Genre: Biography
Director: Raymond Yip, Manfred Wong
Cast: Aarif Lee, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Christy Chung, MC Jin, Michelle Ye, Jennifer Tse, Johnson Yuen, Wilfred Lau, Hanjin Tan, Gong Mi, Zhang Yishan, Chin Kar Lok, Cheung Siu Fai, Alex Man
RunTime: 2 hrs 9 mins
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films & Encore Films
Rating:PG (Some Fighting Scenes and Drug Use)
Official Website: http://www.encorefilms.com/bruceleemybrother

Opening Day: 25 November 2010

Synopsis:

Bruce Lee, My Brother is a dramatic biopic of the eponymous martial arts legend as told by his younger brother, Robert Lee. It revolves around Bruce Lee’s life as a rebellious adolescent in Hong Kong until he sets off for the USA and conquers the world at the age of 18 with only US$100 in his pocket.

His father a popular Cantonese opera singer who used to tour around the world with his family, Bruce Lee is born in San Francisco in 1940 during their US stop. The Lee family moves back to Hong Kong just months before the Japanese invasion in China and goes through the horrid 3 years and 8 months of Japanese occupation in Hong Kong.

Bruce is introduced to films soon after his birth by appearing in Golden Gate Girl in 1941 as an infant. He shoots to fame at the age of 9 by starring in The Kid with the stage name Lee Xiao-long (literally “Little Dragon”). As a teenager, he is not particularly good at school but is respected as a child actor who has worked in couple of movies.

As a young man, Bruce is something of a rebel who always finds himself engaging in street fights. His favorite pastime is hanging out in Chinese teahouses with his buddies, Kong and Unicorn, also a child actor who co-stars with him and will later appear in Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon. His recalcitrant way will eventually get him into trouble with the police, especially after numerous ruffles against foreigners in the then British colony.

Invincible as he is as a street fighter, Bruce’s romantic escapades are not as smooth and successful. He is head over heels smitten with Mandy only to realize his mate Kong shares the same passion as he asks him to win her heart for him. Meanwhile, another girl Monique has a crush on him and wants him for her dance partner in a Latin dance contest. Instead of accepting the offer, he enters the contest with his brother Robert and ends up snatching the top prize.

Against his father’s wishes, Bruce studies the Wing Chun martial arts style instead of Tai-chi and tastes his first “public” triumph by knocking out a Caucasian boxer at a tournament with his kung-fu skills. On the eve of his triumph, however, he learns that Kong has become a drug addict and decides to rumble the drug lord’s den together with Unicorn. This renders him the target of both the triads and corrupted cops who want him in jail. To save his life, Lee’s father has no choice but to send him off to San Francisco to pursue his studies.

And the rest is history…

Movie Review:

For many people around the world (including myself), Bruce Lee will always be the most iconic Hong Kong martial arts actor. Though he didn’t have a long martial arts filmography, those that he made during the peak of his popularity in the 1970s were enough to etch a lasting legacy on the genre, and forever inspire young people on the “way of the dragon”.

It’s not hard to see why that there has only been one big-screen biopic of him so far (the 1993 Hollywood movie starring Jason Scott Lee)- after all, it was and is never going to be easy to find someone who can portray Bruce Lee. Newcomer Aarif Lee does a fantastic job of that in “Bruce Lee My Brother”, the new big-screen biopic of the legend timed for release on his 70th anniversary. Indeed, the young singer/actor- fresh off his Hong Kong Film Awards 2010 Best Newcomer win for “Echoes of the Rainbow”-, is every bit the magnetic presence onscreen as one would have imagined Bruce Lee to be in real life.

Gone is the self-consciousness evident in Aarif’s screen debut; here he oozes charisma in every frame, whether playing Lee as the rebellious adolescent with the self-confident swagger and roguish charm during the icon’s better-known early years, or as the lesser-known love-struck teenager caught in a love triangle with one of his close friends. Aarif is also convincing enough when called upon to execute signature Lee-style fighting in “Fist of Fury” and “Way of the Dragon” for his bout with a gweilo boxer- complete with the yelping and yowing- and kudos to Aarif for doing so only six months after he started picking up martial arts for the role.

The fight is also an expression of Bruce Lee’s strong Chinese nationalism, crystallised according to the movie by his witness at a young age of his family’s humiliation under the Japanese Occupation and subsequently by the corrupt British colonial forces. Thankfully, writer and co-director Manfred Wong doesn’t resort to overly chest-thumping heroics to emphasise Bruce’s nationalistic fervour, a convenient manipulation that the Ip Man films have brought to Hong Kong period flicks. Instead, this is handled in the same dignified approach as Wong does with the other aspects of Lee’s early years, up till the age of 18 when he left for the States.

Whereas many biopics tend to end up vague by going off in various tangents around a person’s life, Wong’s script remains resolutely clear in its intentions. The first half of the movie is spent delineating with great detail the family Bruce was born into- his father the famous Cantonese opera singer Lee Hoi-Chuen- and his introduction to the acting world. Wong and co-director Raymond Yip’s approach to the latter is a glorious homage to the golden era of Hong Kong cinema in the 1950s, as they meticulously recreate scenes from these films (e.g. “The True Story of Wong Fei Hung”) and bring to life these classic actors from Hong Kong’s post-war cinema (e.g. Shek Kin, Walter Tso Tat-Wah, Ko Lo-Chuen and Leung Sing-Bo) whose legacy will always be remembered.

Bruce’s years growing up in a large family as the fourth of five children is also told with the utmost tenderness and nostalgia of a time when family was bigger but closer, and the joys of life were fewer but richer. Tony Leung Kar-Fai and Christy Chung (coming out of a six-year hiatus) give heartfelt performances as Bruce Lee’s parents, fierce but loving in their upbringing of each and every one of their children. Though this is a film about Bruce Lee, co-directors Wong and Yip show admirable restraint from inflating Bruce’s presence in their portrayal of the Lee family dynamics, choosing instead to give equal weight and importance to the rest of the family members.

Besides painting a portrait of Bruce as the playful teenager always fearful of his father’s discipline, the latter half of the film offers an equally rich perspective on his friendships. Wong and Yip spend some time setting up the camaraderie between Bruce and his three friends who nickname themselves “Tigers of Kowloon City”, but these scenes- while slightly over-long- eventually make the finale even more poignant. Though their veracity may be doubtful, Wong and Yip deserve praise for tying the many disparate events of Bruce’s life together into a coherent and purposeful whole leading up to his departure for the States.

As you may have guessed, this biopic ends before the point in his life where Bruce forged an illustrious martial arts career in the US, culminating of course in the development of the Jeet-Kune-Do style he was famous for. No, that would have to be in a different story- for now, “Bruce Lee My Brother” takes us further back into his childhood and adolescent years, a multifaceted portrayal of Bruce the child actor, rebellious teen, and loyal friend. Less is known about this aspect of his life compared to his later years, so even though this may not be the martial arts film that some must have been hoping for it to be, it is still a lively and engaging portrait of its eponymous subject, especially for those who have lived through the same era.

Movie Rating:



(It may lack physical kick by way of action, but this richly realised portrait of the early years of the legend exudes such vigour and verve that you’ll be hooked)

Reviewed by Gabriel Chong