Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee, born Lee Jun-fan in San Francisco in 1940, was the son of Lee Hoi-chuen, a famous Cantonese opera performer touring the United States, with ancestral roots in Shunde, Guangdong. This blend of East and West ran through his whole life — he appeared on screen as an infant, returned to Hong Kong with his family as a baby, and grew up in its streets and film sets, becoming a child star who acted in many films.

As a youth he was fiery and combative, often clashing with others on the streets, yet in that restlessness he also found an outlet: he became a disciple of the grandmaster Ip Man to study Wing Chun, laying the foundation for his later martial art; at the same time he loved to dance and once won a cha-cha competition. His frequent fighting finally led his family to send this troublesome son back to the United States, where he had been born.

In America he worked his way through school, entered the University of Washington, and opened a martial arts school while studying, teaching Chinese martial arts to students of many ethnicities. His astonishing "one-inch punch" at the Long Beach karate championship made the martial arts and film worlds take note of him for the first time. More importantly, years of practice and philosophical reflection led him to develop Jeet Kune Do — a martial philosophy of "using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation" that broke the constraints of styles and set forms.

The stage that truly made his name was, in the end, Hong Kong. After being limited to supporting roles and prejudice in Hollywood, he partnered with Golden Harvest and made a sensation starring in "The Big Boss." His portrayal of Chen Zhen smashing the "Sick Man of East Asia" plaque in "Fist of Fury" struck a deep nationalist chord among countless Chinese. He then wrote, directed, and starred in "The Way of the Dragon," raising the scope of kung fu films and placing the confident image of a Chinese martial artist at the center of the screen.

In 1973, before his Hollywood co-production "Enter the Dragon" was released, he died suddenly in Hong Kong at just thirty-two, the exact cause still disputed to this day. The film went on to sweep the globe, truly bringing kung fu films to the world. In just a few years he not only reinvented a film genre but, with his vivid Eastern skill and spirit, became a cultural icon across eras and ethnicities, remaining to this day one of the global synonyms for the word "kung fu."