Not a good century for the Chinese. After dominating much of the past two millenniums in science and philosophy, they’ve spent the past 100 years being invaded, split apart and patronizingly lectured by the West. And, let’s face it, this communism thing isn’t working out either.

But in 1959 a short, skinny, bespectacled 18-year-old kid from Hong Kong traveled to America and declared himself to be John Wayne, James Dean, Charles Atlas and the guy who kicked your butt in junior high. In an America where the Chinese were still stereotyped as meek house servants and railroad workers, Bruce Lee was all steely sinew, threatening stare and cocky, pointed finger – a Clark Kent who didn’t need to change outfits. He was the redeemer, not only for the Chinese but for all the geeks and dorks and pimpled teenage masses that washed up at the theaters to see his action movies. He was David, with spin-kicks and flying leaps more captivating than any slingshot.

He is the patron saint of the cult of the body: the almost mystical belief that we have the power to overcome adversity if only we submit to the right combinations of exercise, diet, meditation and weight training; that by force of will, we can sculpt ourselves into demigods. The century began with a crazy burst of that philosophy. In 1900 the Boxer rebels of China who attacked the Western embassies in Beijing thought that martial-arts training made them immune to bullets. It didn’t. But a related fanaticism – on this side of sanity – exists today: the belief that the body can be primed for killer perfection and immortal endurance.

Lee never looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger or achieved immortality. He died at 32 under a cloud of controversy, in his mistress’s home, of a brain edema, which an autopsy said was caused by a strange reaction to a prescription painkiller called Equagesic. At that point, he had starred in only three released movies, one of which was unwatchably bad, the other two of which were watchably bad. Although he was a popular movie star in Asia, his New York Times obit ran only eight sentences, one of which read “Vincent Canby, the film critic of the New York Times, said that movies like Fists of Fury make ‘the worst Italian western look like the most solemn and noble achievements of the early Soviet Cinema.’”

What Canby missed is that it’s the moments between the plot points that are worth watching. It was the ballet of precision violence that flew off the screen; every combination you can create in Mortal Kombat can be found in a Lee movie. And even with all the special-effects money that went into “The Matrix,” no one could make violence as beautiful as Lee’s. He had a cockiness that passed for charisma. And when he whooped like a crane, jumped in the air and simultaneously kicked two bad guys into unconsciousness, all while punching out two others mostly offscreen, you knew the real Lee could do that too.

He spent his life turning his small body into a large weapon. Born sickly in a San Francisco hospital (his father, a Hong Kong opera singer, was on tour there), he would be burdened with two stigmas that don’t become an action hero: an undescended testicle and a female name, Li Jun Fan, which his mother gave him to ward off the evil spirits out to snatch valuable male children. She even pierced one of his ears, because evil spirits always fall for the pierced-ear trick. Lee quickly became obsessed with martial arts and body building and not much else. As a child actor back in Hong Kong, Lee appeared in 20 movies and rarely in school. He was part of a small gang that was big enough to cause his mother to ship him to America before his 18th birthday so he could claim his dual-citizenship and avoid winding up in jail. Boarding at a family friend’s Chinese restaurant in Seattle, Lee got a job teaching the Wing Chun style of martial arts that he had learned in Hong Kong. In 1964, at a tournament in Long Beach, Calif. – the first major American demonstration of kung fu – Lee, an unknown, ripped through black belt Dan Inosanto so quickly that Inosanto asked to be his student.

Shortly after, Lee landed his first U.S. show-biz role: Kato in The Green Hornet, a 1966-67 TV superhero drama from the creators of Batman. With this minor celebrity, he attracted students like Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to a martial art he called Jeet Kune Do, “the way of the intercepting fist.” Living in L.A., he became the vanguard on all things ‘70s. He was a physical-fitness freak: running, lifting weights and experimenting with isometrics and electrical impulses meant to stimulate his muscles while he slept. He took vitamins, ginseng, royal jelly, steroids and even liquid steaks. A rebel, he flouted the Boxer-era tradition of not teaching kung fu to Westerners even as he hippily railed against the robotic exercises of other martial arts that prevented self-expressive violence. One of his admonitions: “Research your own experiences for the truth. Absorb what is useful…Add what is specifically your own…The creating individual…is more important than any style or system.” When he died, doctors found traces of marijuana in his body. They could have saved some money on the autopsy and just read those words.

Despite his readiness to embrace American individuality and culture, Lee couldn’t get Hollywood to embrace him, so he returned to Hong Kong to make films. In these films, Lee chose to represent the little guy, though he was a very cocky little guy. And so, in his movies, he’d fight for the Chinese against the invading Japanese or the small-town family against the city-living drug dealers. There were, for some reason, usually about 100 of these enemies, but they mostly died as soon as he punched them in the face. The plots were uniform: Lee makes a vow not to fight; people close to Lee are exploited and killed; Lee kills lots of people in retaliation; Lee turns himself in for punishment.

The films set box-office records in Asia, and so Hollywood finally gave him the American action movie he longed to make. But Lee died a month before the release of his first U.S. film, Enter the Dragon. The movie would make more than $200 million, and college kids would pin Lee posters next to Che Guevara’s. In the end, Lee could only exist young and in the movies. Briefly, he burst out against greater powers before giving himself over to the authorities. A star turn in a century not good for the Chinese.

The legendary hero, Bruce Lee, was born on 27th November, 1940 at the Jackson Street Hospital in San Francisco Chinatown. His real name was Jun Fan Lee. With love his parents called him Sai Fung. His father’s name was Lee Hoi Chuen. When Bruce Lee was born his father was performing with the Cantonese Opera Company in America. Bruce debuted at the age of three months in “Golden Gate Girl” in San Francisco, CA. He played a role of a female baby, carried by his father. In 1941, His parents returned to there hometown Kowloon, Hong Kong. Bruce Lee entered movies when he was just three years old, with the professional name Li-Siu-Lung, means Little Dragon. His first movie was The Beginning of a Boy. He later did The Birth of Mankind, and My Son, Ah Cheun. In the later years of his childhood, he appeared in 20 more films in Asia. In these films, Bruce’s vivid facial expressions begin to develop, and they foreshadow his future expressions in his famous Gung-Fu movies.

At the age of 12, Bruce began to attend La Salle College. In 1953 Bruce Lee started taking Gung-Fu Lessons. He began his training under Sifu Yip Man, a master of the wing chun system of gung-Fu. In 1954, Bruce Lee started learning Cha-cha dance and won the Crown colony Cha-Cha Championship in 1958, he was 18 years old. In 1958 only he did his last movie as a child actor was The orphan, he got the leading role in the movie. This was the only movie where Bruce didn’t fight. In the same year Bruce Lee entered Boxing Championships and defeats the reigning three year champion, Gary Elms.In 1959, Bruce’s father and mother decided to send Bruce to the United States, because of numerous street fighting, which caused police involvement. The trip was possibly to get him back on the right track. He started working as a waiter in for his father’s old friend Ruby Chow restaurant. He lived in a room above her restaurant. He eventually enrolls in Edison Technical School and earned his high school diploma. Bruce started teaching his Martial Art skills in backyards and city parks.

In 1961, Bruce enrolled himself at the University of Washington, to study Philosophy. He continued teaching his Martial Art to school students. In 1963, he started his first jun Fan Gung-Fu institute, after giving notice to Ruby Chow. In1964 at the age 24 Bruce met Jhoon Rhee at the International Karate Championships. Jhoon Rhee will invite Bruce to Washington, D.C. to appear at tournaments. Bruce started his second Jun Fan Gung-Fu Institute in Oakland, CA. His good friend, Taky Kimura, takes over as head instructor.

On 2nd August 1964 was invited to Long Beach, CA by Ed Parker, known as the Father of American Karate (Kenpo), to give a demonstration. Bruce showed off his “one-inch punch,” and his two-finger push-ups. He married Linda on 17th August, 1964 at the age of 24. On 1st February,1965 Brandon Bruce Lee was born in Oakland, CA. Bruce’s father passed away in Hong Kong on February 8,1965. In 1966 Bruce and family moved to Los Angeles where he worked in a new TV series called The Green Hornet as Kato. He opened his third branch of the Jun Fan Gung-Fu Institute in Los Angeles’ Chinatown in 1967. On April 19, 1969 Shannon Lee was born in Santa Monica, CA.

In1973 Warner Bros. signed Lee to star in his signature film, Enter the Dragon, which made money by the truckload. He made his directorial debut in what many consider his best film, 1973’s Return of the Dragon. It was the last movie Bruce Lee as an actor could complete. While in Hong Kong filming The Game of Death, Lee collapsed on the set, apparently suffering an epileptic seizure. After taking a pain killer, Lee fell asleep—and never woke up. Rumors still persist that Bruce Lee was killed by a group of kung fu experts who resented the actor’s exposing their “trade secrets” to the world. Whatever the circumstances of his death, Bruce Lee’s legend did not die with him. On July 25th,1973 at the age of 33 – A funeral ceremony was held for friends and fans in Hong Kong consisting of over 25,000 people. Bruce was dressed in the Chinese outfit he wore in Enter the Dragon. In 1973 (July 30)- After a smaller second ceremony in Seattle, Washington at Butterworth Funeral Home on East Pine Street, Bruce Lee was buried at Lake View Cemetery. His pallbearers included Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Danny Inosanto, Taky Kimura, Peter Chin, and his brother, Robert Lee. In 1973 August 24 – Enter The Dragon was premiered at Graumann’s Chinese Theater. The movie was a success, and Bruce Lee achieves world-wide fame.

In a grimly ironic twist, Bruce Lee’s son, actor Brandon Lee, likewise died under mysterious circumstances while making a film in 1993.