◎YanQiao
As a Bruce Lee enthusiast, I was surprised to see this biography, why did Matthew Polly spend seven years writing a 700,000-word biography of Bruce Lee? His "Shaolin Is Busy", as many readers know, is to use an "experiential" style to write kung fu notes. An American, entering the system of the Shaolin Temple, has a strange and fresh eye, looking at everything, which is nothing more than a "foreign perspective", which is not a study. And this Bruce Lee biography, the volume is huge, the single data collation is 2500 pages, more than 1 million words, the author also personally interviewed more than 100 people who know Bruce Lee and are willing to talk to the "parties", after a lot of desk preparation, the author uses the most detailed notes, letters, interviews, oral descriptions and related works in the English world to "collage" a real Bruce Lee.
Circling and balancing in the cracks
What Bruce Lee lacks most in the field of research is a serious biography similar to "Jobs", which is also the meaning of this book. With the spread of Ip Man and Bruce Lee-related film and television dramas, and the re-ignition of the subculture fever about Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee's "human design" described in the media is a myth that mixes nationalism and physical power, and the invincible "Oriental Superstar" who kicks the "Sick Man of East Asia" plaque, naked his upper body, and makes strange bird calls, has long occupied our brains. So much so that the preconceived impression was that Bruce Lee made Westerners re-recognize the East, that kung fu was part of national self-confidence, and that the East defeated the West, which was a stereotypical myth. This "pure nationalism" packaging did not truly reflect the plight of Asian actors at that time.
Bruce Lee has been convincing him to work on his martial arts films since becoming a personal trainer for American movie star Steve McQueen, which was the only way Asian faces could get investment at the time. McQueen has been dodging, in his conception, Bruce Lee is just a coach with a high fee, and after pressing, he shows Bruce Lee, "Face it... I'm not going to let you step on me."
On January 7, 1969, Lee wrote "My Clear Goal" on a note, "I, Bruce Lee, will become the highest-paid Oriental superstar in the United States." In return, I will offer the most exciting performances and the best performances as an actor. Starting in 1970, I will be world-renowned, and by the end of 1980, I will have ten million dollars. I can live as I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness."
Apparently, this was written with humiliation after Steve McQueen refused, Western producers did not look at this Oriental face with an English accent, and their careers stagnated, while the Hong Kong film industry, at key points, gave Bruce Lee a buffer zone, like an enclave.
The Hong Kong media once used a word to refer to Bruce Lee as "the ultimate Pacific middleman" (a joke on westernized Chinese), which is very graphic. Middleman, too, means a strategy. Before the box office of "Big Brother Tangshan" came out, Li was not in a hurry to sign an agreement with Warner, "if the box office is a big seller, he can use it to increase the bargaining chip." Li is cooperating with Zou Wenhuai, pretending to contact Shaw, and at the same time releasing the news that Shaw wants to pay a high salary to recruit people, so as to increase the sense of crisis of the collaborators and obtain the biggest chips. Lee once told a Hong Kong reporter, "When Paramount telegraphed and called Hong Kong to find me, my Hong Kong producer thought I was a very important star, and my reputation must have tripled." "The middleman is a strategy, this kind of role, both vertical and horizontal, in the East (Hong Kong) and the West (Hollywood) more than enough, Li You is good at this kind of road, using the Hong Kong box office to add value, kill back to Hollywood, regain favor."
In the past, biographies always announced the "victory of the East" too quickly, ignoring the circumlocution and balance in the cracks, ignoring the dilemma of Asian identity and career breakthrough. The idea of this biography is reductionist, only to put people into the production mechanism of the entertainment market, in the gap between East and West, how to make both parties need, like a ferryman. Kato in "The Green Hornet", according to kaichu's setting, is an oriental face who knows karate, however, he is only "the protagonist's employer", in a sense, Bruce Lee plays only "the East imagined by Westerners". He catered to an opportunity and created a whole new kind of action imagery.
The intruder's action aesthetic
In the video tape era, I repeatedly watched Bruce Lee's action movies in slow motion, and I couldn't help but have a question: why Lee's martial arts actions were completely different from the "martial arts films" represented by the popular Dragon and Tiger Martial Artists in Hong Kong at that time, and even different from the "opponents" in the same film, like two sets of action systems pieced together, like two worlds. Bruce Lee's movements are more fluid and rapid, close to the real fight, and use a lot of high kicks, serial kicks, high kicks in the air, etc., and the opponents are exaggerated and the gymnastics routines are general. Bruce Lee was quite dismissive of the traditional Cantonese opera fights in Hong Kong at that time, "Everyone is constantly fighting... Why are their fighting styles exactly the same", he asked to be close to the "real fight", fist to flesh, which clashed with the action director on the set, in "Big Brother Tangshan", the action director Han Yingjie hoped to use Cantonese opera stage action, jumping trampoline and traditional tricks to fight, and Bruce Lee "punched and kicked too hard... My face was bruised by a kick from him."
Lee is an interloper in the outside world, to redefine the rules, he not only wants to become an "actor", he sees himself as a producer, which in turn has an irreconcilable contradiction with the controller director Luo Wei, the kind of Hong Kong-style loose director's management of the crew, bruce Lee is considered not professional enough, the two concepts and even the value are incompatible, and there is even an unpleasant incident of almost "moving the knife" in the later stage. Excluding personal grudges, more essentially, this conflict is inevitable, Lee wants to regain "image control", he hopes to have a voice in the screenplay, cinematography, director, set and even all the details, so that he can make what he wants.
In order to gain control, he put pressure on the superior, asked to change the director or simply be the director himself, let the action director not interfere much, in order to achieve the action, had to mingle with the low-level dragon and tiger martial artists, "he will have lunch with them, use yellow jokes to close the relationship, refuse to enjoy special treatment", take the mass line, and win people's hearts. In fact, without this triumph of "set politics", we would see Bruce Lee action movies today, far from being so personal, and he gradually realized the ideal martial arts movie in his brain.
Even today, many of Bruce Lee's film concepts are ahead of its time, and they can't even be simply classified as "martial arts films." In the popular "revenge mode" movies of that era, violence can solve all problems, and after the enemy is destroyed by the body, the contradiction is dissolved, and the violence is instinctive, even inward-looking. And Lee conceived the "Silent Flute", the protagonist set out to find the martial arts Bible, must pass three tests, symbolize the self, love and death, his guide is a blind man, named Assam (symbolizing the subconscious of the self), in the ending, although the protagonist found the secret book, in Bruce Lee's revised version, he looked through the secret book, "Slowly, the protagonist picked up the secret book, page by page, the top blank. At this time, he turned to the last page, which had a mirror embedded in it, and he saw himself in the mirror", which is very much like the Zen "brick mirror", the story points to "nothingness", violence and even obstacles on the road to self-knowledge, the silent flute, how to listen, it's all up to you.
This kind of drama, due to lack of market and excessive brain-burning, producers are often uncertain and not optimistic. But aesthetically, they are often transcendent and other,far from that era. The Bruce Lee we see advocating force, blood marks, and muscles is only a superficial part, and the public is more willing to understand a kind of "carving", symbolizing or deifying Bruce Lee, which is flatter and easier to spread.
Died of heat stroke? There is a new solution to the mystery of sudden death
There are various theories about the mystery of Bruce Lee's sudden death. The author of this book proposes a rather novel "explanation": death from heat stroke.
Since the immediate cause of death from Bruce Lee's autopsy was "cerebral edema," Hong Kong neurosurgeons blamed Bruce Lee's fainting on marijuana, but there was no strong evidence of a correlation between marijuana and death. In addition, Bruce Lee had two expensive life insurance before his death, and smoking marijuana may be a condition for deductibles, so in the trial records, the parties try to avoid confirming "smoking marijuana", which has led to more groundless speculation in the media, and the "cause of death" is related to multiple interests and games.
The authors of this book propose a new inference, "Heat stroke is the common cause of sudden fainting, seizures, and even death in young, healthy men." Among young athletes and soldiers, the probability of death from heat stroke is 3 to 5 percent, and it ranks third among the most common lethal diseases in athletes and rises to the first place in the hottest months of summer."
Bruce Lee's physical performance before his death, "difficult to breathe, trembling, and soaking with sweat all over his body", was in line with the symptoms of heat stroke, "When filming "Dragon Fight", he was overly stressed and physically and mentally exhausted. In the past two months, he has lost 18 pounds of weight and his body fat has fallen to a minimum. A month before he fainted, he had just had surgery to remove his underarm sweat glands,...... Without these sweat glands, his body's ability to dissipate heat would be diminished." The author believes that at that time, the medical conditions were limited, and the doctor's understanding of heat stroke was much more limited than it is now, so it was mistaken for a high fever, and finally delayed treatment. Since medical records no longer exist, we have no way to delve deeper.
In short, this Bruce Lee biography did not make arbitrary decisions out of thin air, nor did it continue to "create gods", it used various historical materials to support and try to bring us a "real version of Bruce Lee". We should not dwell on the aura of idols or symbols and ignore the real and concrete, bruce Lee who has flesh and blood, character and weakness.