Daryl Joji Maeda - Like Water: A Cultural History of Bruce Lee

Daryl Joji Maeda

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

www.nyupress.org

2022 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Maeda, Daryl J., author.

Title: Like water : a cultural history of Bruce Lee / Daryl Joji Maeda.

Description: New York : New York University Press, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021057771 | ISBN 9781479812868 (hardback) | ISBN 9781479812899 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479812875 (ebook other)

Subjects: LCSH : Lee, Bruce, 19401973. | Lee, Bruce, 19401973Influence. | Chinese American actorsBiography. | Martial artistsUnited StatesBiography. | Martial artistsChinaHong KongBiography. | Martial arts filmsHistory and criticism.

Classification: LCC PN2287.L2897 M34 2022 | DDC 791.4302/8092 [ B ] dc23/eng/20220218

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021057771

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Also available as an ebook

Be formless, shapeless, like water

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee with fresh scratch marks on his face and chest in the mirror room in Enter the Dragon (1973). (Photo by Warner Bros. via Getty Images)

In the climactic scene of Bruce Lees final film, the 1973 martial arts movie Enter the Dragon, Lee pursues the archvillain Han with the hope of finishing their fight in a hall of mirrors. The two stalk each other through the maze of reflections and refractions, the screen filled with one Lee, two, a dozen, or none at all, as he slinks in and out of the frame. Some of the images are complete, others only fragmentary slivers. The multiple Lees always move in unison, sometimes in the same direction, sometimes toward or away from each other. A distorted image of Han lies in wait for Lee and strikes him in the face with a backhand blow. Lee swings back at the reflection but finds only air as Han retreats invisibly farther into the funhouse.

As Lee moves forward, his back to the camera, Han emerges from the reflections and slashes Lee on the shoulder with a bladed claw before disappearing again. The camera alternately captures images of Lee and Han reflected in long mirrored panels that break them up into a dozen overlapping images. Tension builds as the viewer is never sure of whether the image onscreen is the real Lee or a mere reflection. The fragmented Lee delivers a side kick that sends a dozen Hans flying, after which the real Han rolls across the screen. Lee, frustrated by his inability to locate his foe, backs up against a set of mirrors as a voice-over of his sifu (teacher) intones, Remember, the enemy has only images and illusions behind which he hides his true motives. Destroy the image, and you will break the enemy.

Inspired by this brief philosophical refresher, Lee delivers a backhanded fist to an image of Han, in the process splintering the mirror containing Hans reflection. Using fists and feet, he shatters mirror after mirror until he can move forward confidently, for the shards of broken glass reveal the falseness of the Hans they reflect and leave the true Han visible and vulnerable. Lee rushes triumphantly toward the exposed villain and side-kicks him across the room, impaling him on a spear protruding from the wall.

According to Robert Clouse, the films director, the hall of mirrors scene was not included in the original script but was dreamed up by him and his wife. The set consisted of a large room paneled completely in mirrors. Three shallow bays, each about five feet wide, were covered with narrow vertical slats of mirrors that created dozens more reflections. The camera sat inside a mirror-covered box about six feet square in the center of the room behind a mirrored sheet of plywood with a cutout for the lens that enabled it to shoot anywhere without capturing its own reflection.

Some $8,000 worth of mirrorstwo truckloads worthwere used to construct the set, an undertaking that took three days. The scene, which lasts for just five minutes in the movie, took two days to shoot. Clouse claims that after filming on Enter the Dragon ended, Lee spent two more weeks in Hong Kong, where the film was made, shooting additional scenes on the mirrored set.

In many respects, this intricate scene represents the complexity of both Bruce Lees life and his career. Never before had the entire world had a chance to see Bruce so clearly, but Enter the Dragon elevated his profile to unimaginable heights. Though he was already Hong Kongs biggest movie star, his final film hit occupied the top spot on the United States box-office chart for three weeks and took in more than $90 million worldwide. But just as the images of the fictional Lee seesaw between reality and illusion, unity and multiplicity, perception and deception, the figure of Bruce Lee remains as elusive and contradictory in real life as he was in that hall of mirrors on the big screen. Hometown hero or global icon, Chinese nationalist or universal humanist, disciple of kung fu or heretic, ascetic or hedonist, devoted father and husband or playboy: the iconic martial arts practitioner and pop-culture hero vacillated between being all of these and none.

Take, for example, the question of what country can rightly claim him as its own. Hong Kong loves its native son, who grew up in the colony and in the 1970s became the first global Chinese superstar. A bronze statue of the martial artist and actor holds pride of place on the Avenue of Stars on the Kowloon waterfront, where tourists flock to strike martial arts poses for photographs framed by the blue waters of Victoria Bay and the soaring downtown skyline. The Bruce Lee: Kung Fu, Art, Life exhibit mounted at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in 2013 told the story of a local boy and child movie star who learned Wing Chun style of kung fu and fought atop rooftops, decamped to the United States for a few years, then returned to Hong Kong to become Asias biggest movie star and win worldwide acclaim.

Chinese America also loves its native son, who was born in San Francisco in 1940, worked as a busboy in a Chinese restaurant while attending a technical school in Seattle, developed a reputation as a martial artist in Oakland, and struggled to make a name for himself in Hollywood. On the Bruce Lee walking tour of Seattle, sightseers visit the playground where the young martial artist worked out and dined on his favorite dish of beef with oyster sauce at Tai Tung, his favorite Chinese restaurant. The Do You Know Bruce? exhibit at the Wing Luke Museum in 2015 traced Lees Seattle roots and stressed his development as a martial artist, teacher, and actor on the US West Coast. Yet neither of these two competing local storiesof a Hong Kong boy who ventured out into the world or a Chinese immigrant struggling to make it in the United Statescaptures what is most compelling about this iconic figure.