♪♪ ♪♪ [ Blow lands, grunt ] -The poster of "Enter the Dragon," it really looks like this interesting image of an uprising... [ Blow lands, grunt ] ...a resistance against White supremacy around the world.

♪♪ [ Man speaking French ] -In the foreground, you have a Chinese man.

Behind him, there is a Black man.

And only in the background do you have a White man.

So they are really underlining and overturning the symbolic order of things.

-Roper, Williams, and Lee, the deadly three.

[ Blow lands, grunt ] ♪♪ -"Enter the Dragon" was truly a revolution in Hollywood.

♪♪ This film was to make Bruce Lee the greatest Asian star the world had ever seen.

-No one expected it to be anything but this tiny, scrawny Chinese movie that disappeared overnight.

And it turned into a phenomenon.

♪♪ [ Woman speaking French ] -It's satisfying to watch an explosion, this rage, to get justice for himself, but also for all those who feel the same thing as him.

♪♪ -Who doesn't love the story of the underdog coming up and getting his?

♪♪ -"Enter the Dragon" was, for Bruce Lee, the accomplishment of a relentless battle against a Hollywood which didn't want him.

♪♪ The film fixed Bruce Lee in our subconscious, and he continues to personify, generation after generation, the pride of the wretched of the Earth.

[ Blow lands, glass shatters grunt ] [ Film projector clicking ] -Hello, Mr.

Lee.

My name's Braithwaite.

-Hello, Mr.

Braithwaite.

-I've come to speak to you about a matter of great importance.

-Have some tea?

-Yes, indeed.

[ Man speaking French ] -One of the very first scenes in the film is the moment when Mr.

Braithwaite outlines Bruce Lee's mission to him.

-Mr.

Lee, I've come to speak to you about a tournament of martial arts.

Specifically a tournament organized by Mr.

Han.

There.

That's Han.

That's the only film we have on him.

-It's a living room scene in which Bruce Lee, in a three-piece suit, watches the film of his mission.

He's shown his adversaries and the place where he will have to fight.

This is interesting because it is as if they're showing the film in which he doesn't yet appear, but into which he will literally project himself.

This was his preoccupation throughout the 1960s -- how to be a part of it, how to dominate a space which was forbidden to him.

♪♪ -"Enter the Dragon" was the film which allowed Bruce Lee to break into this forbidden place.

His presence, his charisma, and his rage were to dominate the screen.

♪♪ ♪♪ -I'm naturally explosive.

I've always been like that.

As a kid, the elders used to disapprove of my behavior, while those of my own age kept out of my way.

I was aggressive, hot-tempered, and fierce.

I never really knew why.

I suppose it's because I have this intensity in me that the audience believes in what I do.

They sense the animalism in me.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Bruce Lee grew up in Hong Kong.

This overpopulated island to the south of China has a bloodstained history.

It lived through the humiliation and the abuses of Japanese occupation during the Second World War, and then the violence of British colonial domination.

♪♪ Hong Kong also saw the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the Chinese Communist revolution.

Among them were kung fu masters.

They passed on this ancient martial art, which advocates self-control and efficacy in combat.

The discipline spread like wildfire through the streets of the British colony, seducing the brawling adolescent that Bruce Lee was at the time.

-Most martial artists' stories are, "I was picked-on kid and I took up martial arts in order to protect myself."

Bruce Lee is the exact opposite.

He didn't study martial arts for self-defense.

He studied it for self-offense.

Bruce Lee grew up in an affluent background.

Their family had chauffeurs.

They had maids.

He went to the best parochial schools.

But Bruce Lee was the black sheep of the family.

He was the one who was always causing trouble.

-One of the biggest pastimes that he has is going to the other private school and picking fights with the sons of the British colonial administration folks there.

-And, so, eventually, he ended up beating up the son of a fairly well-to-do family.

The family went in to complain.

At that moment, his parents realized that, if they didn't do something, their son was going to end up in jail.

-His parents decided to send him away to live with relatives in the United States in the hope of returning him to the straight and narrow.

And this is how, in 1959, at the age of 18, with only $100 in his pocket, Bruce Lee set out for a new life.

♪♪ -The trip to America is fascinating because he goes from third-world rich to first-world poor.

He gets off the boat and he goes and stays with a friend of his father, who owns a Chinese restaurant in Seattle.

He thinks he's going to be an honored guest, and his father has told them, "Don't give him any breaks."

So they put him in essentially a closet underneath a staircase and they make him bus tables.

-He is serving the White elite of Seattle, who look at him as if he's invisible.

For Bruce, this is a moment in which he actually begins to really understand why the other Chinese workers at the restaurant are always angry.

He begins to understand what it means to be treated as a minority, to be segregated, to be constantly belittled.

And he, I think, at that time, begins to develop a love for the underdog and a rage against oppression.

-In a real way, this is his second birth from the kid he was to the second life as this immigrant in America who's got to figure out, is he just going to accept his new fate, or is he going to fight to become what he thinks he is, which is somebody with an important destiny?

♪♪ -When he lived in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee wasn't just an unruly child, he was also a child actor.

[ Speaking Chinese ] -He had his first taste of fame while still a boy.

He was even a Hong Kong cinema idol.

Even then, his self-assurance and charisma lit up the screen.

♪♪ But when he arrived in the US, Bruce Lee had no choice but to forget his promising acting career.

Hollywood wasn't made for him.

-There weren't any parts for Chinese actors.

At that time, it was yellowface casting.

There were only a couple Asian parts per year, and those were always played by White actors with their eyes taped.

[ Woman speaking French ] -Hollywood was built on a large number of films which were based on extremely crude stereotypes.

The Fu Manchu films in the '20s and '30s depicted someone really nasty, the personification of evil.

Then there were the Charlie Chan films.

He was a detective who resolved enigmas, so he was intelligent, but he was comical.

He had an accent.

He spouted proverbs, a bit like Yoda.

-Deprived of any cinema work, Bruce Lee turned all his energy towards kung fu, determined to become the best martial artist the world had ever seen.

♪♪ -I feel I've had this great creative and spiritual force within me that's greater than faith, greater than ambition.

I may now own nothing but a little place down in the basement, but I can project my thoughts into the future.

I readily visualize myself as overcoming obstacles, winning out over setbacks, achieving impossible objectives.

Probably people will say I'm too conscious of success.

Well, I'm not.

You see, my will to do springs from the knowledge that I can do.

♪♪ ♪♪ -One day, Bruce Lee was invited to give a demonstration of kung fu at Long Beach.

It didn't even occur to him that he was just a few kilometers from Hollywood.

[ Applause ] Nonetheless, it was during this karate competition in 1964 that he was spotted by producers at 20th Century Fox.

-When Bruce gets the call to audition for the role of Kato in "The Green Hornet," it comes out of the blue.

He hadn't been expecting it at all.

-Got it.

[ Beep ] Test X2, take one.

-Speed.

-Now look directly into the camera, Bruce.

Directly at it.

And now give me a three-quarter this way and hold it.

And give me a profile that way, all the way.

Good.

Hold it.

-It was far from being his first audition, but Bruce Lee was nervous at the prospect of Hollywood.

-Three-quarter on that side.

And then give me right into the camera again.

All right, now the camera will pull back and, uh, Bruce... -But when he was asked to give a demonstration of kung fu, the studio quickly became his playground.

-All right.

-Right.

There is the finger jab, there is the punch, there is the backfist, and then low.

Of course, then they use leg.

Straight at the groin or come up.

Or, if I can back up a little bit, they start back from here and then come back.

[ Laughter ] -All right.

-He's kind of worried.

-The producers were stunned.

Bruce Lee was cast in his first role.

[ "The Green Hornet" theme playing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -"The Green Hornet" was Bruce Lee's first big break in Hollywood.

He played the role of Kato, who was the driver of the White star, the Green Hornet.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Close the door.

-But actually, the fans enjoyed him so much that he got more fan mail than the Green Hornet did.

-Check the scanner, Kato.

♪♪ [ Beeping ] -Check.

-Stick to the back streets, Kato.

-Unfortunately, the TV show's ratings weren't that good, and it was canceled after a year.

And then he found himself in the position of many actors in Hollywood, which is unemployed.

♪♪ -Having become a father, Bruce Lee wanted to believe in his destiny.

With one foot in the door of the Hollywood studios, he dreamed of making a career of it.

In the absence of getting cast, he began training stars like James Coburn and Steve McQueen.

-The great thing about Bruce Lee is he did not lack ambition.

He was not teaching these Hollywood stars just to make a buck.

He still was hoping to launch a movie career.

-And his patience finally paid off when one of his students recommended him for a role which was made to measure for him.

[ "Kung Fu" theme playing ] -Bruce Lee was considered for the main role, which was a kung fu master, of which, in Hollywood, there was only one.

But they were afraid that starring a TV series with a Chinese actor would be too controversial.

-The executives chose not to allow him to play the role because, in their wisdom, they didn't believe that White America was ready for an Asian leading man.

-They gave the part to David Carradine, a White actor who knew nothing about kung fu, could barely do it on screen, but had the advantage of not being Chinese.

-It was the ultimate slap in the face that the glass ceiling did exist.

♪♪ -In Hollywood, I've realized I'll always be Chinese in their eyes.

They're still wondering if audiences are ready for an Oriental era, when, really, it's about time.

It's meaningless to continue shooting movies where I don't fit the role.

I want my children to see someone like them on the screen.

-Bruce Lee was training so very hard, he ended up hurting his back so badly that doctors said he'd never be able to kick above his waist again.

He'd never be able to do kung fu.

-For Bruce Lee, the doctor's diagnosis sounded like a death sentence.

But through pure willpower, after months of rehabilitation, he proved them wrong and began practicing martial arts again.

But his back pain would never leave him.

-I think he had a sense of a time clock that there was only so much time his body had left to bring him to the kind of stardom he wanted.

And, so, he had to push as hard as possible to reach his goal before time ran out.

♪♪ -Bruce Lee was determined never to let anything get in the way of his destiny again.

If Hollywood barred his route to the big screen, he would reach it via Hong Kong.

Raymond Chow, a producer for Golden Harvest, offered him a deal to make films with them.

For Bruce Lee, it was time to explode onto the screen.

-[ Shouting ] -Bruce goes into these movies and he fights with the director and the choreographers to try to get these fights to look a lot more realistic and brutal.

[ Speaking Chinese ] -He was in your face.

He wouldn't take any... He was knocking people out with one or two punches, and he didn't care.

♪♪ -And that kind of bold swagger that he brought to the films was something that the Chinese people always wanted to think of themselves as.

And, so, Bruce Lee became this kind of ideal of this masculine, extremely aggressive, but also confident China.

[ Cheering ] ♪♪ -In just two years of productive frenzy, Bruce Lee was to turn his experiences, his frustration, and all the humiliation he'd suffered into the driving force behind his films.

In "The Big Boss," he was the hero of Chinese workers.

With "Fist of Fury," he settled his score with the Japanese.

♪♪ With "The Way of the Dragon," he faced, in Rome, at the Colosseum, no less than Western civilization itself, embodied by actor Chuck Norris.

♪♪ ♪♪ Bruce Lee directed "The Way of the Dragon" himself.

It was the very first Hong Kong film to be shot in the West.

From then on, no position was beyond him.

Lead actor, choreographer, director, producer -- Bruce Lee had total control over his films, and they were triumphs.

Each of them smashed box office figures.

In the space of two years, Bruce Lee became the greatest star the island had ever known.

Only one battle remained for him -- taking his revenge on Hollywood.

[ Benoliel speaking French ] -Bruce Lee was obsessed with the United States.

As soon as "The Big Boss" was finished -- and the same was true for "Fist of Fury" -- he sent a copy to Warner Bros.

-And he was smart enough to follow up with a letter saying, "I'm huge here.

I'm going to be even bigger in Hollywood.

All you got to do is back my movie, and we're going to make the most amazing kung fu movie of all time."

-And it worked.

Confronted with this on-screen phenomenon and the box office figures, Warner Bros.

took the bait.

-The idea went off in their head, if he can do that well with a movie made for $100,000, what could he do with, like, a real Western director and $1 million budget?

♪♪ -Warner Bros.

giving Bruce Lee a chance was a sign that they felt the winds of change.

It was the beginning of the 1970s.

The Old World was collapsing and the young generation was rising up against the middle classes and the patriarchy, against police violence, against the crimes of the American army.

♪♪ -"Enter the Dragon" is fascinating because it's made in 1972, right at the height of the Vietnam War and at the moment where the Western world had turned against it.

And here's Bruce Lee, a Chinese guy, not Vietnamese, but fighting against this power bigger than him and winning through his own culture, his own tradition.

And, so, Bruce Lee, in many ways is this kind of Viet Cong-type representative.

♪♪ -With "Enter the Dragon," Warner Bros., as true opportunists, played every card they were holding to seduce this rebellious youth.

They added a champion of the world of karate to the cast, Jim Kelly.

♪♪ -Small little part was so powerful.

[ Dog barking ] Now here come the police.

He just chilling, telling this man, "Peace out, baby.

Going to Hong Kong."

-Hey, this ..... got a passport.

-Where are you going, ...?

Where's the plane ticket for?

-Hong Kong.

Via Hawaii.

-He's not going to Hawaii.

-"Oh, he not going to Hawaii.'

"Yes, I am."

[ Laughs ] -[ Groans ] Well, look what we got here!

-Assaulting a police officer.

♪♪ -Yeah, I love that for him.

He throws him through the -- the thing.

And then, the dog jumps on him, and he steals the car.

Come on.

That's classic man.

That's classic.

How many people want to beat up a cop and steal their car?

-Despite Warner Bros.

being intent on capturing the mood of the moment, they couldn't resist recycling some of the old Hollywood recipes.

-"Enter the Dragon" was written by two beginner screenwriters, very young Americans, whose idea was basically to have Bruce Lee become the Chinese James Bond.

To them, this seemed super cool and kind of provocative to take the symbol of White Western power, the British agent, and make it Chinese.

-And so, you know, when Bruce first gets the script, he's like, "The...is this?"

And all of the Chinese producers that he's working with who look at the script are like, "We can't make this film."

-He'd spent his whole life waiting for this moment.

But the role they give him is a sellout agent of the British Empire, and he knows his audience is going to look at him that way.

♪♪ -Martial arts are my life.

Everything I know comes from them.

Ultimately, martial art means expressing yourself honestly, truthfully, without lying to yourself.

♪♪ That's why I would never prostitute myself by doing something in which I don't believe.

-Even though Bruce Lee refused to sell his soul to Hollywood, the opportunity was too good to let it slip through his fingers.

So a battle of wits began between himself and two producers at Warner Bros., Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller.

-He takes all of these ideas he's been working on over the years for movies that he's tried to make, in which he's tried to uplift Asian philosophical ideas.

And Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller nix him at every turn.

-They didn't understand why Bruce Lee was terrified of how a Chinese audience would react to that type of character.

And, so, for two weeks, Bruce Lee didn't show up on set.

♪♪ -Forced to admit that, without him, there was no film, the producers gave in and allowed Bruce Lee to change the screenplay.

From now on, his character would no longer be a simple British agent, but a Shaolin monk driven by the desire to avenge the death of his sister.

This is what would lead him to accept attending a martial arts tournament organized by a certain Han, a traitor to the Shaolin Order.

On the trip to Han's island, Bruce Lee was to cross paths with a somewhat too self-confident fighter an opportunity to teach viewers the first rule of kung fu -- the use of force as a last resort.

[ Ly speaking French ] -It's a scene which appears in all Bruce Lee's films, in fact, the intimidation scene, the bullying scene.

That's the look that kills.

He doesn't need to speak.

-Do I bother you?

-Don't waste yourself.

-What's your style?

-My style?

You can call it the art of fighting without fighting.

-Bruce Lee was to combine theory and practice.

He invites the New Zealand thug to take a rowing boat and fight it out on a neighboring island.

He agrees and the trap closes.

-Hey!

What the hell are you doing?

Hey, are you crazy?

[ Laughter ] Pull me in!

Pull me in!

-Everyone watches, and the audience is amongst those who are looking down.

I'm one of those kids you can see.

[ Indistinct shouting, chatter ] ♪♪ It's heartwarming to imagine that that can happen, that justice can be done.

That's what keeping violence as a last resort is about.

♪♪ -For Bruce Lee, "Enter the Dragon" became something of a manifesto.

And when his character goes to free the prisoners on the island, it's actually Bruce Lee inviting the audience to free themselves.

[ Benoliel speaking French ] -This clip is absolutely fascinating.

It's a moment when he becomes the interface between his enemies and the prisoners.

The prisoners are numb with fatigue, demoralized, drained of their strength, and Bruce Lee gives them a lesson.

He shows them what a fighting body is capable of.

-[ Shouts ] -It's as though he says to people who are subservient, colonized, or humiliated, "Wake up!"

-The shooting of this film was the first time in the history of cinema that Hollywood and Hong Kong had been forced to work together.

A handful of Americans on one side and hundreds of Chinese technicians, craftspeople, and extras on the other.

-You had this kind of loud, brash producer in Fred Weintraub, who was used to yelling at people, and you had a Chinese crew who felt humiliated when any White guy yelled at them.

-Action!

♪♪ -Tensions between the Chinese and Americans came to a head during the scene in which Bruce Lee is confronted with Bob Wall.

The actor was playing the role of Oharra, Han's bodyguard, the person who had brought about the death of Bruce Lee's sister when trying to rape her.

The atmosphere was electric during filming.

So when Bob Wall accidentally wounded Bruce Lee with a broken bottle, nerves gave way.

The extras who had witnessed the scene were convinced that Bob Wall had done it on purpose.

Bruce Lee needed to save his honor.

-The stuntmen were all eager for Bruce Lee to kill Bob Wall.

[ Laughs ] And of course, the director got worried, and he went to Bruce, and he said, "You can't kill Bob Wall.

I need him for more shots."

[ Laughs ] And Bruce, of course, knew it was an accident, but he had to show face.

He had to show the crew that he wasn't going to take, you know, this disrespect from the Western actor.

-[ Shouting ] ♪♪ -Bruce Lee kicked him and knocked him back so hard that Bob wall crashed into one of the stuntmen and broke the Stuntman's arm.

-The tension during shooting was visible on screen, and Bruce Lee gave another demonstration.

♪♪ If the first rule of kung fu is to only use violence as a last resort, the second is that, when you strike, strike to break the enemy.

Bruce Lee, beside himself with rage, let loose all his fury.

-[ Shouts ] ♪♪ -He became the character he was portraying as though avenging himself.

♪♪ ♪♪ -I've lost a lot of weight from working day and night.

During the day, I'm at the studio, and at night, I'm writing scripts for my next movie, as well as reading books on the whole business of movie production.

It absorbs me so much that I sometimes forget to eat or sleep.

My wife tells me to relax, but the only thing that relaxes me is constant work.

♪♪ -By the end of "Enter the Dragon," you can tell he's physically exhausted.

There's gray under his eyes.

He's lost a lot of weight.

And yet he couldn't stop.

He knew this was his one great opportunity, and he was terrified of having it go away.

-He was running on pure adrenaline because he couldn't wait to see a cut of the movie, because we'd all seen the dailies.

We knew that we had a great movie there.

-The name Bruce Lee spread throughout Hollywood, and MGM wanted to see him perform alongside his childhood idol, Elvis Presley, who was a black belt in karate.

He was offered a film alongside Sophia Loren, and Warner Bros.

was considering turning "Enter the Dragon" into a franchise.

Bruce Lee upped the bidding.

The world was at his feet.

-He was a bit strung out also because he was starting to live that kind of movie star lifestyle on the side, so he was burning the candle at both ends.

He was eating a little hash.

He may have been snorting a little cocaine.

He had a number of girlfriends and, of course, a wife and kids, and this was stretching him very thin.

-On March 1st, 1973, the Americans packed their bags.

For them, filming was over.

But not for Bruce Lee.

He wasn't satisfied with what they'd filmed in the hall of mirrors, so he convinced his producer, Raymond Chow, to procure him a team.

♪♪ Over the course of five days in suffocating heat, they reshot the scene from all imaginable angles.

-The final scene, the mirror scene, was, naturally, his triumph, his apotheosis.

Whether it be the producers, the director, or Bruce Lee himself, I think everyone was aware that they were capturing something phenomenal.

♪♪ -Bruce Lee knew that this scene would be a showcase for his genius, his talent, and his beauty.

Every reflection in every mirror served to magnify his movements and his body, which he had relentlessly sculpted throughout his life in order to give the world this image of inexhaustible strength.

-[ Groans ] ♪♪ [ Benoliel speaking French ] -Bruce Lee's tragedy was that, in a certain way, he made contradictory demands upon himself.

He dreamed, in a way, of becoming an image.

But in order to become that image, to appear as something unseen before, he had to impose on himself a training program that killed him.

-On May 20th, 1973, Bruce Lee collapsed during a dubbing session.

He was rushed to hospital where he was diagnosed with a cerebral edema.

[ Siren wailing ] It was the result of accumulated stress, extreme tiredness, and his body overheating.

Because a few months previously, Bruce Lee had had the glands under his armpits removed so as to sweat less in front of the cameras, a risky operation which had put his body in danger.

The doctors managed to treat the edema, but it was a first warning sign.

Bruce Lee confided to his wife, Linda, that he felt close to death.

♪♪ -I don't know what the meaning of death is.

But I am not afraid to die.

Even though I, Bruce Lee, may die some day without fulfilling all my ambitions, I will have no regrets.

I did what I wanted to do, and what I've done, I've done with sincerity and to the best of my ability.

You can't expect much more from life.

Through the ages, the end of heroes is the same as ordinary men.

They all died and gradually faded away in the memory of man.

♪♪ -Just ten days after leaving hospital, Bruce Lee was in Los Angeles to at last see the first edit of the film.

He took the opportunity of consulting a doctor.

The doctor declared that he had the body of an 18-year-old.

Bruce Lee was relieved.

From now on, nothing could stop him taking his place amongst the Hollywood stars.

-There was a screening at Warner Bros.

People just looked at each other and smiled because they knew they had a hit on their hands, and Bruce Lee was over the moon.

He realized that he was going to be the star he had always dreamed of being.

-But fate took a different direction.

On July the 20th, 1973, Bruce Lee suddenly dropped dead, struck once more by a cerebral edema.

This time his body couldn't hold out.

He was never to see his dream come true.

♪♪ He was just 32.

-If you want to look at his death in a kind of poetic way, you can imagine his death as a kind of Icarus flying too close to the sun, pushing himself too fast, too far, and not taking it at a slower pace and eventually sort of risking the anger of the gods and collapsing back to Earth.

♪♪ -Bruce Lee was dead, but he would live on forever.

The righter of wrongs, who he portrays in the film "The Shaolin Master," mixing philosophy with martial arts, was to become his epitaph.

As soon as the film was released in August 1973, "Enter the Dragon" was a huge success.

In Los Angeles, Bombay, Paris, everywhere, audiences flooded to cinemas to see this phenomenon.

The Bruce Lee legend was born, spreading kung fu fever to generation after generation.

[ Man speaking French ] -When the film finished, it carried on outside.

This was one of those films with a lot of agitation at the exits.

-On 42nd Street, the streets were full with everybody trying to do kung fu, right, practicing and all that stuff.

-I happen to have been a skinny, scrawny, bullied 12-year-old kid who, back in 1983, watched "Enter the Dragon" on a VHS tape.

♪♪ Three boys, none of us knew who Bruce Lee was, but he kind of leapt off the screen into our imagination.

So we immediately put down our Luke Skywalker lightsabers and picked up Bruce Lee nunchucks.

-You have offended my family and you have offended the Shaolin Temple.

♪♪ [ Man speaking Swahili ] -"Enter the Dragon" radically changed my life.

-"Enter the Dragon" isn't just a film.

Bruce Lee wasn't just an actor.

To the four corners of the Earth, he became a spiritual master and his words became mantras.

-A good martial artist does not become tense but ready.

Not thinking, yet not dreaming.

Ready for whatever may come.

-Look how many jewels that there are just in that first few seconds.

He said, "It seems that your skills have become beyond physical.

It's getting into spiritual."

-And when there is an opportunity, I do not hit.

It hits all by itself.

-No.

-This stuff, you see it as a kid and you may not really understand it, but it's in your subconscious and it comes back to you.

And the true kung fu enthusiast put it into their hip-hop.

-Yo, are you a pimp, a hustler?

-No.

I'm not.

-Are you a man?

-And that had such a profound effect on my life, I went to Hong Kong and I rowed the boat across like I was Bruce Lee.

-♪ You work all week and give the devil ♪ ♪ Back his loot for jewels ♪ ♪ And the steak on your plate is filled with chemicals ♪ ♪ Still... ♪ -♪ Tiger style, yo ♪ ♪ Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothin' to...with ♪ ♪ Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothin' to...with ♪ -When Wu-Tang Clan appeared in 1993 with images of Shaolin, of kung fu, you saw it was actually the same culture.

-♪ Bam, aw, man, ah, slam, jam ♪ -Meaning these kids from Staten Island had had the same influences as kids from Marseille.

-It was the first major shock around Asian and, above all, martial arts culture.

He turned up with that particular cultural background and seduced half the planet.

-Bruce Lee really changed the trajectory of my life.

I ended up going to the Shaolin Temple in China to study kung fu, and then I went on to become a martial arts author and eventually wrote the authoritative biography of Bruce Lee.

-Bruce Lee was such a powerful character that he has been endlessly extrapolated.

He's a comic book law enforcer, a manga star, a video game fighter, a superhero for kids the world over.

♪♪ Some went as far as resuscitating him, creating the Bruceploitation cinema genre, stretching the spin-off notion to the point of absurdity.

-Professor, his eyes are open.

-You now have a new life.

Your name is Bruce Lee 2.

And you will do as I say.

-Yes, sir.

-Take him to the operating room and send in Bruce Lee 3.

-Yes, sir.

Right away.

[ Benoliel speaking French ] -You suddenly had penniless producers making films with look-alikes.

Which allowed them to make a reference to, or even put Bruce Lee in the title.

Basically a way to attract customers.

And it was clear that this subgenre was both a way of mourning the real Bruce Lee and, at the same time, of course, a spin-off that they didn't want to dry up.

♪♪ -When I was still at Golden Harvest, we would get producers or studios calling and saying, listen, we've got the next "Enter the Dragon" script if you've got the next Bruce Lee.

And, well, the answer is, if I've got the next Bruce Lee, I don't need your script.

We'll do our own scripts.

[ Indistinct chanting ] -For 50 years, Bruce Lee has haunted Hollywood productions.

Not long after the release of "Enter the Dragon," James Bond had to take up karate to settle the score with him.

♪♪ ♪♪ But it was no use.

From Chuck Norris to Jean-Claude Van Damme, via Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves.

the Hollywood studios relentlessly try to find the one who would manage to erase him from our memories.

-"The Matrix" is a great example of the kind of mix of Western production values and kung fu cinema, and you can see with the special effects how they're trying to turn Keanu Reeves into a kind of White Bruce Lee.

-You know, the argument that White guys can do it, too, I don't think that was the argument at all.

I think the argument was White guys do this better.

Right?

-[ Chuckling ] -Hey, you.

What's your name?

-Me?

-Yeah, you.

My name's Cliff.

I'm Rick Dalton's stunt double.

-Stuntman?

-Yeah.

-You know, you're kind of pretty for a stuntman.

-That's what they tell me.

-In "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," director Quentin Tarantino pushed this logic to the limits.

-Look, man... -He attacked the real Bruce Lee to try and destroy the myth once and for all.

-Brother, you're the one with the big mouth, and I would really enjoy closing it, especially in front of all my friends.

-Bruce Lee was cocky, swaggering, in your face.

And, so, I think Tarantino does, in his film, capture some of that arrogance.

He just stretches it to the point of caricature.

-[ Shouting ] ♪♪ -Not bad, Kato.

Try that again.

-He wanted to paint the dark side in order to kind of react against the very saintly version of Bruce Lee.

But Bruce Lee was a work in progress.

-Kick me.

-For Bruce Lee, martial arts was his religion because it was also his therapy.

It was a way to manage the rage and anger he had inside of him.

-What was that?

-An exhibition?

We need emotional content.

Try again.

♪♪ -It's probably my favorite moment ever.

-I said emotional content, not anger.

Now try again with me.

-Because to watch him with that young student really kind of captures his, like, sharpness and his harshness, but also his charm and his charisma and the depth of who he was and was trying to be.

-How did it feel to you?

-Let me think.

-Don't think, feel.

It is like a finger pointing away to the moon.

Don't concentrate on the finger, or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

♪♪ Never take your eyes off your opponent even when you bow.

That's it.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Generations of actors and martial artists have followed in the wake of Bruce Lee.

And the truth around who he wanted to be continued to inspire beyond the limits of Hollywood, all the way to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

[ Mfaume speaking Swahili ] -My name is Saidi Mfaume, also known as Master Mfaume.

I teach Shaolin Kung Fu in Tanzania.

The way in which Bruce Lee faces challenges and overcomes them in this film deeply inspired me.

That's how we should be as human beings.

One should know how to defend oneself and one's loved ones.

When I first saw the film, I, too, wanted to be a hero for those close to me.

-Shabu.

-Shabu.

-I dedicate all my time to children so that they can learn kung fu because they are the land of tomorrow.

I think that one day I could make an African Bruce Lee emerge from amongst my students.

-Action.

-Every day, I improve my technique for capturing combats on film.

It's a constant apprenticeship.

And my dream is to make a successful film which is seen all over the world.

[ Students grunting ] ♪♪ -Action.

Action.

Action.

Action.

♪♪ -With "Enter the Dragon," Bruce Lee gave audiences more than just a film.

He gave a dream to all the underdogs of the world, the dream of becoming the hero of their own story.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪