On the anniversary date of Bruce Lees death (July 20th, 1973) I thought it appropriate on many levels to post this clip of me playing Lee in the 2007 production of Lee/gendary which was presented at the First National Asian American Theater Festival in NYC. This is a clip of a re-enactment of the famous interview (and only English speaking interview with Lee) shot in Hong Kong, 1971 with Canadian journalist Pierre Berton. Bruce Lee was ahead of his time and fought discrimination in Hollywood and even points out that Asian stereotypes (at that time the term Oriental was not inappropriate--please dont use it now when referring to Asians!!) are out of date. Also, today James Garner passed away and he was one of Bruces martial arts students. You may or may now know Bruce had a small role in Garners Marlowe in 1969, where in true BL fashion, is a real scene stealer.. Rest in peace, James. Sorry to say Bruce, Asian stereotypes are alive and well. This week I have been reading all the posts about the controversial Seattle production of G & Ss The Makado which features 40 white performers all playing caricatured Japanese characters. Whether its a satire on the Victorian British or not people: ITS OFFENSIVE... The Makado producers keep saying to protesters you havent even seen the show.. the production images are enough!! What Asian American person wants to see a show whose production photos are the equivalent of a minstrel show?? Please.. this is such a tiring conversation.. 43 years ago when Bruce Lee gave this interview everyone (including Pierre Berton) thought that he was going to be the first Chinese actor to star in his own American television series (which was conceived by Lee and would star him) titled The Warrior, which later became the long running series Kung Fu starring the white actor, David Carradine (the lead character goes from being Chinese, to being half Chinese, with the casting of a caucasian actor playing the bi-racial Shaolin monk Kwai Chang Caine *cough* The Engineer/Jonathon Pryce Miss Saigon *cough*) Well, just a few days before this interview, Bruce Lee FOUND OUT that he was not cast and even when Pierre asks him about it, he doesnt uncover the truth that they passed casting him on to a white man, because he was Too Chinese looking (even though he was 1/4th German) and they didnt think America was ready for a Chinese male lead actor.. Even though it had leaked to America and China, Lee just carries on when asked about that project and says if you were to ask me 40 years ago whether a Chinese guy would star in a lead role on television in America, I might think that was a dream. But I think now Maybe, man. As an aside in terms of the question about his marketability, as many now know, Enter the Dragon starring Lee, was a big hit and at the time of its opening, beat out The Sound of Music. And is now a timeless classic. Take THAT Hollywood!! Thank you for the good fight Bruce. But we still have a ways to go.. Shout outs and credits: Lee/gendary written by Derek Nguyen Directed by Suzi Takahashi Music by Jen Shyu additional music by Adam Rogers Pierre Berton: Jim Huffman With: Ariel Shepley-McTaggart, Shing Ka, Pai-Sen Wang, Victoria Linchong Also: Rafael Kayanan, Eric Jiaju Lee
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 19:56:04 +0000
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