Way of the dragon

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/07/2018 (2996 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Forty-five years after his shocking death at age 32, Bruce Lee remains a transcendent figure in the worlds of entertainment and martial arts around the world. His influence can be seen in blockbuster mainstream martial-arts movies as well as in “the octagon,” where mixed-martial arts fighters use many of the techniques pioneered and developed by Lee half a century ago.

With Bruce Lee: A Life, American author Matthew Polly presents a comprehensive, exhaustively researched biography, leaving no stone unturned in the search for the truth about a man who, since his death in 1973, has become more mythical every time his story has been told.

While he admits he is a fan of Lee, Polly doesn’t let his admiration for his subject blind him to his subject’s flaws. Lee is presented as driven, proud, focused, arrogant, a juvenile thug, a loyal friend, a perfectionist, ultra-competitive, overly sensitive, unforgiving, a serial philanderer and a family man.

Polly is a just as prone to include an interview in which Lee is described with glowing accolades as he is to quote someone who describes his subject as arrogant and self-centred.

He includes stories of Lee’s less-than-exemplary behaviour without passing judgment, just as he recounts Lee’s accomplishments without portraying him as some sort of superhuman.

The prejudice and discrimination experienced by Lee (born Lee Jun-fan in San Francisco to parents from Hong Kong) throughout his life, and how he refused to let it stand in the way of pursuing his goal of being “bigger than Steve McQueen,” is one of the prevailing themes of Bruce Lee: A Life.

The reader can’t help but be inspired by Lee’s perseverance and dedication to his goals in the face of the seemingly endless roadblocks he faced.

One amusing technique Polly uses to bring Lee’s story to life is quoting numerous interviews in which Lee is heard to speak in the vernacular of the late 1960s and early ’70s, when his everyday conversations were peppered with hip words of the day such as “groovy” and “dig it” without irony.

Polly’s dedication to uncovering truth shines in his detailed account of Lee’s final hours, the scandal surrounding his death, the superficial inquest which followed and the plausible theory — based on facts, not superstition or legend — as to the cause of Lee’s death. (Lee is thought to have died from a cerebral edema caused by a reaction to an ingredient in the analgesic Equagesic, but there are also stories of murder, a curse and more.)

If fault is to be found, it is with the density of this tome. At times it would seem Polly couldn’t bring himself to leave out even the most mundane detail or anecdote about his subject.

This overloading of details serves to bog down the narrative, and leave the reader wondering when it will move forward.

While at times unwieldy, Bruce Lee: A Life is a thorough warts-and-all telling of the life story of one of the most iconic figures of 20th-century pop culture, a man who to this day remains a hero to millions of people worldwide — and who, like most heroes, had feet of clay (very fast feet of clay, but feet of clay nonetheless).

Anyone wanting to find out the truth about a pioneer in martial arts and entertainment would do well to add it to their to-read list.

Gilbert Gregory is a Free Press copy editor who digs a good Bruce Lee movie.