The Littlest Dragon: Bruce Lee in ‘The Kid’ (1950)

Features | Electric Shadows | by Jean Lukitsh

THE KID, aka MY SON A-CHANG (1950). Directed by Fung Fung. Starring Bruce Lee, Lee Hoi-chuen, Yee Chau-shui, Fung Fung.

Way back before Bruce Lee redefined action cinema almost forty years ago, he made movies in Hong Kong as a child star (see earlier post here). Most of these films were melodramas with social messages. There were no fight scenes, except for some rudimentary ones hardly more than scuffles. But watch one of these old tearjerkers unfold, and it’s hard to take your eyes off the future superstar. In THE KID, a nine-year-old Bruce holds the screen with his portrayal of a cocky slum dweller, an orphan taken in by a widowed uncle, played by Yee Chau-shui. Lee’s father Lee Hoi-chuen plays a wealthy miser who sets the plot in motion when he insincerely promises to build a school in the slum. He is persuaded to visit the neighborhood, where he and his daughter are mugged by a gang run by a local hood named Flash Blade Lee. Bruce’s character, a kid named A-chang, is dazzled by the outlaws and helps Flash Blade escape.

Left: Bruce Lee (on right) in THE KID. Right: Lee Hoi-chuen (Bruce Lee’s father).

THE KID was directed by Cantonese opera veteran Fung Fung. If you’ve seen Jackie Chan’s YOUNG MASTER (1980), you’ve seen Fung Fung in the role of the older bad guy with the twisted face who gives Jackie the nicotine-spiked water in the final fight. He was injured in 1949, resulting in the facial deformity, but he continued to act in character parts. A son and a daughter followed him into the film industry: stunt performer Fung Hak-on (also featured in YOUNG MASTER) and former child star Fung Bo-bo. In THE KID, director Fung Fung also plays Flash Blade Lee, A-chang’s flawed hero. He eventually sacrifices himself to give his young protege a new start.

The version of THE KID currently available on DVD from Pearl City (under the alternate title MY SON A-CHANG) is probably the newly restored but incomplete version the Hong Kong Film Archive recently compiled from several damaged prints. After watching the DVD and comparing it with the synopsis on the HKFA site, it seems that at least one reel is missing – the story jumps ahead a couple of times and several plot points are left unresolved. But the existing footage is in good shape and the acting is top-notch. The story is in the tradition of socially aware educational dramas beloved of reformers, with a whiff of left-wing morality in its sympathetic treatment of the factory workers. Politics aside, the film’s heart is with its anti-heroes. Flash Blade Lee and his people are the coolest dudes in the ‘hood. No wonder the kids idolize them.

In the clip below, A-chang (Bruce Lee) comes back to the streetside book stall run by his uncle, after Flash Blade Lee has adopted him and taught him to live by theft. The actor playing his uncle, Yee Chau-shui, has a natural rapport with Bruce in this scene. And Bruce is very affecting as his tough-guy mask slips to show the little boy behind it.

Originally posted on August 28, 2007.