The true strength of this film is how the filmmakers capture the emotions of the people they interviewed. There are some wonderful moments caught of the people who really knew Bruce, that the audience can't help but feel choked up watching them. By including both Bruce's wife Linda and his daughter Shannon, this movie also proves just how important not only Bruce was to his family, but his family was to Bruce. And here we see even further proof that Linda was the key to Bruce's success. She kept it all together and when he was gone, she kept his memory alive in the best way. To me, their involvement in this documentary makes it legitimate.
I Am Bruce Lee is a little different at first, but starts to make sense as you fall in line with the train of thought. I mean that in the beginning I thought the casting was a strange random mix, but at least the people they choose show the diversity of Bruce's reach by including dancers, fighters and other athletes and actors. The truth is there could have been 10x more people from an even more vast range of vocations. Enough people in the world have been influenced by Bruce Lee, that they could have easily made a tv series filled with interviewees.
The movie also featured an amazing collection of "home movies". We have seen glimpses of these before in other docs that were sanctioned by the family, but to me it is the other professional footage that is really great to see. We forget that there was more than just the 5 films and Green Hornet. Bruce did so much more work behind the scenes in Hollywood and so much as a child actor in Hong Kong. Its those clips of his cameos from tv shows like Longstreet along side the backyard footage of training James Coburn to help paint the picture of what life was like for the Lee's.
It is always powerful to hear the concepts and ideas from the man himself. Those classic interviews that Bruce did for tv talk shows and his Hollywood screen test show his true genius and star power. My hat is off the film's editor, who mixes Bruce's own words perfectly, using audio samples and text on screen, to drive the message home.
One last thing that I appreciate in I Am Bruce Lee is that it is the first doc that I have seen to breech a very sensitive topic. Is Bruce Lee the father of MMA and would he be happy about it? While it is not clear exactly how Bruce would feel about MMA and Jeet Kune Do role in its development, I think it is good to hear it discussed. The filmmakers do show just how against the traditional karate and martial arts tournaments Lee was and how he felt true fighting can only happen on the streets. I feel like he would be just as opposed to the UFC. On the other hand there was Lee's obsession with American boxing matches. While many of the people interviewed are part of the UFC and give Bruce Lee lots of the credit for inventing their sport, I'm not sure I agree. I feel like Bruce would be just as annoyed with the rules and regulations in MMA as he was with karate and all the other existing forms, but I guess we will never know for sure.
As you can see, I really enjoyed I Am Bruce Lee and highly recommend it to any martial artists and fans of martial arts movies. In all honesty, I think anyone who just knows Hollywood action films and has heard of Bruce Lee but may not have seen his movies would really benefit from sitting down and giving this doc a watch. And definitely watch the extras!
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