Now remember this is in the day before VHS and well..cable as we only had some 13 channels to choose from at home..so a second feature at the ol drive-in could be well anything...so we got a movie that was some 7 yrs old as the second feature...Enter The Dragon...i was wowed out of my seat at seeing this Chinese guy who was well...its undescribable really...ok...HE WAS FAST AS FRICKIN HELL!!!!!! He was kicking the snot out of everything that moved and was a man of few words but lots of feet and frickin foot... i was impressed (I thought Jim Kelly was cool too...was pissed off when they killed him off ...) and well sorry Clint...i forgot all about you and the monkey like well...quickly...i had to know more about this Bruce Lee dude...
Then my Dad made my jaw drop...
"Bud...Mr Bruce has been dead for some 6-7 yrs."
"But Dad we just watched him up on the screen...i saw him...this movie must be new!"
"No little man....this flick is 6-7 yrs old as well..."
Still...i had to know more...thank god for the invention of the Betamax and well...the VHS..we had been posted to Edmonton in 81...a year later Dad brought home a Beta and the first movie i ever rented was "Cannonball Run" which also introduced my world to Jackie Chan..and then the frustriation that almost NONE of his flicks were available at that time in North America on either Beta or VHS...none that i could find anyways...
But now i could see more Bruce Lee...that next weekend...Fists of Fury/ Chinese Connection/ Return of the Dragon (W/ a young Chuck Norris..) and Game of Death all came home with me to our basement in Edmonton...i was hooked...i noticed he looked a little funny in Game of Death...little did i know at that time that the movie was completed in stand-in's that looked nothing like Bruce (Was Bruce Li that frickin busy??) including a shot of Bruce's face attached to a mirror with a stand in behind it...Robb shakes head...
I rented them all over and over (Well till i bought them...on VHS and replaced on DVD) i watched every documentary and every Bruceploitation flick i could find...yes i realized it was not him...but i wanted it to be him..if that makes any sense i don't know...man some of those flicks were insane...Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave...The Clones of Bruce Lee and well my fav was Bruce Lee: The Man The Myth....of course that left the image in my young head that Bruce did nothing but make flicks and get in scraps everyday of his adult life...of course the end of that flick also said that Bruce faked his death... was now a recluse and was preparing to reappear in 1983...i waited too...see i believed anything i heard cause i thought the dude was that awesome...big disappointed when it was like Jan 1st 1984 and Bruce had not reappeared like the filmakers said he would...sigh...
Anyways to make a long story short...Happy Bday Mr Lee...whereever you are...
“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”- Bruce Lee
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