Historical archive

Bruce Lee and the Hong Kong film explosion

Four finished films in two years made kung fu a word the whole world knew.

1971–1973

Original WABUKAN illustration (ink and wash), 2026. Shooting a kung fu film in a 1970s Hong Kong studio.

The story

Hong Kong had been making martial arts films for decades. From 1949 the actor Kwan Tak-hing played the real-life healer and fighter Wong Fei-hung in dozens of films, and in the 1960s the Shaw Brothers studio made sword epics such as Come Drink with Me (1966) and One-Armed Swordsman (1967). These films were popular across Asia, but almost unknown in the West.

Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco in 1940 and grew up in Hong Kong, where he was a child actor and studied wing chun under Ip Man. He moved to the United States in 1959, taught kung fu, played Kato in the TV series The Green Hornet (1966–67) and began to shape his own approach, which he named jeet kune do in 1967.

Back in Hong Kong he signed with the new Golden Harvest studio. The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972) and The Way of the Dragon (1972) broke local box-office records. Enter the Dragon was made by Warner Bros. together with Golden Harvest and Lee’s own company, Concord, bringing a Hollywood studio into Hong Kong action cinema. Lee died in Hong Kong on 20 July 1973, aged 32, weeks before it opened in cinemas. The film became a worldwide hit, and a wave of kung fu films followed him to the West.

Key dates

1949
First Wong Fei-hung film starring Kwan Tak-hing.
1966–1967
The Green Hornet on US television; Shaw Brothers’ new-style sword films.
1971
The Big Boss (Golden Harvest).
1972
Fist of Fury and The Way of the Dragon.
20.07.1973
Bruce Lee dies in Hong Kong.
1973
Enter the Dragon opens worldwide.

Myth and fact

Myth

Bruce Lee was killed by a secret “death touch” or by gangsters.

The official inquest found that he died of a swelling of the brain (cerebral oedema), and attributed it to a reaction to a painkiller. Other medical explanations have been suggested since, but none involves foul play.

Why it matters

Lee gave Asian heroes a leading place on Western screens and pushed fighters to cross-train long before MMA. His films sent millions of new students into kung fu, karate and taekwondo schools.

Images: public-domain or CC0 works credited under each picture, or original WABUKAN ink illustrations. Panels: the story told in numbered comic boxes.

Sources

Bruce Lee — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Enter the Dragon — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Golden Harvest — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Wong Fei-hung — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Shaw Brothers Studio — Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org

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