacher in this art has been an
elderly Hong Kong Chinese master...

by the name of Yip Man.

Despite his proficiency in
this style of gung fu...

his study of philosophy has
caused him to question.

And now, he begins to question
why most martial artists...

Chinese and otherwise, seem
more concerned with...

preserving tradition, than with looking
more deeply into the matter...

to penetrate through to the
ultimate truth of martial art.

Moreover, Lee has begun to develop
his own method of gung fu...

which he describes as, "non-classical in
nature" and which takes as its core...

the principles of economy of
motion, simplicity and directness.

All right, for instance, you
will read it in bulk...

in a magazine and everything,
that when somebody grabs you...

you will first do this and
then this and then and then...

Thousands of steps before
you do a single thing.

Of course, these kinds of
magazines would teach you...

to be feared by your enemies
and admired by your friends.

But in gung fu, it always
involves a very fast motion.

Like, for instance, a guy
grabbing your hand...

it's not the idea to do so many steps.
Step right on his instep, he'll let go.

This is what we
mean by simplicity.

Same thing in striking
and in everything.

It has to be based on a
very minimum motion...

so that everything would be
directly expressed. One motion...

and he's gone. Doing it
gracefully, not yelling...

and jumping all over
him, but to go...

Excuse me.

Both the American and Chinese martial
art communities resent his iconoclasm.

For such a young man to stand up
against thousands of years...

of tradition and venerated authority,
is considered a direct threat...

to the status quo and its
entrenched power base.

Prior to Bruce's coming
to this country...

gung fu was alive in most, all
the Chinese communities...

but there was nothing
taught to outsiders.

Bruce came along, and with
that basis of trying to...

create equality amongst all
people regardless of race...

he chose to let anybody into his school
regardless of what color or race they were.

As long as he knew that what was in
their heart was good and positive...

he took them in.

When he was in San Francisco,
where the Chinese community...

was much more like
being in China...

they took exception to it.

He had to fight his
way out of it.

In Oakland, he received
a challenge...

from the San Francisco Chinese
martial arts community.

And the challenge read that...

Bruce, if he were to be
defeated in this challenge...

would have to cease teaching
Caucasian or non-Chinese students.

And the Chinese martial artist
came over from San Francisco...

to Bruce's studio in Oakland and a
very formal challenge took place.

I was present there.

In fact, I was eight months
pregnant with Brandon.

James Lee was there.

This fight with this Chinese
martial artist lasted about...

three minutes.

It consisted of a lot of running,
where the Chinese martial artist...

took off and started running around the
room, and Bruce was pursuing him...

before Bruce finally
got a hold of him...

and took him down to the
floor and made him give up.

After the challenge ended with
the Chinese martial artist...

being soundly defeated and
they all went away...

Bruce won the right to
teach anyone he wanted to.

By February of 1967, Lee has three
schools operating in Seattle...

Oakland and Los Angeles that teach
his own interpretation of gung fu...

based on his own investigations into
the ultimate truth of unarmed combat.

However, by now the young man is
openly critical of the traditions...

and limitations he sees as
inherent in the martial arts...

as they're currently being
practiced in America.

He believes they lack a solid
grounding in reality...

consisting of rehearsed self-defense
routines that are employed...

and predictable in
patternized rhythms.

He notes that real combat is
spontaneous, not rehearsed...

and is made up of irregular or broken rhythm
a martial artist cannot anticipate...

only respond to.

Even the championship karate tournaments
of the era are non-contact affairs...

settled not on knockouts but on
an accumulation of points...

awarded for blows that
never touch an opponent.

A victory is determined
by a team of judges...

who conclude which combatant
would probably have hurt...

the other combatant the most,
had contact been allowed.

Lee has no use for such
styles of pseudo-fighting...

which he calls, "organized
despair" and "dry-land swimming."

Lee's criticism of the arts can be attributed
in part to his background in Hong Kong...

which consisted not of non-contact
karate tournaments...

but full-contact street fights
and challenge matches...

fought on Hong Kong rooftops.

When not fighting against
proponents of different styles...

of gung fu on rooftops...

Lee had also fought
frequently against...

opponents who had been armed
with knives and chains.

In such real-world encounters, referees
and judges were not necessary.

Rather than participating in
non-contact karate tournaments...

which he considers little more
than glorified games of tag...

Lee instead devotes
himself to devising...

a more scientific approach
to unarmed combat.

His research leads him to the
science of Newtonian physics...

and the techniques and principles of
European fencing and Western boxing...

where efficiency, not tradition, are
the touchstones of both disciplines.

Lee's research causes him to understand
that the only litmus test...

of a combative
technique's worth...

is whether or not it can be landed
effectively on an opponent.

Anything that's ornamental
is discarded from his style.

He retains only
those techniques...

that he himself has determined to be
practical in real self-defense situations.

Lee is the first martial artist in
North America, if not the world...

to have his students
don boxing gloves...

headgear and body protectors
and spar all out.

Nothing is rehearsed, no
punches are pulled...

and full-contact, reality-based
martial art is the order of the day.

In 1967, Lee introduces the concept
of full-contact sparring...

at the International Karate
Tournament in Long Beach, California.

Defense is not emphasized in his
new reality-based method...

as this would be allowing one's opponent
to set the tone and tempo in a real fight.

Instead, the focus of Lee's new
approach to combat is on attack...

or more precisely, on intercepting
the opponent's attack...

with an attack of one's own.

By midsummer of 1967...

Lee has determined the defining attribute
of his new approach to martial art:

The principle of interception.

As the Cantonese term for unarmed
combat is typically represented...

by a character
indicating a fist...

Lee christens his new
approach, jeet kune do...

the way of the
intercepting fist.

Now what is this thing you do?

In Cantonese, jeet kune do, the
way of the intercepting fist.

- Intercepting fist?
- Or foot.

Come on, touch me,
anywhere you can.

To reach me, you
must move to me.

Your attack offers me an
opportunity to intercept you.

In this case, I'm using my
longest weapon, my sidekick...

against the nearest
target, your kneecap.

This can be compared to
your left jab in boxing...

except it's much more damaging.

I see. Well, speaking
of a left jab...

This time I intercept
your emotional tenseness.

You see, from your thought to your
fist, how much time was lost.

Before long, word is out
concerning Lee's art...

and he begins to attract the attention
of America's top martial artists...

as well as many prestigious Southern
California actors and athletes...

Steve McQueen, James Coburn and
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar among them.

Bruce was an iconoclast
and a rebel...

in that he thought the
traditional martial arts...

were way too bound by tradition.

People who were not really that
effective at martial arts...

really were not promoting martial arts
but their own nationalistic brand...

of martial arts and their
view of the world...

more so than a realistic
martial art fighting system.

He wanted to get to the
pure essence of the art.

Lee's Los Angeles school, located
in the heart of Chinatown...

and without any advertising, pulls in
not newcomers to the martial arts...

but seasoned black belts...

all of whom now look upon
Lee's art as revolutionary.

And upon his talent
as otherworldly.

In the Sportsweek of
the Washington Star...

printed in Washington, D.C.
On August 16, 1970:

"Three of Bruce Lee's pupils, Joe
Louis, Chuck Norris, and Mike Stone..."

"have between them won every major
karate tournament in the United States."

"Joe Louis was grand national
champion three successive years."

"Bruce Lee handles and
instructs these guys...

"almost as a parent
would a young child.

"Which can be somewhat
disconcerting to watch.

"It's like walking into a
saloon in the old West...

"and seeing the fastest
guy in the territory...

"standing there with
notches all over his gun.

"Then in walks a pleasant
little fellow who says:"

"'How many times do I
have to tell you..."

"'... you are doing it all wrong?
'"

"And the other guy
listens intently."

With the top actors and
martial artists in America...

now coming to his home for
private instruction...

Lee is the toast of the
martial arts world.

However, by the end of 1969...

Lee is growing concerned that his
students are looking to his art...

as containing a secret way, special
techniques that alone are responsible...

for success and
ability in combat.

To Lee, there is no such
thing as a magic system.

The only secret to martial art success being
a willingness to train hard enough...

to cultivate one's own
innate abilities.

Taking matters into
his own hands...

Lee now does something that is
unheard of in martial arts circles.

In January of 1970...

at the very height of his popularity and
reputation in the martial art world...

he closes all three of his
jun fan kung fu schools.

When Bruce closed the schools, he
felt he was unburdening himself...

of having to prove
through his students...

that his system had merit.

He didn't want to get into that.

He wanted them to evolve and teach,
but it was not a thing where...

"you have to teach
what I taught.

"You have to teach
what you learned"...

and that's going to be more than
what he taught, hopefully...

for those students that
understood what he was doing.

Lee's going to
teach me all this.

I cannot teach you.

Only help you to explore
yourself, nothing more.

Lee now trains only a handful
of students privately.

As his art is about personal growth,
he feels he must come to know...

each student thoroughly in order to
assist the student in developing...

the skills and confidence required to
free him from the chains of limitation...

whether of physical or
psychological origin.

What is your instinct?

To pray.

In this position, your
arms are useless.

Yeah.

Can you kick or stomp me?

No.

Then if you wish to
survive, what do you do?

I don't know.

Bite.

Bite?

Are we not animals?

You all right?

I can't find much evidence
to the contrary, Lee.

Bite?

Biting is efficient
in close quarters...

but don't make a plan of biting.

That is a very good way
to lose your teeth.

There's so much to remember.

If you try to remember,
you will lose.

Empty your mind.

Be formless...

shapeless, like water.

Now, you put water into a cup...

it becomes the cup.

Put it into a teapot,
it becomes the teapot.

Now, water can flow or
creep or drip or crash.

Be water, my friend.

Yeah. Why don't I stand in front
of Paul and recite that to him.

Maybe he'll faint. Or drown.

When is it?

Tomorrow.

You are not ready.

I know.

Like everyone else, you want
to learn the way to win...

but never do accept
the way to lose.

To accept defeat.

To learn to die is to
be liberated from it.

So when tomorrow comes, you must
free your ambitious mind...

and learn the art of dying.

I remember he said, for me...

if I were going to use,
let's say, judo style.

Imagine me trying to get
my hips underneath him...

to throw him, for a hip throw.

"You're going to try and do
that while I beat you down?"

"You'll be trying to
do something else."

You know, he was
absolutely right.

Lee is his own best example of
the potency of his beliefs.

He's detected his own weaknesses and
limitations and by the application...

of intellect and dint of hard work,
he alone has overcome them...

raising his physical ability to a
level that borders on the phenomenal.

He routinely performs one-finger
pushups on one hand...

executes elevated V-sits for
extended periods of time.

He can cannonade an opponent...

several feet back from a punch he
delivers from only one inch away.

And his sidekicks have so much power
that, in the words of one recipient:

"They feel like being
hit by a car."

He trains hard, six
days a week...

pushing to discover the outer limits
of expression for the human body.

He finds out with
disastrous consequences...

on August 13, 1970.

As a result of an improper
warm-up while lifting weights...

Lee severely strains the fourth
sacral nerve in his lower back.

It's an injury that will continue to
plague him for the remainder of his life.

The injury leaves Lee virtually
bedridden for a period of six months.

His doctors tell him he may
never be able to kick again.

For Bruce to be lying down
in bed 24 hours a day...

for approximately six months...

was an impossible thought.

You cannot contain
him like that.

But he did, because he knew if there were
any future, even to walk normally...

he would need to give
this time to heal.

So he spent a great deal of time resting,
flat on his back, for quite a long time...

and then also, you know,
just sitting in a chair.

But he was not one
to just waste time.

So he spent this
amount of time...

doing a lot of researching of all
of his vast library of books...

which were books on the martial arts, all
combative arts, all hand-to-hand arts...

whether they be Western,
Eastern, modern, or ancient...

all types of philosophy, psychology,
especially in the motivational field...

now that he was injured and
his future was in jeopardy.

He felt that he needed to
self-motivate himself all the time.

Unable to put his energy to use
physically, Lee now channels it mentally.

The writings of the Buddha, Alan
Watts, Carl Rogers, Lao-tse...

Frederick Perls, Daisetz Suzuki,
and Jiddu Krishnamurti...

become his constant companions.

Of these authors, Lee is particularly
taken by the thoughts of Krishnamurti...

who states that, "truth cannot be
organized without invalidating it."

You have to be a
light to yourself...

not the light of a
professor, or an analyst...

or a psychologist, or the light of
Jesus, or the light of the good heart.

You have to be a
light to yourself...

in a world that is
utterly becoming dark.

I believe that part of the concept
that he enjoyed so much about...

Krishnamurti's philosophy
was one of self-reliance.

If you're looking for truth, you must
look inward, rather than outward.

Lee begins to write about his new
insight and its application...

to martial art.

His writings will fill
seven large volumes.

Slowly, Lee begins
to battle back.

Although the back injury will prove to be
a permanent problem, within six months...

he has proven both the naysayers
and the medical community wrong.

Not only is he able to kick again, he
becomes a better martial artist...

than he ever was before.

Lee's harrowing experience,
coupled with his new insight...

served to underscore for him the
validity of his belief that there...

is no help but self-help, including
help in the form of instruction...

in the art of unarmed combat.

Even his own beloved creation, jeet
kune do, by far the most scientific...

of all martial arts, is not
exempt from his solvent analysis.

Lee sees his error in the fact that
he had been striving to create...

the ultimate way or style of martial
art to teach to his students.

First he thought he had it with
the Chinese way of martial art.

Then, more recently, in his newly-created
way of the intercepting fist.

But Lee has now come to see that the
ultimate truth does not reside in ways...

or styles, but within the
soul of each individual.

I do not believe
in styles anymore.

I mean, I do not believe that there
is such a thing as a Chinese...

way of fighting or Japanese way of
fighting or whatever way of fighting...

because, unless human beings
have three arms and four legs...

we will have a different
form of fighting.

But basically, we only have
two hands and two feet.

So styles tend to not only...

separate men because they have their
own doctrines, and then their...

doctrines became the gospel truth,
that you cannot change, you know...

But, if you do not
have styles...

if you just say, "here I am, as a human
being, how can I express myself..."

"totally and completely?"

Then it's just two people who are
being aware of their own movements...

who are observing the other
person's movements...

and being able to fit in with that
person's movements, so that there's no...

set pattern of movements.

No "well, when he does
this, then I do this."

It's just a total freedom to react
to what the other person does.

In fact, Bruce inscribes it perfectly
on the back of this medallion...

where he wrote his motto, it
says, "Using no way as way..."

"having no limitation
as limitation."

Over the years this phrase has
been somewhat misinterpreted.

People think of using "no
way as way" to mean...

"anything I do is okay..."

"and anything I do is my way."

I don't think Bruce really
intended it to mean that way.

He just meant not
to be boxed in...

by a certain way, so that you...

never get into a situation where
there's only one response.

You adapt to what the
situation calls for.

I think Bruce had that
down pretty well.

When there is a way, then
there lies the limitation.

To me, okay, to me...

ultimately, martial art means
honestly expressing yourself.

Now it is very difficult to do.

I mean, it is easy for me to put on a
show and be cocky and be flooded...

with a cocky feeling and then feel
like pretty cool and all that.

Or I can make all kinds of phony
things, you see what I mean...

blinded by it, or I can show you
some really fancy movement.

But to express one's self honestly,
not lying to one's self.

And to express myself honestly, now
that, my friend, is very hard to do.

That's the whole
key right there:

Do you know yourself? Do
you know your skills?

Do you know your weaknesses? Are
you able to adjust your life...

to compensate for whatever's
happening and take advantage...

of whatever's happening in
terms of plusses and minuses?

That was his approach.

And he was an incredible
example of that...

a walking model of that.

In his critically acclaimed performance
on the television series, Longstreet...

Lee attempts to teach his student,
played by James Franciscus...

this higher purpose
of his martial art.

Lee, I want you to teach me
what you did the other night.

I already told Miss
Sparrow I can't.

I'm willing to empty my cup
in order to taste your tea.

Your open-mindedness is cool,
but it doesn't change anything.

I don't believe in system, Mr.
Longstreet, nor in method.

Without system, without
method, what's to teach?

You had to learn.

You weren't born knowing how to take
apart three men in a matter of seconds.

True, but I found the
cause of my ignorance.

Now help me find mine.

Having discovered the truth
of, "using no way as way..."

"having no limitation
as limitation"...

Bruce Lee's mission now becomes to
communicate this truth to the world.

The most effective approach, he decides, is
not in private one-on-one instruction...

but in bringing this
truth to the big screen.

His quest: To create a new genre of
film that will reveal the higher...

purpose of martial art.

His challenge: To overcome
the prejudices of Hollywood.

Bruce, at that point in his life, had
decided that he was going to make...

the film business his career rather than
teaching martial arts on a mass basis.

So he tried to pursue the idea
of getting roles in film and TV.

Okay.

He had a great deal of trouble
securing really leading roles.

He had a number of roles
in small pictures.

But as far as really promoting
his career as a leading man...

he had a lot of difficulty
in America at that time.

In the United States, I think
something about the Oriental...

I mean the true Oriental
should be shown.

Hollywood sure as heck hasn't.

You better believe it.

I mean, its always the pigtail
and bouncing around...

you know, with the eye
slanted and all that.

A screenplay written by Lee, entitled
The Silent Flute, which detailed...

the personal quest of self-discovery
of a young martial artist...

is torpedoed by Hollywood.

He was in a kind of a
poverty status then.

He was having a tough
time, and in a letter...

told me he was working on a
vehicle, and something like...

The Silent Flute or equivalent to that,
and the letter I got the next month...

he would tell me that that fell
through, because in one instance...

he told me that they just felt that
a young Asian couldn't carry...

the lead in something like that.

Undeterred, the young
man forges on.

He conceives an idea for
a television series...

that will feature
martial art philosophy.

Originally to be called The
Warrior, but later renamed Kung Fu.

Even when he conceived the
idea of the Kung Fu series...

had many, many planning
discussions with...

the eventual producers
of the Kung Fu series.

When it got right down to it,
they did not hire Bruce...

to play the part of the
leading part in Kung Fu...

instead, going for a Caucasian man.
And the word was that Bruce...

because he was Chinese, was not
considered a bankable commodity.

Let me ask you, however,
about the problems...

that you face as a Chinese
hero in an American series.

Have people come up in
the industry and said:

"Well, we don't know how the audiences
are going to take a non-American"?

Well, such a question
has been raised.

In fact, it is being discussed.

And that is why The Warrior is
probably not going to be on.

- I see.
- You see, because unfortunately such...

things do exist in this world,
you see, like I don't know...

certain parts of the
country where...

they think that, business-wise,
it's a risk. I don't blame them.

In the same way, it's
like in Hong Kong...

if a foreigner came
and became a star.

If I were the man
with the money...

I probably would
have my own worry...

of whether or not the
acceptance would be there.

But that's all right, because...

if you honestly express
yourself, it doesn't matter.

Lee now realizes that Hollywood only
wants Asians to play grossly...

inaccurate stereotypes.

Despite his dire economic circumstances,
he refuses to accept roles...

that would portray the Chinese race
as anything less than equal...

to other cultures. With a wife and
now two small children to support...

Lee's dignity and philosophical
principles come at a huge price.

With money rapidly running out,
he now realizes that he is...

wasting his time with Hollywood.

With that rejection in mind, I guess
you could say that was an overt...

expression of racism in the film
industry in the early '70s.

And at that time, we
went to Hong Kong.

Bruce decided that if he couldn't make it
in the American film industry through...

the front door, he would go to Hong
Kong and come back in the side door.

Which is precisely
what he was doing.

At the time, Chinese action films
were largely sword-play films...

or as Bruce Lee so aptly described
them, "simply one long, armed hassle."

He would say he didn't invent
the gore in Mandarin films...

but that the violence in his films
were always with just cause.

I hope that the picture
I am in would...

either explain why the
violence was done...

whether right or wrong, or what
not, but unfortunately, pictures...

most of them, are done mainly...

for the sake of violence,
you know what I mean?

Like fighting for 30 minutes,
or getting stabbed 50 times.

I'm fascinated... Let me give
you your microphone back.

- I'm fascinated that you came back.
- I am a martial artist.

He's offered very little money
to star in his first film.

But then, money has never
been his sole objective.

The film is entitled, The Big Boss, and
it will become the highest-grossing...

film in Southeast Asian history.

Lee follows up the unprecedented
success of his first film with...

a second, Fist of Fury.

It proceeds to smash the
record set by The Big Boss.

Bruce didn't want to be segmented, in
that he could only do Chinese movies...

or only do Chinese martial arts.
He didn't view himself as only...

a Chinese man. He viewed himself as a
citizen of the world who had a mission...

that really had nothing to do
with what his nationality was.

He wanted to bring...

his views of martial arts and of life and
of the culture that he had experienced...

in his short lifetime to the
audiences all over the world.

Lee does just this with his next
film, The Way of the Dragon...

which he also directs.

In the film's climactic battle,
Lee takes on one-time student...

Chuck Norris, in a fight
set in the Roman Coliseum.

Lee's character, using classical gung
fu techniques, is losing the fight...

until he begins to employ the formless
and adaptive approach of jeet kune do.

The Way of the Dragon also affords
Lee the opportunity to include...

deeper elements of his
personal philosophy of life.

After reluctantly taking the life
of his adversary in the film...

Lee's character pauses to make a
symbolic gesture of respect...

to a fellow human being.

It was yet another example of Bruce Lee
communicating to his audience a piece...

of his own personal philosophy regarding
the brotherhood of all races.

After the first two movies, then
Bruce progressed into making...

The Way of the Dragon, which
was his own creation.

Then The Game of
Death, of course...

and then Enter the Dragon came along.
And I think as you can see...

there's a progression in those films
where the fighting has even more...

justification and that there's more
material built around the fighting...

to explain, first of all,
the reason for it...

and to also find expression for the
philosophy underlying the martial arts.

Do I bother you?

Don't waste yourself.

What's your style?

My style?

You can call it the art of
fighting without fighting.

The art of fighting
without fighting?

Show me some of it.

Later.

All right.

Don't you think we
need more room?

Where else?

That island, on a beach.

We can take this boat.

Okay.

What the hell are you doing?

Hey, are you crazy?

After filming Enter
the Dragon...

Lee is now ready to complete the film
that will embody his greatest message...

a film Lee calls
The Game of Death.

I believe that this
background of research...

and the building of a philosophy
of jeet kune do is what Bruce...

intended to relate through
The Game of Death.

He had an idea of how he wanted
to show the martial arts...

to the viewing public, these various
steps in finding your own way...

in martial arts, the different
styles and what styles mean...

and more importantly,
what they don't mean.

That was Bruce's big message.

The style of no style, and The Game of
Death was going to be the platform...

for these expressions.

While we may never know how the film
would've turned out, had Bruce Lee lived...

we do know with unimpeachable
certainty, the vision that he had...

for the movie during the time
he was filming its finale.

According to Lee's 12-page storyline,
he would play a retired undefeated...

martial arts champion by the name of
Hie Tien, who had been approached...

by members of the Korean underworld
to take part in a daring raid...

on a five-story pagoda, said to
contain a valuable treasure...

on its uppermost level.

When he refuses to participate,
his sister and younger brother...

are kidnapped, leaving him no option
but to take part in the raid.

At a briefing at the boss's
home, Hie Tien is introduced...

to his accomplices in the raid, all of
them highly-trained martial artists.

The boss screens a reconnaissance
film of the temple area explaining...

to the accomplices that since guns
are prohibited in the village...

the pagoda is guarded by
martial arts mercenaries.

One on each level of the pagoda.

Their instructions are to fight their way
to the top of the pagoda and retrieve...

the treasure. Lee selected the
Buddhist temple of Pope Jusaw...

as the setting for the film.

The temple's most striking object,
the 33-meter-high Buddha statue...

is clearly indicated in
Lee's storyline sketches.

Cast in one mold with 150 tons of bronze,
it's said to be the largest such...

standing figure in all of Asia.

In front of the Buddha
is the five-story...

wooden pagoda that Bruce Lee
had chosen as the backdrop...

for the climactic
battles in the film.

Thus, the idea
started from there.

He took some of the ideas
he had been gathering...

about the levels of martial
arts combat in the pagoda...

and Kareem came out and I believe that
the first scenes that they shot...

were the fight scenes
between Bruce and Kareem.

The first day's rushes after we saw those,
we had to slow everything down because...

we were moving too fast. It looked
too jerky on film, and we had to...

slow it down so the film could follow,
so the camera could follow us...

and people could see things.

We were doing things
like we practiced it.

And in practice with Bruce, we'd do
several things in a split second.

The audience would miss the subtleties
of what he was trying to do...

if we didn't slow it down.

Of what were to be his
accomplices in the film...

Lee wanted one to be slightly devious
and antagonistic toward his character.

This would create an interesting dynamic
in the relationship between the two men...

not letting the audience know whether
or not Lee's partner was actually...

with him or against him.

For the role of the
antagonistic accomplice...

Lee chose James Tien, an actor who
had appeared with Lee in two...

of his previous three
films in Hong Kong.

The second accomplice was to be a strong
but simple-minded martial artist.

These would be character attributes that
would allow for a different type...

of dynamic to occur between the
accomplices as they fought their...

way up each level of the pagoda.

Lee ultimately settled on Hong
Kong stuntman, Chieh Yuan...

to play the role of
this accomplice.

It would be the first time
these two had worked together.

At the time of filming, the rest of
Lee's accomplices had not been decided.

Within the pagoda, Lee
and his accomplices...

would have to battle upwards past five
levels, each guarded by a martial artist...

of a particular style.

The first level was to be...

guarded by Whong In Sik, who
was to be portrayed as a...

master of a kicking style.

Whong had worked
with Lee before...

appearing as one of his opponents
in The Way of the Dragon.

Lee had chosen his real-life
senior-most student, Taky Kimura...

to play the guardian
of the second floor.

According to Kimura, Lee wanted him
to utilize praying mantis gung fu...

as well as some elements of wing chun,
both arts that emphasize infighting...

use of hands predominately, with
kicks limited to below the waist.

I think it was in October of '71-'72, in
that era. He called me and said he...

wanted me to be in that movie.

I said, "Look, Bruce, I've
got two left front feet."

"You know it and I know it."

"There's probably 1,000 people in
Hong Kong that can do it better."

"Just let me sit here and enjoy
the fruits of your success."

"You know me, I don't
need to be in that."

He said, "No, I want you in it."

"I'm the technical director
and the co-producer."

"Don't worry about it."

So, I reluctantly, for
fear that he'd...

kick my butt if I said no, at that point,
I said okay. He'd already sent me...

an airline ticket. And really, I
think at this point in his life...

I think he had transcended the gimmicks
that are usually in these movies.

And I think that he had gotten to that
plateau where you could just simply do...

the simple, you know,
normal things and yet...

create that excitement
within that simplicity.

Lee selected another of his
real-life students, Dan Inosanto...

to be guardian of
the third floor.

As he was not only adept in
Lee's art of jeet kune do...

but in addition, was also an advance
practitioner in the arts...

of kempo karate and
Filipino escrima.

Lee opted to have Inosanto
employ methods from both arts...

which he believed would add an
exciting visual element to the film...

and serve to break up the
unarmed combat sequences.

Inosanto was also a brilliant exponent
of the nunchaku, allowing Lee to film...

the first-ever nunchaku
battle between two opponents.

Grappling or joint-locking would also serve
to add a fresh, visual element to...

the fight sequences. For this reason, Lee
settled on Korean hapkido grand master...

Ji Han Jae, who at the time of filming was
a seventh-degree black belt in the art.

Ji would be the guardian of the
fourth level of the pagoda.

Andrews Air Force Base.

I did teaching time there.

The tae-kwan-do master,
Jhoon Rhee, held...

an international
karate championship.

I was there to do
a demonstration.

At that time Jhoon Rhee
introduced me to Bruce Lee.

I showed him, he looked at my
technique and he liked my technique.

That's why he came to the
Andrews Air Force Base.

He learned several techniques.

Then, he went back to Hong Kong.

He invited me.

Lee decided to have yet
another of his students...

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, play the role of the
guardian of the highest floor of the pagoda.

He fights with an unknown style, which
symbolized the highest level of martial art.

This unknown style was the
essence of jeet kune do.

I was at the top of the pagoda because, you
know, I was the most effective fighter.

And I didn't have any style.

And I was also in a
place where my...

strengths were...

enhanced by the environment.
So it was dark in there.

I was supposed to
be light-sensitive.

My eyes were light-sensitive,
and that was a problem for me.

But other than that, I was an
incredible human specimen, etcetera.

That was the whole
idea about it.

And he started knocking out the panes
in the walls, so more light came in.

I couldn't see. And that's when he
got his advantage in the fight.

The fact that Lee's character in The
Game of Death would be taking...

on advocates of different styles
on each level of the temple...

was significant in a larger context
than might be initially evident.

For Lee wasn't just
taking on the various...

exponents of particular styles, but
the very notion of styles itself.

I think it's evident in The Game of Death
how he planned to fight a person...

of a different style, a very precise
style, on each floor of the pagoda.

And show how he could fit in
with anybody else's style...

thus having no style of his own.

In the battle of the third floor,
Lee's character makes use of a...

green bamboo whip.

The whip represents flexibility,
an attribute which Lee felt...

a martial artist must possess if
he was to be successful in combat.

Since combat, like life, is not predictable,
Lee held that one must possess...

a pliable adaptability in
order to change with change.

Lee has his character...

dressed in a one-piece yellow track
suit to symbolize no affiliation...

with any known
martial arts style.

I think the wearing of
the yellow track suit...

was an expression of how he
felt about the martial arts...

that you didn't need a traditional uniform
in order to be an effective fighter.

That yellow track suit is
something that's comfortable...

it's flexible, you can
move without restriction.

So I think that was
why he chose that.

With his cast now
firmly in place...

Lee spends the next three months of his
life from August to October of 1972...

putting his martial
vision on celluloid.

Bruce was a perfectionist
on a film set.

He always choreographed all of
his own fights in detail...

writing them down, every movement, every
single movement, rehearsing them...

endlessly with the stuntmen.

And having many takes so that
it was always just perfect.

Bruce was very aware of how camera
angles worked in fight scenes.

I visited him on The Game of Death
set on more than one occasion.

The children, Brandon and Shannon, and I
were always welcome on the film sets.

We enjoyed going there because he
was having a lot of fun with it.

First of all, Kareem was his good
friend, as was Dan Inosanto...

and some of the other...

martial artists as well,
were his good friends.

He had worked with them
many times in the past.

As you know, Kareem
was his student...

Dan was his student and
assistant instructor...

and so he had a real
fun time working...

with these fellows and
constructing the fight scenes.

The results are three carefully
crafted and meaningful sequences...

that resonate on many
different levels...

as well as the most graceful
and dynamic presentation...

of the human form in hand-to-hand
combat ever captured on film.

What you're about to see has never
been seen before in its entirety.

It's the footage that Bruce Lee
shot for The Game of Death...

the takes he had indicated as
the ones to be selected...

for inclusion in the film and
the dialogue he had written.

The footage, like the
film, is incomplete.

Approximately two minutes of footage
that represented the beginning...

of the film's finale have been
lost to the ravages of time.

In that missing footage,
Lee's two allies...

James Tien and Chieh Yuan, come up the
stairs ahead of Lee and enter into...

the third level of the pagoda,
the Hall of the Tiger.

There they meet the escrima master,
whose habit is to beat out a teasing...

rhythm on his sticks prior
to killing his adversary.

Chieh Yuan sets out to attack the escrima
master with a large heavy club...

but is quickly disarmed.

The escrima master then
casts his sticks aside...

and battles Chieh Yuan, whom he
proceeds to render unconscious...

with a series of
strikes and kicks...

known in kempo karate circles
as the Dance of Death.

Now, it is James Tien's turn to
battle with the escrima master.

It is at this point that Bruce Lee's
final, never-before-seen footage...

for The Game of Death begins.

Do you speak any English?

Of course I speak English.

I hope you don't mind,
if we move our man...

so that the two of us will
have more room to groove.

But...

have your men stay as far away
from the stairway as possible.

You know, baby...

this bamboo is longer...

more flexible, and
very much alive.

And when your flashy routine cannot keep
up with the speed and elusiveness...

of this thing here...

all I can say is that you
will be in deep trouble.

That, we will have to find out.

I'm telling you, it's difficult
to have a rehearsed routine...

to fit in with...

broken rhythm.

You see...

rehearsed routines lack
the flexibility to adapt.

Surprised?

How do you like that?

How do you like that?

As you gentlemen know,
red means danger.

Therefore, I advise to you people not
to step into this warning arena.

If you want to go on
living, stop here.

Go back downstairs.
Life is precious.

Little fellow, you must have
given up the hope of living.

On the contrary, I do not let
the word "death" bother me.

Same here, baby.

Then what are you waiting for?

This tough son-of-a-gun
is wearing me out.

Why continue? Just let me pass.

You have forgotten
that I, too...

am not afraid of death.

I've been categorized as
the keeper of the grave...

up in Seattle and I try to make it there
at least once a month oftentimes during...

the month I go up there
four or five times...

depending on who comes in from you
know, other parts of the world...

or something like that.

I find that there are
many people that come...

they're not even martial artists,
you would normally expect...

that the people who go there
are in martial arts...

and they want to try to have some
of that ability rub off on them.

I go up there and I make it a point to
talk to people when I see them up there.

And oftentimes they tell me, "I'm
not even into martial arts."

"But I just came to try to have
some of that inspiration of his..."

"come into my life,
because obviously..."

"I'm in a place where
I need something."

And personally,
because of Bruce...

I've been able to help several young
people to find themselves, to get out...

of the drug scene and things like that.
And I don't take credit for that.

It's Bruce.

I mean I get letters now, 27
years after he's been gone...

from people who weren't even
born when he was alive.

They're telling me how he
has motivated them to be...

a better person, to be...

to achieve their goals, to be
in better physical condition...

to live their own life from their
own heart, rather than just...

following or emulating
somebody else.

It really does my heart good, and I
think that Bruce would be smiling...

down to know that his work and his
art have continued to benefit...

people all over the world.

There are lines that
express your philosophy.

- I don't know if you remember them...
- I remember them.

- Let's hear it.
- I said...

this is what it is, okay?

I said, "Empty your mind."

"Be formless.

"Shapeless, like water.

"Now, you put water into a
cup, it becomes the cup.

"You put water into a bottle,
it becomes the bottle."

"You put it in a teapot,
it becomes the teapot."

"Now, water can flow
or it can crash."

"Be water, my friend."

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