The 50th anniversary of Bruce Lee’s death on Thursday drew fans to exhibitions in Hong Kong on his life and career. They also laid flowers at his statue at the Avenue of Stars, a tourist attraction modeled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on the Kowloon shore of Victoria Harbor.
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Hong Kong businessman W. Wong still remembers the day in 1972 when he first heard neighbourhood kids rave about a figure who seemed larger than life: Bruce Lee. “Every child needs some kind of role model, and I chose Bruce Lee,” said Wong, 54, who has led the city’s largest fan club devoted to the star for nearly three decades, the Bruce Lee Club.
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In Hong Kong, at a studio for Wing Chun — a style of martial arts Lee practised before inventing his own Jeet Kune Do method — the martial arts master is revered as something akin to a patron saint.
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Studio owner Cheng Chi-ping, 69, told AFP his cohort began their training under the shadow of Lee’s cultural influence but “we could never match his speed, strength or physique”.
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Born in San Francisco in 1940, Lee was raised in Hong Kong and had an early brush with fame as a child actor, supported by his father, who was a famous Cantonese opera singer.
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At 18, Lee continued his studies in the United States and over the next decade taught martial arts and scored minor parts in Hollywood, before landing the role of Kato in the television series “The Green Hornet”.
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But it was not until Lee returned to Hong Kong that he landed his first lead role in the martial arts film 'The Big Boss', which made him a household name in Asia after its 1971 release.
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The next year saw two more box office hits - 'Fist of Fury' and 'The Way of the Dragon' - cementing Lee’s persona as a relentless, lightning-fast fighter.
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Lee had completed filming his fourth star vehicle, 'Enter the Dragon', and was halfway through his fifth when he died on July 20, 1973 from swelling of the brain, attributed to an adverse reaction to painkillers.
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In Hollywood, Lee represented a rebuke to racist stereotypes, showing that Asian men were more than just servants and villains.
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Despite Lee’s enduring fame, preserving his legacy in Hong Kong was no easy task, fan club chairman Wong told AFP. Government support was intermittent at best, he said. Fans in 2004 successfully petitioned to set up a bronze statue of Lee on Hong Kong’s famed waterfront, but a campaign to revitalise his former mansion could not save it from demolition in 2019.
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