"It is not how much you have learned, but how much you have absorbed in what you have learned." (Bruce Lee)
Bruce Lee flew to Thailand in July 1971 to start filming the first of his two movies for Golden Harvest entitled, "The Big Boss." The cast and crew returned back to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong on September 3rd, 1971 to a mass group of reporters. Apparently, there had been reports that Director Lo Wei and Bruce had been arguing a lot on the set but they both explained that they were friends and it was only over artistic differences for the good of the picture. In private Bruce didn't like Lo and after his two film contract was over, he wouldn't work with Lo Wei again.
On the 7th September, Bruce returned back to the U.S. to complete his final three appearances for the Longstreet televison series. While Bruce was in Thailand, Paramount had been sending faxes through to Golden Harvest for Bruce. "It's funny," Bruce laughed later, "when Paramount sent telegrams for me, the Hong Kong producers thought I was an important star. My prestige must have increased three times."
"The Big Boss" premiered in Hong Kong in October, 1971 and it's astonishing success even surpassed Bruce's own expectations when his debut movie smashed all existing box-office records in Hong Kong (taking $3.2 million in 19 days).
That same month, Bruce started work on his second film, "Fist of Fury" which was to feature his Oakland JKD student Bob Baker playing the role of the Russian martial artist. When filming finished in December 1971, Bruce was anxiously awaiting an answer from Warner Bros. about a series to be called "The Warrior." Bruce had helped develop the story which later became the world wide hit television show, "Kung Fu" which starred David Carradine. On December 7th, 1971 Warners informed Bruce that he was not chosen to appear in the new series. Therefore, Bruce decided that same month to form his own film company with partner Raymond Chow, this was "Concord Productions."
Lo Wei wanted to direct Bruce in a third movie entitled, "Yellow-Faced Tiger" (this was later released as "A Man called Tiger" with Jimmy Wang Yu) but after Wei's no proper script details, Bruce decided that he would write and direct his own picture. He spent a lot of time reading all types of film making books and by April 1972 had a script ready entitled, "The Way of the Dragon." His friend and former student, Chuck Norris was to appear as the main martial arts opponent in the movie and their finale in the Rome Colosseum has been widely regarded as the greatest on-screen martial arts fight of all time. The Hong Kong crew flew out to Rome on May 4th and within two weeks they were flying back. Bruce worked tirelessly on this movie and seemed to be in happy spirits and in my opinion this movie features the best martial arts sequences that Bruce Lee ever put down on celluloid. He looks like he's floating a few inches above the ground in these fight scenes which have yet to be surpassed even 30 years after his untimely passing.
"Fist of Fury' opened on March 22nd, 1972 and went on to smash the record set by "The Big Boss" (taking $4.5 million). In the Philippines, it ran for over six months with full capacity, until the government had to pull it as to protect their domestic producers. Bruce was now undoubtedly the 'King of Hong Kong' and was receiving offers from everywhere. He was given cheques by total strangers for thousands of dollars. When Bruce asked why, they would just say it's a gift. Bruce did destroy the cheques but he became suspicious of old pals and didn't know who to trust. Bruce said, "I was in a period when i didn't know who was trying to take advantage of me."
In August as he completed the dubbing for "The Way of the Dragon," he helped his friend Unicorn Chan by doing some fight scenes for his new movie, "Fist of the Unicorn" (aka "Unicorn Palm"). That same month he started working on his ideas for his second Concord movie that was to be eventually entitled, "The Game of Death." The movie was eventually released in 1978 but only showed around 12 minutes of the original footage. Bruce Lee shot many hours of footage and sadly some remains unseen to this day (please watch the documentary "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey" to see most of the original footage Bruce filmed for his pagoda finale). Bruce shot scenes with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Dan Inosanto in September and Hapkido Grandmaster Ji Han Jae in October 1972. The same month he finalized his new film contract in the U.S. This was to be "Enter the Dragon."
In December 1972, Grandmaster Ip Man (Bruce's Wing Chun teacher) died and Bruce made a late night visit to pay his respects. On the 31st, "The Way of the Dragon" opened and smashed the record set by "Fist of Fury." The Warners crew arrived in Hong Kong in January, 1973 and Bruce finally started filming "Enter the Dragon" on February 1st after temporarily stopping filming for "The Game of Death" which was only half-finished.
In April after completion of "Enter the Dragon," Bruce returned to "The Game of Death" but tragedy struck on May 10th, 1973. While Bruce was dubbing his voice for "Enter the Dragon" he went to a rest room and promptly collapsed. A Golden Harvest employee found him on the floor searching for his glasses and when they took him back to the dubbing room he collapsed again and went into convulsions. Raymond Chow was informed and he was sent to Baptist hospital. He was prescribed Manitol and after a couple of hours returned back to normal. The doctors said he was very close to death. Bruce went to the U.S. for a thorough examination and the doctors said he had the body of an 18 year old.
He did a series of costume sessions for "Shaw Bros." for a movie he was considering in doing and was getting offers from everywhere. One contract which interested Bruce was to do another film for 'Warners' and on completion he or any member of his family would receive US$100,000 every year until they died. In an article in "The China Mail" on June 28th, Bruce commented, "It gives me security in the years ahead and makes taxation much easier. Besides, it doesn't bar me from working with any other studio." On July 10th, Bruce had a run in with Director Lo Wei and the police were called to the Golden Harvest studios. On Hong Kong television that same night he was quizzed about the incident and demonstrated a simple shoulder power move on the presenter. The presenter went flying and the next day, the press rounded up on Bruce and called him a big bully. Unfortunately Bruce died ten days later on July 20th, 1973 at the apartment of Betty Ting Pei at 67 Beacon Hill Road, Kowloon. He was only 32 years old!!
Picture Below - Bruce being interviewed from his final appearance on Hong Kong television ( July 10th, 1973 )
