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QED International and Groundswell Productions have joined forces for Birth Of The Dragon, which will focus on Bruce Lee’s career-defining 1965 no-holds-barred TKO battle with kung fu master Wong Jack Man. Written by Oscar nominees Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen Rivele, the film focuses on the Oakland fight that launched Lee to martial arts stardom, which happened against the backdrop of the Hong Kong Triads’ criminal control of San Francisco’s Chinatown. The film will also detail a team-up between the two legends to take on the Triads. The fight with Jack Man was the last official one of Lee’s career before he headed into acting, competition and building his martial arts philosophy. “We’re excited to retell the fantastic origin story of the world’s most famous martial arts icon, which in the hands of Christopher and Stephen, lends itself to an action thriller we’re sure will enthrall movie fans around the world,” QED’s Bill Block said in a statement Tuesday. QED is financing the movie. The film will be produced by Block, Groundswell Productions CEO Michael London, Wilkinson and Rivele, and executive produced by Groundswell’s Kelly Mullen. Wilkinson and Rivele, who worked on Oliver Stone’s Nixon and Michael Mann’s Ali, also wrote the Mercury biopic about Queen frontman Freddie Mercury that Sasha Baron Cohen is set to star in for GK Films.
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This sounds so cool!
Wasn’t his origin story mostly covered in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) – Rob Cohen film…
20 years ago means no one in the current target audience has seen it…
That was a highly fictionalized account of the fight. And in that film, one would believe that Bruce injured his back as a result of that one-on-one battle, which is far from the truth. Bruce injured his lower back while weightlifting in his backyard. Further, there are indeed different accounts from witnesses as to what actually occurred during that fight (Rashomon, anyone??).
Hmmmm… doesn’t sound like the Bruce Lee estate is involved.
Kelly Mullen is one of the brightest young execs in the business. Incredibly smart, creative, and decent.
I’d say that that movie was more fiction than fact.
“The film will also detail a team-up between the two legends to take on the Triads.”
I’m no Bruce Lee expert, but this part sounds like make-believe.
Where is Shannon Lee’s name? You can’t make a Bruce Lee Movie without the estate. What’s going on? Is someone trying to rip off the Lee family while making a movie that honors Bruce Lee?
This can’t be.
Sounds like a DTV project at best. Lee fans have numerous biopics available, and I can’t see this one adding anything. The lack of involvement of Shannon Lee (which isn’t always a mark of quality – see that awful Chinese TV series that got cut into a film) seems to mark this as DOA.
Bravo Kelly Mullen! A badass project from a talented producer.
Fake Bruce Lee history? this is as bad as the explotation films of the 1970′s with Bruce Le,Bruce Li,Dragon Lee,etc.
I’m born and raised in Chinatown / North Beach, I’m not Asian but I started learning Martial Arts from a very young age (8 years old) from my Asian class mates. At that age they did not consider it Martial Arts as we do today, it was a exercise that there parents trained them to do not to physically fight or for there health.
OMG, once we got into Junior High School that changed immediately all the way to Galileo High School.
Junior High was every man, gang or friend for him self, double sticks, stars, swords, knife or guns, YMCA Chinatown fight, I was there on the Basketball Court / Galileo High School, Chinatown gangs can be found in news articles.
Now Bruce Lee was a very big part of Chinatown / North Beach, he was never apart of a gang but he would appear and kick ass at arrange secret gang fights, I know it was him and so did the Italians, Chinese, Mexicans along with a few Black people that was involved, he never lost and never backed away and actually he would send people running back to North Beach from Chinatown injured, yes I do remember him we use to call him a FOB, because FOB’S are come close to his skills
Sincerely,
John Harris
As A Bruce Lee Fan For years,Why wasn’t the truth of his death be known prior to now.Show Bruce, His Family and his Biggest Fans.The Respect Bruce Deserves..
any film that in any way attempts to depict bruce lee is doomed for failure, simply for the reason that there will never be another bruce lee. even if you found an actor that looked exactly like him, what is the likelihood that he will have the talent, skill, or martial arts background to even compare to the man? sounds to me like this is going to be essentially the return of the Brucesploitation era ala Bruce Li .
This fight was only important in terms of Bruce feeling he needed to change up his training with more cardiovascular type activity. He got winded chasing this joker around the room, finally getting him to the floor, mounting him and getting him to give up. So some people look at this as the birth of Jeet Kune Do (the intercepting fist) which saw Bruce adapting a more mobile boxing/fencing type of footwork. But this new thinking, “to intercept” your opponent (mentally or phyiscally) wouldn’t have changed the fact that Wong Jack Man ran away from him, thus not allowing him to “intercept”. Up to that point in Bruce’s life he was already very skilled at fighting using the Ving Tsun (wing chun) style recently made popular in the “Ip Man” films. Bruce just wanted to be the “best of the best”, and be able to beat the masters of the other martial arts styles at their own game, which is why he enjoyed getting Karate champions like Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis and Mike Stone as his students, to affirm that he was better than them. He certainly didn’t need anything other than his Ving Tsun skills to already beat the people he actually fought in his lifetime. According to Bruce’s students, the type of action you saw Bruce use in his films was nothing like the simplistic and direct methods he would use in a street encounter.
Bullseye! You do know a great deal about this man and I mean the real stuff …
I grew up watching Bruce Lee in the movies – awesome and special. The world did not truly know what we had back then. Even today 50 years Lee is still amazing to watch on screen so anything about him new or old is just great to see and read. My respects to the Lee family.
These producers of the movie should check out and read the recently published book, “Showdown in Oakland” , by R.Wing on amazon. the author is the number 1 student and is currently teaching for Wong Jackman and has been for at least a decade since Jackman retired. He personally interviewed Jackman as well as a couple witnesses to the fight and has much detailed, never before heard of details.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Shannon Lee last year at Martial Arts Central (MartialArtsCentral.com) regarding present and future Bruce Lee centered projects in the works. A good place to find out her thoughts if any on the film would be BruceLee.com (The official site).
I don’t understand why you won’t consider Shannon and Linda Lee as advisor s … Just asking .. Robert T