‘The Bruce Lee Code’: Martial artist a winner in business, too
Brandon Yu March 28, 2023 Updated: March 28, 2023, 8:56 am
Author Thomas Lee considers Bruce Lee’s life through his entrepreneurial streak in “The Bruce Lee Code: How the Dragon Mastered Business, Confidence & Success.”
Photo: Felix Uribe/Special to The Chronicle
As a young Chinese boy growing up in Boston, Thomas Lee had a conflicted relationship with Bruce Lee. While the Asian celebrity became a global icon that embodied cool indomitability, for Thomas he was simply the source for playground taunts.
“I didn’t particularly care for him,” said the former Chronicle columnist, who had the added target of sharing the same last name of the star, as he spoke recently from his home in Oakland. “It was kind of a source of shame.”
It wasn’t until decades later, during the pandemic, when he was asked to help put together “We Are Bruce Lee: Under the Sky, One Family,” a Bruce Lee exhibition for the Chinese Historical Society of America, that Thomas began to consider him differently. The exhibit is a belated first ever in the history of San Francisco, the city where Bruce Lee was born (the Chinese Hospital his mother gave birth at is just a three-minute walk from the museum).
Thomas Lee admires a mural at the “We Are Bruce Lee” exhibition in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The display inspired him to look at the actor differently.
Photo: Felix Uribe/Special to The Chronicle
As an adult, Thomas began appreciating the movie star’s remarkable life, and particularly in a time of rising anti-Asian hate, the strength and unity he often symbolized. The late action hero was one of only a small handful of icons whose fandom reached across all demographics, and whose name has become a brand that has lasted for decades, despite his early death in July 1973 (its cause is still debated) at 32.
Visitors explore the “We Are Bruce Lee” exhibition in Chinatown on Clay Street.
Photo: Felix Uribe/Special to The Chronicle
It was a level of fame that Thomas realized the actor had actively built as a visionary and architect of his own star power. In “The Bruce Lee Code: How the Dragon Mastered Business, Confidence & Success,” the longtime business journalist considers his subject’s life specifically through his entrepreneurial streak, a framework that, for all Bruce Lee’s enduring popularity, is often overlooked.
“You ask anyone you know: ‘Do you like Bruce Lee?’ They’re like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s really cool,’ ” Thomas said. “Well, why do you like him? ‘Because he kicks ass.’ And that’s all they could really say.”
“The Bruce Lee Code” by Thomas Lee
Photo: Career Press
Bruce Lee, though, as Thomas’ book traces, was determined and conscious of how to cultivate his stardom, starting with “My Definite Chief Aim,” the mission statement he wrote in 1969 declaring his intention to become the highest paid Asian star in America and achieve “world fame” as an actor. Soon after, he would go on to form his own production company, Concord Productions, at a time when it was largely unthinkable for stars to do so.
“He did this in 1972 in Hong Kong — not only one of the first actors to do it, but also a person of color,” Thomas said. “That allowed him to gain financial, artistic control over his work. Without it, he probably wouldn’t have been able to negotiate the deal he did with Warner Bros. to finance and release his greatest movie, ‘Enter the Dragon.’ ”
The title of the iconic film, the author noted, was a mark of his understanding of branding: The Dragon is not a reference to any part of the film, but rather one of the actor’s famous monikers.
“Nowadays, you can get famous just by uploading some content. But everything about him was from the ground up,” Thomas said. “He built his brand, and he was always brand cautious.”
Before Hollywood, Bruce Lee opened martial arts schools, starting in Oakland, to promote and proliferate his brand of kung fu, jeet kune do. By the time of his death, he was exploring merchandising deals and was careful how his roles would be perceived by Eastern and Western audiences alike.
“I think the brand of Bruce Lee was in his DNA,” said Jane Chin, the project lead who worked with Thomas on the Chinese Historical Society’s Bruce Lee exhibit. “His father was an opera star … his parents put him in films as an infant, so he was in various movies during his childhood. Then he became a cha-cha star, a champion (in Hong Kong). He already knew that the image of a person and the physical movement as part of image was important.”
Shannon Lee (left), daughter of the late Bruce Lee, is introduced to guests who awaited her arrival at the Chinese Historical Society of America in February 2022 as she stands beside Jane Chin, CHSA board member and “We Are Bruce Lee” exhibition project lead, Anthony Tsai, the exhibition consultant, and Justin Charles Hoover, executive director of CHSA.
Photo: Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle
For the book, Thomas interviewed Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, and various business executives about the actor’s influence on their careers. While the odds were stacked against him as an Asian actor in a predominantly white entertainment industry, Thomas’ book notes, he used his cross-cultural identity to innovate within his films.
When Bruce Lee moved back to Hong Kong to jump-start his film career, “martial arts movies were chop suey-type stuff,” Thomas said. “There was just mindless action — entertaining, but there wasn’t any depth to it. The acting was bad, there was no story line. … He married the sort of storytelling, character-driven approach of Hollywood to this kinetic, exciting action format in Hong Kong, and the result was something that elevated the martial arts genre.”
For all of Bruce Lee’s obsession with finding success in Hollywood, though, his pursuit also served a larger mission: to integrate East and West and to “spread this message about the richness of Chinese culture, but also specifically how martial arts is more than just fighting, (it’s) a way of living,” Thomas said.
Former San Francisco Chronicle columnist and author of the upcoming book “The Bruce Lee Code: How the Dragon Mastered Business, Confidence & Success” visits the “We Are Bruce Lee” exhibition in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Photo: Felix Uribe/Special to The Chronicle
In some ways, Bruce Lee succeeded. His teachings and philosophies around martial arts continue to inspire countless people, achieving remarkable durability with a film career that spanned just five films. How much larger, or smaller, would his influence have been had he lived longer?
“Maybe the stardom would’ve faded,” said Chin. “Maybe the fad for kung fu would’ve faded and he would’ve become a different type of entrepreneur, different type of brand. But I think that he was smart enough, had the vision and the focus to know if it’s time to turn left.”
Indeed, “it would have been interesting to see if he could somehow transcend that martial arts genre and actually become a respected actor that didn’t do flying kicks and jumps,” Thomas said. What if, in short, he didn’t just kick ass? Considering Bruce Lee’s entrepreneurial foresight in his 20s, the author imagines he might have moved into a greater role of power behind the camera.
“It’s fun to imagine what he could have done, but sad because it reminds you of perhaps what was lost,” Thomas said, “the potential that was lost dying at such a young age.”
More Information
The Bruce Lee Code: How the Dragon Mastered Business, Confidence & Success
By Thomas Lee
(Career Press; 224 pages; $16.95)
Thomas Lee in conversation with David R. Baker: In person and live stream. 7 p.m. Monday, April 3. Free. Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 Ninth Ave., S.F.
www.greenapplebooks.com
“The Bruce Lee Code” Book Launch Party with Thomas Lee: 5-7 p.m. Friday, April 7. Free. Chinese Historical Society, 965 Clay St., S.F. chsa.org
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by GeneChing
