The transcript below is from “THE GRANDMASTER | A Conversation with Shannon Lee, Daughter of Bruce Lee” by Annapurna Pictures.
Shannon Lee:
I am Shannon Lee. My father was Bruce Lee and my brother was Brandon Lee. And I am, I guess these days, the steward of the Lee Legacy. I have a licensing company, a production company, and a non-profit called the Bruce Lee Foundation. This is where we seek to preserve and perpetuate my father’s legacy for generations to come.
My father studied under Ip Man in Wing Chun in Hong Kong. He came to him as a student when he was 13. And he trained with him from the age of 13 to 18.
My father was not actually 100% Chinese, he was a quarter Caucasian.
When he was training in Ip Man’s school, it was discovered by a number of the students that he was not 100% Chinese. And they sought to kick him out of the school. It was at a time, you know, in Ip Man’s teaching when he couldn’t afford to lose all of his students over this sort of a thing. So my father did leave the school.
Shannon Lee:
However, Ip Man continued to teach him separately. And also a number of his senior instructors, he allowed them to continue to train him privately as well. Because he didn’t really believe that that it was the right thing to do. And so, you know my father as he went on later in life, he also didn’t believe in these sort of racial cultural barriers. He believed, as he famously said in one of his interviews that “Under the sky, under the heavens, there’s but one family”. And you know, that anyone who would want to learn martial arts should be able to.
Shannon Lee:
A lot of people don’t know my father was the ‘Cha-Cha’ champion of Hong Kong in 1959. So he was quite a good dancer and he competed in competitions. And he would carry around a notebook with him. He had like 150 Cha-Cha steps written in it. And he’s very serious about the ‘Cha-Cha’, but I actually think that background in dance is in part what made his performances so dynamic. Because they’re so powerful, but they’re also graceful.
A lot of times when you see martial arts and see the choreography in film, it looks like a dance. And even though my father’s martial arts were supposed to be very reality based. That dance element was still there, even if it was just in the sort of back and forth between the opponent and himself. And I think in this film, in a much more traditional way, you also got that aspect.
I remember when I did my film in Hong Kong a long time ago , them telling me that the people who made the best fighters on film where people who had a dance background.
Shannon Lee:
In 1972 and 73′, he was on set filming and there was one stuntman in particular who was giving him a really hard time. And he kept calling him a paper tiger, which meant you know you’re not really a martial artist, you just faking it, you’re just making it look like you’re able to do martial arts, but not really a martial artist. And he was goading my father and goading him and goading him and my father kept ignoring him until, he started to get a bunch of the other stuntmen involved. And so, there was then a whole bunch of people who were constantly calling him a paper tiger and harassing him on set. And so finally my father said “Fine, let’s go!”. And he said, “You want to challenge me, you want to see if I can really do martial arts or not?” “Then let’s see if what you got?” And they squared off. And I mean he had him down on the ground within one or two moves. I mean, it was not even ‘seconds’. And not very many minutes any way. And than he had him down and than he stood him back up again. And than he took him down again. And the guy basically said “Ok, we believe you!”. And it was quite a turning point, because at that moment he really won the appreciation, respect of the entire stunt team. It wasn’t just this one guy, but this guy was the ringleader of it. And so you know, he was constantly being challenged. And I guess, it’s a it’s sort of a point of debate these days, although those of us who know, know. There is no debate as to whether he was just a martial artist for film or whether he was really a martial artist. And he really was. It was really his love, far and beyond making films.
Shannon Lee:
My father’s story is a very east meets west story. From beginning to end, you know? I mean, he was born in the United States, but raised in Hong Kong. And he came back to the United States, then went back to Hong Kong to make the movies. I mean, it’s this constant bouncing back and forth and having to you know, walk the line between these two very different cultures. Especially at that time, I think a lot of this sort of tug between east-west which he had even within himself. Right? Because he was partly Caucasian and that was not something that a lot of people knew. It caused him certain amount of problems in his life. And when he was in Hollywood, he was too Chinese, and when he was in Hong Kong making films they would say all that Bruce Lee is westernized. You know? And so, there was this sort of constant struggle, but because of that I think he developed very early on, this understanding that he had to rely on himself. And he had to hone himself. Ip Man is who instilled a love for martial arts in my father. We all meet people at some point in our lives that have a huge affect on us. But he just so happened to come together with this man, who he was able to hear and who was able to affect him in a way that put him on a path that served him his entire life.
