HONG KONG LETTER:IT HAS taken a long time, but Hong Kong is finally getting ready to honour a debt that it owes to its most famous native son, Bruce Lee, the man whose furious fists of fury and way of the dragon put the territory's film business on the map, writes CLIFFORD COONAN
Lee’s last home in Hong Kong was at 41 Cumberland Road in the Kowloon Tong part of the territory, and is currently a love motel, where couples can rent by the hour in discreet surroundings.
Not the most salubrious way to remember the man who single- handedly developed the martial arts movie business.
Lee died 36 years ago this week, but for years his contribution has been unmarked by an official monument in his home town. His fans have demonstrated in front of the statue of Lee on the harbour front in Tsim Sha Tsui and accuse the city of not paying proper homage to him.
Now Hong Kong authorities hope to mark his heroic contribution to Hong Kong’s heritage with the construction of a museum in his former house.
This week they launched a design competition to build a Hong Kong museum fitting for the kung fu master.
“I hope I can personally witness and oversee the completion of the Bruce Lee museum in my lifetime,” said the house’s owner, Yu Panglin, who is in his 80s.
Yu is a billionaire philanthropist who owns properties all over Hong Kong. He originally planned to sell a portfolio of properties to raise funds for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake; one of the buildings set to go under the hammer was the HK$100 million (€9 million) love motel.
Uproar ensued, with the fans fearful the house could be knocked down or, God forbid, taken over by Japanese karate experts. Yu handed it over to the fans, via a local town planning board, ultimately resulting in this week’s design competition.
The museum is expected to include a kung fu studio, a film archive and a library, as well as a memorial hall. Lee’s daughter, Shannon, and a panel of architects and town planners will judge the design competition and the winners will be announced by the end of the year.
Other efforts to remember the martial arts king include a new film trilogy about his life called Bruce Lee. The film will start shooting in October and will be a joint production between his family and a Hong Kong company.
While no director has been named, there are lots of rumours that China's top director Zhang Yimou, who made Heroand directed the Olympics opening ceremony, could be in the frame as he has said on many occasions that he is keen to shoot a film version of Lee's life.
Executive producer Manfred Wong said the first part of the trilogy would focus on his early life. So far, the only casting decision that had been made was that Tony Leung Ka-fai would play Lee’s father.
“There will be kung fu . . . but more importantly, we want to portray the real Bruce Lee,” Wong said. “What is the real Bruce Lee like? He was very humorous, he was very obedient to his parents, he was very kind to his family.”
The movie is set to be released on November 27th, 2010, the 70th anniversary of Lee’s birth.
Lee was born in November 1940 in San Francisco and raised in Hong Kong, before his father sent him back to the US after a brawl as a youngster. As well as his martial prowess, he was also a ballroom dancing champion.
He is buried in Seattle’s Lake View Cemetery next to his son, actor Brandon Lee, after spending some time attending the University of Washington where he taught martial arts.
Lee made 46 kung fu movies. His popularity around the world paved the way for stars like Jackie Chan and inspired filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino. But he could have been even bigger.
Lee was just 32-years-old when he died of a swelling in the brain in 1973, while starring and directing the movie Game of Deathin Hong Kong, less than a month after the release of Enter the Dragon, the definitive Bruce Lee movie which turned him into an international star.
A museum would also draw a fair number of visitors from mainland China, where Lee is a national hero, as much for the way he embodied Chinese pride and nationalism in his movies.
It won’t be without competition. In mainland China, a theme park, complete with a statue, a memorial hall, conference centre and martial arts academy, is being built in Shunde.
Many in mainland China missed him the first time around in the early 1970s because movies like Enter the Dragonand Fists of Furywere banned by Chairman Mao Zedong's closed Communist government as spiritual pollution and rightist sentimentality.
A popular 50-part TV series last year did much to help complete the picture of this native son on the mainland.
The Hong Kong government has started collecting Lee’s personal items and has commissioned a documentary about the late actor and one about the construction of the museum, said secretary for commerce and economic development Rita Lau.
At the ceremony to launch the design competition, an eight-minute biography, produced by veteran Hong Kong director Ng See-yuen, was shown. It included interviews with Mission: Impossible IIdirector John Woo, as well as contributions by Ip Chun, the eldest son of his kung fu teacher, Ip Man, and actress Betty Ting Pei, in whose home Lee died.
The short biographical film also included footage of him in an open coffin at his funeral, which was attended by some of the world’s biggest tough guy actors, including Steve McQueen, Chuck Norris, James Coburn and former “James Bond” George Lazenby.