In the southern Chinese city of Shunde, a two-hour boat ride from Hong Kong, government officials are finalizing plans to build a Bruce Lee theme park, complete with a memorial hall and a large statue of the man they call the town's favorite "son."
Never mind that the legendary Chinese American kung fu star was born in San Francisco and visited Shunde only briefly, when he was a boy of 5. Shunde is the hometown of Lee's father and grandfather, and that was enough for local resident Wang Dechao to prod the government to plow $125,000 into opening a Bruce Lee museum in an old teashop in Shunde in 2002.
Since then, more than 300,000 people, some paying $1 for admission, have come to see its collection of Bruce Lee's rare letters, film posters and other memorabilia. Wang, who now works for Shunde's cultural and sports authority, hopes to move the museum to the new theme park, which he says is projected to cost $19 million and open before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
CCTV, China's national network, has plans to produce a 40-part documentary about Bruce Lee. Meanwhile, Bruce Lee's brother, Robert, is planning a movie about him, as is one of Lee's former students. They all have their sights set on completing the works by the Beijing Olympics.
"I believe we will see another round of Bruce Lee fever," Wang said.
Although he has been dead 33 years, Bruce Lee remains an enduringly powerful cultural figure. What if, people often ask, he hadn't died at age 32, barely a month before the release of his blockbuster film "Enter the Dragon"? Most believe that film would have catapulted him into the ranks of Hollywood's superstars. But what then?
It's a question that his widow, Linda Cadwell, 61, often asks herself. "I think about it a lot — what he missed," Cadwell said in a recent interview. "Professionally, I'm sure he probably would have stayed in the film industry and the performing industry, but maybe not always as an actor, because he loved to write." Then, pausing, she added that this year, "He would be 66."
When he died July 20, 1973, in Hong Kong, Lee left no will and was not a wealthy man. In those days, there weren't the movie-based action figures and video and computer games that line store shelves today. The estates of dead celebrities hadn't yet amassed the staggering licensing fees that they do today, when, say, Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe can generate millions annually. "In the early years, there really weren't things to license," Cadwell said. "There were key chains or a puppet doll that looked like Bruce," but little else.
Now, though, Bruce Lee would seem to be a natural as a brand name advertisers and vendors could use to sell products. Mark Roesler, chairman and chief executive of CMG Worldwide, the business agent for the heirs of more than 300 dead celebrities, estimates that Bruce Lee could generate yearly licensing fees in the seven-figure range.
Although Roesler doesn't represent Lee's estate, he sees the martial arts star's earning prospects as good. "He is an icon that is known throughout the world, and when you have someone like a Bruce Lee or a James Dean, someone who has a very strong name recognition, their myth and their legend seems to grow over the years and they can maintain a very consistent revenue source."
Indeed, although he achieved stardom three decades ago, Lee's fame has hardly dimmed. He is still regarded as one of the most influential martial artists of the 20th century, a precursor to kung fu stars such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chuck Norris. In his teens, he had formal martial arts training in Wing Chun kung fu under a master teacher in Hong Kong. Lee's style was known as Jeet Kune Do (Way of the Intercepting Fist). He was famous for a combat technique called the "one-inch punch."
But it was not only his skill at martial arts that won fans, Cadwell said, it was his philosophy and way of life.
Known far and wide
AROUND the world, his likeness has taken on a symbolic life of its own, even in places as far-flung as Mostar, Bosnia, where a life-size statue of Lee posed in a defensive fighting posture stands. The bronze statue, erected last year, serves as a symbol of healing ethnic tensions in a land that in the 1990s was racked by civil war among Muslims, Serbs and Croats.
"Because of the fighting that had gone on there, a lot of the monuments had been destroyed," said Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee, 37. "They wanted to put them back but there was a lot of disagreement about what representative … they should put up. Apparently, they could all agree on a statue of Bruce Lee. And the reason they chose him is not because he's a martial arts star, but he represents somebody who had a lot of ethnic struggle in his lifetime and overcame it. So, to them, he is a unifying force and representative of somebody who overcame that."
That kind of enduring resonance is why Cadwell and Shannon Lee are taking steps to ensure his reputation stays intact. That means no licensing of tobacco products, alcohol or weapons bearing his image. "There's a place for weapons" in martial arts training, Cadwell said, "but not these ninja stars."
"Basically, what we try to do is run the business with my father's legacy always in mind," said Shannon Lee, who is managing partner of Concord Moon, a Los Angeles-based limited partnership that owns all rights to Bruce Lee's name, likeness, trademarks and works. There is a satellite office in Hong Kong and there will be one soon in Beijing, so that anyone wanting to capitalize on Bruce Lee's name knows who to contact. Concord Moon's current plans for Bruce Lee-related entertainment projects include an animated television series, a CGI movie, an animated feature film, a live-action TV series, and a Broadway musical being developed by David Henry Hwang, whose "M. Butterfly" won a Tony Award in 1988 for best play.
Shannon Lee confirmed that Concord Moon has authorized the CCTV project but has not given its approval for any theme park and has not authorized Robert Lee's plans for a biopic. However, she noted that as Bruce Lee's brother he is free to do what he wants and that the family is not squabbling.
Li Cheng, executive director of J.A. Media in Beijing, which is producing the movie, wouldn't comment on whether Lee's widow and daughter had been consulted or whether they had authorized the production, saying only that "we don't want to film the story without his family's permission. In other words, we are open to discussing legal issues as well as suggestions on the movie."
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