In an all too brief life (1940-1973), Bruce Lee sure got a lot done. He popularized Chinese martial arts to the Western public and broke down the barriers keeping non-Chinese from being taught kung fu; he brought innovation and cross-training to traditional martial arts, giving them fresh new life. And he reshaped action films with a handful of movies that today, thirty years later, are still amazing to watch and which opened the way for other Asian actors to become international stars..
The man was no saint or perfect Zen master but a complicated, sometimes self-destructive human being. (I wonder if he might be alive today, teaching and writing, if he had not pushed himself quite so ruthlessly.) Still, there is something fascinating about a flame that burns so brightly that it quickly goes out. When I first saw his movies back in 1973, it was just after he had died.... but he seems more alive up on the screen even now than many of the people you meet face to face every day.