Who is stronger - Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan? Bruce Lee – Biography and Life About Bruce Lee Facts

U Faktrum there are as many as two dozen facts proving that Bruce Lee was not an ordinary person, but had truly phenomenal abilities!

Bruce Lee is a martial artist, instructor, philosopher, director and founder of Jeet Kune Do.

1. Slow motion

Bruce Lee mastered his movements so fast that he could catch a grain of rice in the air using only chopsticks. He was so fast that the filming of his films was deliberately slowed down so that viewers could see his movements.

2. Coin trick

Bruce Lee could grab a coin lying in a person's open palm and replace it with another coin before the person noticed his movements and clenched his hand into a fist. He never stopped experimenting with his workouts to achieve better results.

3. "Game of Death"

Bruce Lee played the main role in the film "Game of Death" after... his death. The film contains footage taken at his funeral, with Bruce in the coffin. Since the actor died before filming was completed, some scenes were done using editing and doubles.

4. Don't make me angry

Bruce Lee hit his partner so hard that he broke his arm, which he used to defend himself from the blow. This happened when Lee cut his hand with a bottle due to a mistake made by Bob Wall. So he hit him with his other hand in the next scene and misjudged the force a little. In fact, Wall expected the blow, but did not think it would be so strong.

5. 11 seconds

In 1962, Bruce Lee managed to throw 15 punches and knock out his opponent in a fight that lasted 11 seconds. Also, Bruce Lee fans are still trying to imitate his famous one-inch punch.

6. 50 one-arm push-ups

Bruce Lee could do 50 push-ups on one arm, pressing only his thumb and forefinger into the floor. He could also do 50 pull-ups on two fingers of one hand. Many of today's athletes are trying to master Lee's push-up technique.

7. Hong Kong Champion

Bruce Lee became the Hong Kong cha-cha dance champion in 1958. The legendary Bruce was only 18 years old.

8. Spinal injury

Bruce Lee managed to overcome a serious spinal injury. As a result of unsuccessful training, his fourth vertebra was damaged. This meant the end of a career for any athlete, and doctors also said that Bruce would have to learn to walk again within six months and avoid exercise for the rest of his life. But Lee proved the doctors wrong in their verdict. He developed his own therapy and soon left the hospital to become even stronger and faster than before.

9. Took Jackie Chan

He once accidentally beat up Jackie Chan. In Enter the Dragon, Jackie was hit in the face with a staff by Bruce, but played it off as a joke and simply enjoyed the opportunity to meet and hug his idol.

10. Coca-Cola Can

Lee could put his finger through a closed Coca-Cola can. Moreover, at that time, banks were made from much thicker tin.

11. Breaking boards is boring

But he stated that “beating boards is boring because they don’t resist” and preferred sparring with people.

12. Broken pear

While training with Coburn, Bruce Lee broke a 68 kg punching bag. James Coburn was one of the screen stars whom Lee taught martial arts.

13. Bruce is stronger than Chuck

Chuck doesn't like to talk about it, but he once admitted that his friend Bruce Lee could easily defeat him in a fight.

14. Idol idols

Bruce Lee was a fan of the Great Gum, the only undefeated wrestler in the world. The Great Gam's career lasted for 50 years.

15. Bruce the peacemaker

In Bosnian Mostar, a statue of Bruce Lee was erected because he was liked by all ethnic groups living in this city. The statue was later destroyed by vandals.

16. Lee studied boxing techniques

Bruce Lee was a big fan of Muhammad Ali and constantly watched tapes of his fights. Lee studied the boxer's movements in great detail.

17.Equagesic

Bruce Lee died from an allergic reaction to a painkiller. He died at the age of 32 from an allergic reaction to the drug Equagesic.

18. 0.05 seconds

Bruce Lee's speed was officially recorded: reaction and impact from a distance of 1 meter took about five hundredths of a second (0.05 seconds). There is a fight scene where he takes down 50 opponents in a few seconds.

19. A quarter German

His mother Grace Ho was half German and Catholic.

20. Yip Man and Bruce

Yip Man, the man who taught Bruce Lee martial arts, opened his own school to make money from opium. Bruce Lee promised his teacher that he would reserve kung fu techniques only for the Chinese and would never show them to foreigners, but he did not keep his promise.

Without a doubt, Bruce Lee was and is a true legend of cinema and martial arts. Many articles and even books have been written about his personality, willpower and extraordinary abilities. Bruce Lee is the superman of his time, who tirelessly overcame all obstacles on the path to success. Thanks to his tenacity, he was able to not only master kung fu, but also become the world's first international Chinese superstar, breaking barriers of race and nationality. Below are a few facts from the biography of this amazing man that may surprise you.

10 PHOTOS

1. He left the United States, among other things, to avoid trouble with the law.

Bruce Lee grew up on the streets of Hong Kong in the 1950s and as a child was part of a gang called the Junction Street Tigers. He once even beat up the son of a prominent Triad member. Eventually his parents decided it would be best for him to leave the country and sent him to the United States.

In 1964, Bruce began teaching martial arts in California. While other teachers taught kung fu only to the Chinese, he believed that knowledge should be shared with everyone, regardless of race. As a result, one of the members of the Chinese community, Wong Jack Man, challenged Bruce Lee. The terms of the fight stated: if Bruce Lee loses, he will forever be prohibited from teaching kung fu to non-Chinese people. Of course, he won and continued to teach his martial art to everyone he accepted as students.

Bruce Lee's training was difficult and dangerous, even when done with all the precautions. But one day, without warming up, he performed an exercise with a barbell weighing 45 kg and suffered serious damage to the spinal nerve. Despite the doctors' predictions, Bruce Lee fully recovered from the injury and managed to become even faster and stronger than before.

Among Bruce Lee's students were such famous people as Steve McQueen, Joe Lewis, Chuck Norris, James Coburn and others. Despite the fact that Bruce Lee tried to get rid of celebrities by repeatedly raising the price of lessons, the flow of applicants did not dry out. He once even flew to Switzerland to give private lessons to Roman Polanski.

Cameramen repeatedly asked Bruce Lee to throw punches more slowly so that the cameras could capture his movements.

Bruce Lee's grandfather was half German.

Bruce Lee came up with this trick: someone holds a coin in their open palm and quickly makes a fist. In these fractions of a second, Bruce Lee managed to replace the coin with another.

During the filming of Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee accidentally broke the arm of actor Bob Wahl. Bruce Lee's training included push-ups, in which he pressed only his thumbs and index fingers into the floor.

He demonstrated this technique perfectly at the 1964 championships in Long Beach, when he knocked down his sparring partner by moving his fist only 2.54 cm.

On July 20, 1973, the news of the death of Bruce Lee, the highest level of kung fu master and film actor, hit Hong Kong and then the whole world. This was a man who became the idol of millions of people, who mastered the art of martial arts and glorified it. Cinema has never known before and still does not know of an artist who would so combine such filigree skill with the ability to artistically perform roles as Bruce Lee. The date of his death became a dark day not only for fans of Hong Kong action films, but also for connoisseurs of silver screen art around the world. Simultaneously with this grief, she gave rise to numerous attempts to unravel the mystery of the master’s sudden death, sometimes sincere, and sometimes selfish.

Finding Mastery

To understand how Bruce Lee died, it is important to know how he lived.

In 1940, Chinese opera actor Lee Hui Chung and his wife Grace Lee rejoiced; they had found an heir. The boy was named Little, this name sounded like Li Xiao Lun, but there were two more options: Li Zhengfan and Bruce Lee. The mother was not a purebred Chinese; she also had German blood in her veins. The future king of kung fu was born in the USA, in San Francisco, where the theater was touring.

During the period of the future actor’s coming of age, Hong Kong was a multinational “anthill”, an English colony in which all races and peoples mixed, and a refuge for adventurers from all over the world. The criminal situation in the metropolis corresponded to its reputation. Numerous youth gangs divided spheres of influence among themselves, usually sorting things out hand-to-hand. “Little Dragon” was also a member of one of the triads.

Yip Man Lee, a martial artist, became Bruce's first teacher. The young man trained so hard that he soon became a prominent star on the criminal horizon of the Wanchai region, and the godfathers of the Hong Kong mafia began to take notice of him. To protect their son from their influence, his parents sent him to study technical sciences and philosophy in the USA, believing that it would be better this way. However, there were also Chinese, American, of course, from whom the young man, who was interested in the ancient art of combat, had a lot to learn. A variety of styles even then became Lee's calling card.

Version one - overwork

The return to his homeland, the beginning of his cinematic career and its success are described in many articles, books and are reflected in biographical films. All these numerous sources do not give a clear answer to the question of what Bruce Lee died from, but one of the options suggests itself. The master was doing what he loved so actively that it could cause extreme fatigue, which caused a tumor and failure of the vital functions of the brain. Perhaps this explanation may seem vulgar to medical professionals, but this is precisely the version voiced by his mother-in-law after learning about the tragedy. She knew about the regime of merciless training to which her son-in-law doomed himself in his quest to improve his skills. Sometimes he got up in the middle of the night and went to the gym to practice techniques that he thought he didn’t master well enough. This went on for many years.

This may also explain how old Bruce Lee died. After all, he was only 32 years old.

Second version - revenge of dragons

In China and the East in general, much more attention is paid to “signs of fate” than in Western countries. A person’s fate, according to gray-haired sages, can be influenced by a variety of circumstances, which, in our opinion, are of little significance. For example, an expensive mansion in the Kowloon district, bought by the actor for himself and his wife, was located extremely poorly from the point of view of the impact on health and well-being. In the lowest part of Hong Kong Island, there are believed to be nine dragons, who could be jealous of such a persistent desire for self-improvement. What Bruce Lee died from may well be the embodiment of the evil will of the immaterial mysterious spirits living in this “lake”, and they warned the actor in advance about the possible consequences, driving him into ten days before his death. This version is also supported by persistent rumors that the financial affairs of the world-favorite artist were not going well.

Hypothesis three - excessive love

Fans and simply caring people, in addition to the question of why Bruce Lee died, were also excited by the fact that the tragedy occurred not in his home, but in a completely different place. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that actress Betty Ting, while visiting whom he suddenly fell ill, initially denied her involvement in the events and even her very presence near the actor. Of course, the truth was soon revealed, and almost everyone began to express assumptions about the love affair of the filming partners. As the scandal intensified, the names of other women with whom Bruce had relationships, perhaps going beyond simple friendship, surfaced. The press played a major role in the spread of these rumors, trying, and not without success, to make money on sensational materials. No one was interested in how true this information was.

Drugs

During the autopsy of the body, doctors found substances in the actor’s stomach that were formed when consuming intoxicants, presumably based on marijuana. Immediately a version appeared in the press that drugs were what killed Bruce Lee. There was little basis for this hypothesis; the actor did not drink alcohol, did not smoke and led a very healthy lifestyle. In addition, the concentration of these chemical compounds indicated that they could be about as harmful as a couple of cups of coffee. Nevertheless, sensationalist reporters immediately rushed to claim that the kung fu master turned out to be a drug addict. Some people still believe this.

Headache pill

While visiting Betty Ting, the actor suddenly felt a severe headache. He himself did not attach any importance to this, not to mention the hostess, who offered him a pill prescribed to her for migraine attacks. The medicine was called “Equagesic”, and it was a composition of aspirin and meprobanate, a weak narcotic substance, which is the reason for the fact that it is released only with a doctor’s prescription. In itself, it was unlikely to pose a danger, but in combination with other factors, as it turned out later, it could cause People who knew the actor from his films to be perplexed: “Is a tiny pill really what killed Bruce Lee?” And they didn’t want to believe that a master who didn’t care about anything could be crushed by such a trifle...

At present, this version seems to be the most likely.

Bottom line

Crowds of people accompanied the funeral procession. The fact that the cause of Bruce Lee's death was not officially announced at that time gave rise to many the most fantastic speculations. There were rumors that the actor suffered a delayed blow, that he was poisoned with a secret potion that could not be identified at autopsy, that he was tormented by the overly temperamental Betty Ting with her exceptional love of love, and many other most unimaginable hypotheses. People did not want to believe in the ordinary circumstances of the death of an extraordinary person.

The actor found his final resting place on American soil. During the flight, the expensive coffin was so damaged that it had to be replaced. The Chinese believed that this was a bad omen, and the actor’s spirit would wander and not rest for a long time. Well, they turned out to be right...

No death in the world has generated so much speculation and rumors as the death of Bruce Lee, which happened 40 years ago, on July 20, 1973. And we will never know the whole truth about the reasons for the death of a man whose cult exists all over the world even now.

« If I die tomorrow, it won't hurt me. I did everything I set out to do. You can't expect more from life than this». Bruce Lee.

This name may not mean anything to those who have not seen VCRs, but believe me, it once thundered even among those who are very far from martial arts.

In July 1973, Bruce Lee was in Hong Kong, where he was working on the film Game of Death. On the evening of July 20, he met Taiwanese actress Betty Ting Pei in the apartment, whom he was going to offer a role in his film. At 7:30 p.m., Bruce complained of a headache, Betty gave him one of her Equagesic tablets (a home remedy for headaches), and Lee lay down for a short nap on her bed. And at 23:00, shocking news was announced to the press - the famous film actor and director, popularizer and reformer of Chinese martial arts, the most trained person in the world, Bruce Lee, died suddenly at the age of 32.

The official version was that while walking with his wife Linda in the garden near his home, Bruce Lee suddenly lost consciousness and was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, already dead. There, doctors stated that death was due to cerebral edema, but they could not determine what caused this edema.

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Hong Kong's farewell to Bruce Lee turned into pan-Asian mourning - on July 25, more than 25 thousand people took part in it. After which Bruce Lee's body was transported to Seattle, where he was buried six days later. About 150 relatives and friends of Bruce Lee, and about a hundred strangers attended the modest funeral ceremony at Lake View Cemetery.
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But before the plane carrying the coffin left Hong Kong airport, Bruce Lee's wife, Linda Lee, was forced to make the following statement: “ Although the investigation into my husband's death is still ongoing, I ask the press and Hong Kong people to stop speculating on the matter. I have no doubt that Bruce died of natural causes and I do not blame myself or anyone else for it.».
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The fact is that in Hong Kong at that time there were 101 daily newspapers in Chinese and four newspapers in English, and they were all fighting among themselves to attract readers. Here are the main versions of Bruce Lee that were first published in these newspapers and then distributed throughout the world:

Bruce Lee took various drugs, from such mild ones as marijuana to such strong ones as LSD, from which he died in his mistress’s apartment during sexual intercourse;

Bruce Lee was poisoned by competitors from the film industry with an unknown poison. His films took a lot of profits away from established film companies, and small film studios were generally forced out of the market. And on their order, Bruce Lee was beaten to death by 15 people on the street;

Bruce Lee was killed by a friend jealous of fame;

Bruce Lee spent his entire life paying tribute to the Chinese mafia "Triad", which gave money for his first films. When he refused to pay, Triad found a way to deal with him;
- Bruce Lee revealed the secrets of the sacred Chinese martial art of kung fu to Europeans who were not supposed to know it. For this, the Shaolin monks sentenced him to death.
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But the main version was that either by order of the Triad, or by order of the Shaolin monks, or on his own initiative, Bruce Lee was killed by a martial artist who mastered the “delayed death” technique. After its use, a person can die several months or even years from the moment of impact.

Like, two months before his death, Bruce Lee practiced one punch on the set, which he just couldn’t do. A stranger suddenly stepped out of the crowd and offered his own version of this technique. After his blow, Bruce lost consciousness for a moment, and when he came to his senses, there was no trace of the stranger.
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But most likely a completely different version is true, a more prosaic one - the death of Bruce Lee was caused by a combination of a number of reasons.

An autopsy showed that on his last evening in actress Betty's apartment, Bruce smoked marijuana, but it was not the only cause of death - Linda admitted in court that Lee had often used it before that. And experts said that the small dose that was discovered during the autopsy could not have caused Lee’s death.

On May 10, 1973, Bruce Lee suffered a seizure with convulsions and complete loss of consciousness. Doctors concluded that for unknown reasons, Lee had suffered a “seizure,” a common type of epilepsy. They prescribed Lee the drug Dilantin, usually prescribed for epileptics.
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And according to people who knew him, although Bruce did not drink or smoke, he liked the relaxing effects of hashish. And if there is always a sticker with the name of the manufacturer on a bottle of alcohol and a pack of cigarettes, then it is impossible to determine the source and quality of hashish. And what kind of hashish interacted with Dilantin in Bruce Lee’s body on the eve of his death, and what kind of reaction resulted from this to the mixture of marijuana with Equagesic - we will never know.

In any case, Linda will never talk about it, for sure. The fact is that the insurance contract concluded by Bruce Lee on January 19, 1973. (according to press estimates, its amount ranged from $500 thousand to $2 million), included a clause exempting the company from insurance payments if death due to drug use was proven.
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So most likely no one killed Bruce Lee - he killed himself.

Childhood and adolescence

The newborn baby was given several names at once. According to the Chinese calendar, he was named Li Xiao Long (“Little Dragon”), on the birth certificate issued at the clinic, the child was listed as Bruce Lee (as the midwife called him), and the mother christened the baby Li Zhen Fan, which translated from Chinese meant "Go back." Grace really wanted her son to return to America when he grew up.

Returning with the baby to their native Hong Kong, where their adopted daughter Phoebe and eldest son Peter were waiting for them, the parents pretended that they had a girl named Li Yun Fan (“Baby Phoenix”). In this way they tried to deceive the “evil spirits” who, in their opinion, took away their first son, who died in infancy. At first they even dressed Bruce in girl’s clothes and put an earring in his ear so that no one would have any doubts. It’s interesting that he also appeared on screen for the first time as a girl, playing the three-month-old daughter of the main character in the drama “Golden Gate Girl.”

When Bruce grew up, his parents sent him to a Jesuit school, from which he was soon expelled for poor performance and disgusting behavior. The boy studied extremely poorly, especially hated mathematics and grammar, and his favorite pastime was bullying his classmates. Because of this, he often came home with bruises and bumps, which incredibly upset his parents.

Lee Hoi Chen tried in every possible way to guide his son on the right path and took him with him to the theater and filming. Thanks to this, Bruce got into films early and already at the age of six he played a little thief in the film “The Birth of Humanity.” The father dreamed of his son becoming an artist, and understood that, despite his thin physique, disproportionately long arms and slightly twisted left leg, the boy had natural plasticity and an innate sense of rhythm. So he took him to dances, which Bruce unexpectedly liked.

At the age of thirteen, the young man first crossed the threshold of a dance class, and four years later he won the Hong Kong cha-cha championship. But, despite his new hobby, the restless teenager did not stop getting involved in street fights, and after one of them, which ended not in his favor, he decided to take up martial arts professionally.

He settled on the Wing Chun style (short-range combat without the use of weapons) and came to the best master of this fighting technique, former policeman Ip Men, who opened his own school in Hong Kong. The teacher immediately appreciated the teenager’s flexibility and coordination, as well as the speed and dexterity of his movements. Bruce showed unprecedented success, but street fights still attracted him. One day, the young man clashed with members of a well-known Hong Kong criminal gang and gave two of them a decent beating. It is not customary for people from the criminal world to forgive offenders, so Bruce was in mortal danger. The frightened mother immediately packed her son’s things, bought a ticket and sent him to the States, fortunately Bruce, who was born in the USA, had American citizenship.

So in 1959, the young man found himself in America again: first in San Francisco, then moved to Seattle, where he stayed with friends and got a job in their restaurant. A year later he entered Edison Technical School, where he caught up on gaps in grammar and science, and then became a student at the University of Washington.

Sports career

In 1961, Lee opened his own martial arts school, where he began teaching Jeet Kune Do, his own style of kung fu, developed through regular grueling training. Anyone could study there, and not just Asians, as was previously customary, which fundamentally distinguished this institution from many others like it.

Lost Bruce Lee Interview

The classes weren't cheap (almost $300 an hour), but they were worth the money. Bruce improved his original technique until his death and developed a special nutrition system for students. He was constantly in impeccable shape and subjected himself to extreme loads that his comrades never dreamed of.

Film career

During his short life, the actor managed to star in 36 films, many of which became cinema classics.

Despite the fact that numerous episodic works in childhood and adolescence did not bring him widespread popularity, Bruce gained invaluable experience, which was useful to him in the future. Having moved to the USA, the young man continued to act in TV series, but never received any serious roles.

Having learned that a new film studio, Golden Harvest, had opened in Hong Kong, he decided to return to his homeland, and in 1971 he left America. Bruce managed to persuade the studio director not only to entrust him with the main role in the film “Big Boss” (1971), but also to allow him to stage all the action scenes. The success of the film exceeded all expectations, and Lee received a unique opportunity not only to demonstrate his acting and sports skills, but also to directly participate in the creation of the following films.

Trailer for the film starring Bruce Lee "Fist of Fury"

In 1972, Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon were released, which became real bestsellers and made Bruce a star. The premiere of Enter the Dragon (1973), which took place a week after Lee's unexpected death, was a resounding success. This film became a worthy requiem for the great actor and athlete, and the final fight with Chuck Norris is considered the best in the history of world cinema.

Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris (excerpt from Enter the Dragon)

The last film to be released with the participation of Bruce Lee was the action movie “Game of Death” (1978), which had to be completed without him, resorting to the help of a stunt double. The film includes documentary footage from the actor’s funeral.

In 1993, his name star was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Personal life of Bruce Lee

A year later, the couple had baby Brandon, and in 1969 baby Shannon was born. Brandon, like his father, became an actor and, by a tragic accident, passed away before he even reached the age of thirty. The young man died on the set of the film “The Raven” from a pistol shot, which, due to the negligence of the pyrotechnician, turned out to be loaded with a live cartridge. Shannon also became an actress, and now, together with her mother, heads the Foundation of her legendary father.

Death

Footage from Bruce Lee's funeral

According to official information, the actor died on July 20, 1973 from cerebral edema caused by an allergic reaction to a headache drug. However, there is a version that the mafiosi finally got to Bruce and sent him a killer who mastered the “delayed death” technique. The actor was buried in Seattle, and to this day martial artists from all over the world come to worship his grave.