By Jean Lukitsh | Published July 9, 2008

No one defines kung fu cinema better than Bruce Lee. Thirty-five years after his untimely death, he remains the most easily identifiable martial artist in the world. Hipsters and geeks, rappers and jocks, high brow and low brow – everyone identifies with his attitude, his skills, his pure dominance of kung fu cool. The handful of feature films he made in the early 1970s are still revered and referenced as the best examples of real fighting art ever seen in the movies.

Bruce Lee (right) and Yee Chau-shui in THE KID (1950).

Lee was born in 1940 and grew up in the Hong Kong film industry, making almost two dozen films, from JIN MEN NU in 1941, when he was just a baby, to 1960’s THE ORPHAN, as a child actor. In some of these films, he was just a minor supporting actor, but in others he was the star. His first major role came in 1950, with THE KID, an adaptation of a newspaper comic strip. It was directed by Fung Fung, who also played the charismatic gangster who leads Lee’s character, Ah Cheung, into the criminal life, much to the dismay of the kid’s uncle, played by Yee Chau-shui. Bruce Lee’s father, Lee Hoi-chuen, plays a miserly rich man who oppresses the poor people of the neighborhood.

Lee Hoi-chuen (1898-1965) was a Cantonese opera performer who specialized in clown (chou) roles. In addition to his stage work, he also appeared in almost one hundred films, ranging from opera to melodrama to comedy. Shortly before the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, he directed a film adaptation of a play called FEED THE SCHOLAR, after touring in the stage production for twenty years. The war prevented the film’s release until 1947. By that time, some of the footage had gone missing and had to be reshot. It appears to have been his only directorial effort on film.

Left: Promotional magazine for INFANCY (1951). Right: Bruce Lee (center) in INFANCY.

Bruce Lee was in demand throughout the 1950s as one of Hong Kong’s top child actors. He was typically cast in melodramas that preached thrift and discipline to parents or demonstrated the sorry plight of the poor. INFANCY, in 1951, was made for the Grandview Film Company, and took the moralistic approach. Eleven year old Bruce played Ngau Tsai, a poor youngster who is indifferent to his studies and drifts into a life of crime. For A SON IS BORN (1953), he played Tin-sun, an orphan who is bounced around multiple foster homes before finding shelter. In BLAME IT ON FATHER (1953), he played a bully; in AN ORPHAN’S TRAGEDY (1955), he played the son of a man falsely imprisoned. The two-part Grandview production LOVE (1955) featured the Cantonese opera superstars Ma Si-tsang and Hung Sin Nui, with Lee playing Ma’s son. The family is reduced by poverty to performing acrobatics and kung fu in the street.

Left: Bruce Lee (front row, right) in A HOME OF A MILLION GOLD (1953). Top right: Lee (center) in THE MORE THE MERRIER (1955). Bottom right: Advertising flyer for A SON IS BORN (1953).

LOVE was directed by Lee Tit, one of Hong Kong cinema’s most respected mid-century Cantonese filmmakers. Lee Tit was also responsible for IN THE FACE OF DEMOLITION (1953), a fine work of socially conscious storytelling. The ensemble cast portrayed the impoverished working class inhabitants of a crumbling tenement (the film was probably one of the inspirations for KUNG FU HUSTLE’s Pig Sty Alley). Bruce Lee was the dutiful oldest son of the poorest and most desperate family.

Bruce Lee (on left) in LOVE, PART 1 (1955).

THE ORPHAN (1960) was another film devoted to the struggles of the poor and unfortunate. Lee played Ah Sam, the titular orphan who is gradually forced into a life of crime. After completing THE ORPHAN, Bruce Lee left Hong Kong for the US, and the next phase of his career. When he came back to Hong Kong again, he would resume his Asian film career and the world would never be the same. But it’s easy to see the foundation for his mature characterizations – the tough, righteous loner who makes his own rules – in his early body of work.

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