Bruce Lee’s fire does not extinguish in Hong Kong…

Hong Kong-based businessman W. Wong still remembers the day in 1972 when he heard the kids in his neighborhood cheering for a character who would become their hero and a legend. His name was Bruce Lee.

This martial arts master, whose films introduced kung fu to the world, was one of the first Asians to meet the star in Hollywood, where his career was halted by his untimely death just fifty years ago. Just 32 years old.

In Hong Kong, where Bruce Lee spent his childhood and the last years of his life, many of his fans still hold a week-long tribute event with exhibitions and workshops dedicated to the martial arts.

“Every kid needs a role model and I chose Bruce Lee,” Wong, 54, who for 30 years ran the city’s biggest fan club dedicated to the star, told AFP.

“I expected my life to be like the Bruce Lee I looked up to: handsome, strong, with great martial arts skills, a heroic image”.

In a room of Wing Chun, a derivative of kung fu that Bruce Lee practiced before inventing his fighting style, Jeet Kune Do, the legend is revered like a saint.

The compound’s master, 69-year-old Cheng Chi-ping, told AFP that he and his members began training under the influence of Bruce Lee. “We have never been able to match his speed, his strength or his body,” he said.

The icon’s aura shines through to the next generation, says Mike Leung, 45, who trained there as a teenager and collected videotapes of the master.

– “Lord of Martial Arts” –

He says, “When we talk about God of Martial Arts+, we are only talking about Bruce Lee. It can’t be anyone else.”

Born in San Francisco in 1940, Bruce Lee grew up in Hong Kong and became famous very early as a child actor thanks to his father, a famous Cantonese opera singer.

At age 18, he continued his studies in the United States before teaching martial arts during the next decade, then obtaining his first roles in Hollywood, most notably the role of Kato in the television series “The Green Hornet”.

It was not until he returned to Hong Kong that he got his first leading role in the martial arts film “The Big Boss” (1971), which made him famous in Asia.

The following year, “The Fury of Victory” and “The Fury of the Dragon” established his reputation as an unrelenting fighter.

On July 20, 1973, the actor, who had just finished shooting his fourth film, “Operation Dragon” and was completing a fifth, suffered from cerebral edema, caused by a reaction to painkillers.

– “sexy” Asian –

Filmmaker Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park, who lectures on the films of Bruce Lee at the University of Hong Kong, believes the actor conveys a Chinese identity that transcends borders.

“I would call Bruce Lee the exemplar of Chinese-speaking achievement in ‘soft power’ with Hong Kong characteristics,” he told AFP.

His image in Hollywood ran counter to racist stereotypes that cast Asian men as either servants or villains.

The scenes in which he appears bare-chested, full of muscles have been described by Mr. Magnon-Park as “kung-fu striptease”.

He added, “He made Asian men sexy and I don’t think we talk about it enough.”

However, maintaining the star’s legacy in Hong Kong hasn’t been easy, regrets Mr Wong, who points out that government support has been sporadic.

In 2004, his fans managed to erect a bronze statue of him on the Hong Kong waterfront. But a campaign to rehabilitate his former home failed to save it from demolition in 2019.

Visiting an exhibition dedicated to Bruce Lee at a public museum with her two children, Ms Yip told AFP she wanted to introduce him to “a symbol of old Hong Kong”.

Mr. Wong, who has organized a small exhibition in the Sham Shui Po district, agreed that interest in Bruce Lee is waning among young people, though he said his philosophy could come back into vogue.

He recalls that, during the 2019 pro-democracy movement, protesters were urged to follow the mantra of the man who is still best known among Hong Kongers: “Be like water”, a call to blend into the crowd… better disappear.