This is the Pierre Berton Show: Bruce Lee - Mandarin Superstar
Production 1892, and recorded December 9th 1971
In Hong Kong.
Subtitles downloaded from www.OpenSubtitles.org
Bruce Lee faces a real dilemma. He's in the verge of the stardom in the United States,
with the projected TV series on the horizon, but he's just achieved super stardom
as a film actor here in Hong Kong.
So witch does he choose: The East or the West?
It's the kind of problem most of movie actors would welcome.
It's the Pierre Berton Show.
The program that comes to you from the major capitals of the world.
This edition comes to you from Hong Kong.
And Pierre's guest is the man who taught karate, judo and chinese boxing
to James Garner, Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin and James Coburn.
The newest mandarin superstar.
Known in the West for his appearances in 'Batman',
the 'Green Hornet', 'Ironside' and 'Longstreet'.
His name is Bruce Lee, and he doesn't even speak Mandarin.
But here's Pierre.
Well, how can you play in Mandarin movies if you don't even speak Mandarin?
Well, first of all, I speak only Cantonese.
So, I mean, there is quite a difference as pronunciation
and things like that is concerned.
So somebody else's voice is used right?
Definitely, definitely!!
So you just make the words
doesn't that sound strange when you go to the movies,
especially in Hong Kong, in your home town,
and you see yourself with somebody else's voice?
Well not really, you see, because
most of the mandarin pictures here are dubbed anyway.
They're dubbed anyway?
Anyway. I mean in this regard, they shoot without sound.
So it doesn't make any difference.
Your lips never quite make the right words, do they?
Yeah, well that's where the difficulty lies, you see.
I mean in order to....the Cantonese have a different way of saying things.
I mean different from the mandarin.
So I have to find, like, something similar to that in order
to keep a kind of a feeling going behind that.
Something, you know, matching the mandarin deal.
Does it sound complicated?
Just like in the silent picture days.
I gather that in the movies made here
the dialogue is pretty stilted anyway.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I mean, see, to me, a motion picture is motion.
I mean, you've got to keep the dialogue down to the minimum.
Did you look at many Mandarin movies
- before you started playing in your first one? - Yes.
What did you think of them when you saw them?
Quality wise, I mean, I have to admit
that it's not quite up to the standard.
However, it is growing and it is getting higher and higher
and going toward that standard that I would term quality.
They say the secret of your success in that movie, the 'Big Boss',
that was such a success here and rocketed you to stardom
in Asia, was that you did your own fighting.
As an expert in the various martial arts in China,
what did you think of the fighting that you saw in the movies
that you studied before you became a star?
Well, I mean, definitely in the beginning,
I had no intention whatsoever, that what I was practicing,
and what I'm still practicing now would lead to this, to begin with.
But martial art has had a very, very deep meaning
as far as my life is concerned because, as an actor, as a martial artist,
as a human being, all these I have learned from martial art.
Maybe for our audience who doesn't know what it means,
you might be able to explain what exactly you mean by martial art?
Right.
Martial art includes all the combative arts like Karate
- Judo - ...or Karate, Judo,
Chinese Gung-fu, or Chinese boxing, whatever you call it.
All those, you see, like, Aikido, Korean Karate, and on and on and on.
But it's a combative form of fighting.
I mean some of them became sport, but some of them art still not.
I mean some of them use, for intense, kicking to the groin,
jabbing fingers to the eyes, things like that.
No wonder you're successful in it!
The Chinese movies are full of this kind of action anyway
- they needed a guy like you! - Violence man!
So you didn't have to use a double
- when you moved into the motion picture role here. - No.
- You did it all yourself? - Right.
Can you break five or six pieces of wood with your hand or foot?
I'd probably break my hand and foot!
Tell me a little bit
- you set up a school in Hollywood didn't you? - Yes.
- For people like James Garner, Steve McQueen and the others. - Yes
Why would they want to learn Chinese martial art?
Because of a movie role?
Not really. Most of them you see to me at least, the way that I teach it,...
All types of knowledge ultimately means self-knowledge.
Therefore, these people are coming in and asking me to teach them,
not so much how to defend themselves, or how to do somebody in,
rather, they want to learn to express themselves through some movement,
be it anger, be it determination or whatever.
So, in other words, what I'm saying therefore, is
that they're paying me to show them, in combative form,
the art of expressing the human body.
Which is acting, in a sense, isn't it?
Well......
Or would be a useful tool for an actor....
It might sound too philosophical,
but it's unacting acting or acting unacting....if you know...
You've lost me!
I have huh?
So what I'm saying, actually, you see, it's a combination of both.
I mean here is natural instinct and here is control.
You are to combine the two in harmony.
Not...if you have one to the extreme, you'll be very unscientific.
If you have another to the extreme, you become,
all of a sudden, a mechanical man... no longer a human being.
So it is a successful combination of both, so therefore,
it's not pure naturalness, or unnaturalness.
The ideal is unnatural naturalness, or natural unnaturalness.
Yin/yang, eh?
Right man, that's it.
One of your students, James Coburn,
played in a movie called 'Our Man Flint',
in which he used Karate.
Was that what he learned from you?
He started training with me after the film. Not
- So he learned after he played in 'Our Man Flint'. - Right, right.
You see, actually, I do not teach, you know, Karate,
because I do not believe in styles anymore.
I mean I do not believe that there is such thing as,
like, a Chinese way of fighting or a Japanese way of fighting
or whatever way of fighting,
because unless a human being has three arms and four legs,
there can be no different form of fighting.
But, basically, we only have two hands and two feet.
so styles tend to, not only separate man
because they have their own doctrines and the doctrine became
the gospel truth that you cannot change!
But, if you do not have styles, if you just say,
'here I am as a human being,
how can I express myself totally and completely?'
Now that way, you won't create a style
because style is a crystallization
and that way is a process of continuing growth.
You talk about Chinese boxing.
How does it defer, from, say, our kind of boxing?
Well, first we use the foot.
Uh-huh, that's a start.
And then we use the elbow.
Do you use the thumb too?
- You name it man, we use it! - You use it all?
You have to, you see, because that is the expression of the human body.
I mean, everything, not just the hand!
When you are talking about combat, well, if it is a sport
well now your talking about something else,
with regulations, and rules
but if you're talking about fighting as it is
- No rules. - With no rules.
Well then, baby, you'd better train every part of your body!
And when you do punch... now I'm leaning forward a little bit
hoping not to hurt any camera angle.
I mean you've got to put the whole hip into it,
and snap it! and get all your energy in there
and make this into a weapon.
I don't want to tangle with you on any dark night,
I'll tell you that right now!
You came at me pretty fast there!
What is the difference between Chinese boxing
and what we see these old men doing at eight o'clock every morning
on the rooftops and he parks called 'shadowboxing'.
Which they're always doing?
- Well, actually, you see, that is part of Chinese boxing. - Yes
There are as many schools, different schools.
Everybody here seems to be going like this all the time.
Well, that's good. I mean, I'm very glad,
I'm very glad to see that because at least
- somebody is caring for their own bodies, right? - Yes.
I mean that's a good sign.
Well it's kind of a slow form of exercise which is called tai-chi-chuan...
I'm speaking mandarin just now
in Cantonese: 'Kai-di-kune',
And it's more of an exercise for the elderly not so much for the young.
Give me a demonstration!
Show me, can you do a little bit of it?
I mean, hand-wise, it's very slow and you push it out
but all the time you are keeping the continuity going
bending, stretching, everything.
You just keep it moving.
- It looks like a ballet dancer there. - it is.
I mean to them the idea is 'running water never grows stale'.
So you've got to just keep on flowing.
Of all your students, famous, James Garner, Steve McQueen,
Lee Marvin, James Coburn, Roman Polanski, which was the best?
Who adapted best to this oriental form of exercise and defense?
Well, that depends
as a fighter, Steve.. Steve McQueen.
Now he is good in that department because,
that son of a gun has got the toughness in him.
I see it on the screen.
I mean, he would say, 'all right baby, here I am, man',
you know, and he'll do it!
Now James Coburn is peace-loving man.
I met him.
Right? I mean, you've met him.
I mean he's really, really nice, and super mellow, and all that.
- Yes! - You know what I mean?
Now he appreciates the philosophical part of it.
Therefore, his understanding of it is deeper then Steve's.
So it's really hard to say, you see what I'm saying now?
- I see. - I mean it's different,
depending on what you see in it.
It's interesting, we don't in our world,
and haven't since the days of the Greeks who did,
combined philosophy and art with sport.
But quite clearly the oriental attitude is that
the three are facets of the same thing.
Man, listen you'l see really.
To me, okay? To me ultimately, martial art means honestly expressing yourself.
Now it is very difficult to do.
I mean it is easy for me to put on a show
and be cocky and be flooded with a cocky feeling
and then feel, then, like pretty cool and all that.
Or I can make all kinds of phony things, you see what I mean?
And be blinded by it.
Or I can show you some really fancy movement.
But, to express oneself honestly, not lying to oneself.
And to express myself honestly, that, my friend is very hard to do.
And you have to train.
You have to keep your reflexes so that when you want it's there!
When you want to move, you are moving.
And when you move you are determined to move.
Not taking one inch, not anything less than that!
If I want to punch, I'm going to do it man,
and I'm going to do it!
So that is the type of thing you have to train yourself into it.
To become one with it.
- You think...it is. - This is very un-western, this attitude.
I wanna ask you about your movie and TV career,
but first we'll take a break
then I'll be back with Bruce Lee.
I've been talking to Bruce lee,
mainly about the Chinese martial arts
which include things like Chinese boxing, Karate and Judo,
which is what he taught when he was in Hollywood
after he left the university of Washington,
where he studied, of all things, philosophy,
if you can believe that.
But he did but that, perhaps you understand
why the two go together from the first half of this program
and you can perhaps understand how he got into films,
he knew a lot of actors but I'm told
that you got the job on the 'Green Hornet',
where you played Kato, the chauffeur
mainly because you were the only Chinese-looking guy
who could pronounce the name of the leading character, 'Britt Reid'!
I meant that as a joke of course!
And it's a heck of name, man!
I mean every time I said it at that time
I was super-conscious!
I mean, really now, that's another interesting thing, huh?
Lets say if you learn to speak Chinese.
- Yeah? - It's not difficult to learn and speak the words.
The hard thing, the difficult thing,
is behind what is the meaning:
What brought on the expression and feelings behind those words.
Like, when I first arrived in the United States...
and I looked at a Caucasian,
and I really would not know whether he was putting me on
or is he really angry?
Because we have different ways of reacting to it
those are the difficult things, you see?
it's almost as if you came upon a strange race
where a smile didn't mean what it does to us.
In fact, a smile doesn't always mean the same, does it?
- Of course, not. - Yeah, I just thought of that.
Tell me about the big break when you played in 'Longstreet'.
- Ahh, that's it. - I must tell our audience that
Bruce lee had a bit part, or a supporting role
in the 'Longstreet' series
and this had an enormous effect on the audience.
What was it?
Well, you see,
the title of that particular episode of longstreet
is called 'The Way of the Intercepting Fist'.
Now I think the successful ingredient
in it was because I was being Bruce lee.
- Yourself. - Myself, right.
And did that part, just expressed myself, like I say,
'honestly expressed myself', at that time.
And I, because of that, brought, you know, favorable mentioning in,
like, the New York Times, which says, like,
'a chinaman who, incidentally, came off quite convincingly enough
to earn himself a television series'
and so on and so on and so forth.
Can you remember the key lines by Stirling Silliphant?
- The key lines? - he's one of my students, you know that?
- Was he too? - Yes.
Everybody's your student!
But you read, there were some key lines there that expressed your philosophy.
- I don't know if you remember them or not? - Oh I remember them, I said.
- Let's hear. - This is what it is, ok?
You're talking to Longstreet played by James Franciscus.
I said, "empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water.
Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle.
You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow, or it can crash!
Be water, my friend" like that, you see?
Yeah, I see, I get the idea. I get the power behind it.
So, now, two things have happened.
First there's a pretty good chance
that you'll get a TV series in the states called 'The Warrior', isn't it?
What you use what..the martial arts in a western setting?
Well, that was the original idea.
Now Paramount, you know I did 'Longstreet' for Paramount,
and Paramount wants me to be in a television series.
On the other hand, Warner brothers wants me to be in another one.
But both of them, I think, they want me to be in a
modernized type of a thing
and they think that the western idea is out!
- Whereas I want - You want to do the western!
I want to do the western because, you see,
I mean, or else can you justify all of this punching and kicking
and violence except in the period of the west?
I mean, nowadays, I mean you don't go around on the street,
kicking people and punching people
because if you do...Pow! That's it.
- Yeah, a gun. - I mean, I don't care how good you are.
But this is true also of the Chinese dramas,
which are mainly costume dramas.
They're all full of blood and gore over here!
- Oh, you mean here? - Yeah.
Well, unfortunately, you see, I hope that the picture I am in
would either explain why the violence was done
whether right or wrong, or what not
but, unfortunately, pictures, most of them here,
are done mainly just for the sake of violence.
You know what I mean? Like, you know, guys fighting for 30 minutes,
straight, getting stabbed 50 times!
Well I'm fascinated, here, let me give you your microphone back.
- I'm fascinated that you came back - I am a martial artist.
you came back to Hong Kong on the verge of success in Hollywood
and full of it. And suddenly, on the strength of one picture
you become a superstar. Everybody knows you.
You have to change your phone number.
You get mobbed in the streets.
Now what are you going to do?
Are you going to be able to live in both worlds?
Are you going to be a superstar here or one in the States..or both?
Well, let me say this.
First of all, the word 'superstar' really turns me off
and I'll tell you why. The word 'star' man, it's an illusion.
It's something what the public calls you.
you should look upon oneself as an actor, man.
I mean you would be very pleased if somebody said
'Hey man, you are a super actor!'
It is much better than, you know, superstar. Therefore, I
Yes, but you've got to admit that you are a superstar
if you're going to give me the truth!
I am now...I am honestly saying this, okay?
- Yes, I have been very successful, okay? - Yeah.
But I think the word 'star' is
I mean I do not look upon myself as a star.
I really don't. I mean believe me, man, when I say it.
- I mean I'm not saying it because - What are you going to do?
- Let's get back to the question. - Okay.
Are you going to stay in Hong Kong and be famous,
or are you going to go to the United States and be famous,
or are you going to try to eat your cake and have it too?
I am going to do both because, you see,
I have already made up my mind
that, in the United States, I think something about the oriental,
I mean the true oriental, should be shown.
Hollywood sure as heck hasn't!
You better believe it man.
I mean it's always that pigtail, bouncing around, 'chop-chop', you know?
With the eyes slanted and all that.
And I think that's very, very out of date.
Is it true that the first job you had was being
- cast as Charlie Chan's 'number one son?' - Yeah, 'number one son'.
- They never made the movie? - No, no, no.
They were going to make it into a new Chinese James bond type of a thing.
Now that, you know, the old man Chan is dead,
Charlie is dead, and his son is carrying on.
- Oh I see. But they didn't do that. - No.
'Batman' came along you see
and then everything started
- to go into that kind of a thing. - Like the 'Green Hornet'? - Yeah.
Which you were in...but
By the way, I did a really terrible job in that, I have to say.
- Really? You didn't like yourself in that? - Oh, no.
I didn't see it.
Let me ask you, however, about the problems
that you face as a Chinese hero in an American series.
Have people come up in the industry and said,
'well we don't know how the audience are going to take a non-American'?
Well, such a question has been raised. In fact, it is
being discussed and that is probably why the 'Warrior'
- is not going to be on. - I see.
You see? Because, unfortunately,
such a thing does exist in this world, you see.
Like, I don't know, in a certain part of the country, right?
Where they think that, business wise, it's a risk.
And I don't blame them.. I don't blame them.
I mean, in the same way, it's like in Hong Kong, if a foreigner came and became a star,
if I were the man with the money,
I probably would have my own worry of whether,
or not the acceptance would be there.
But that's all right because,
if you honestly express yourself, it doesn't matter, see?
- Because you're going to do it! - How 'bout the other side of the coin?
Is it possible that you, I mean you're fairly hip,
and fairly Americanized, are you too western for our oriental audiences do you think?
I..oh man!..Like how I have been criticized for that!
- You have, eh? - Oh, definitely.
Let me say this: When I do the Chinese film
I'll try my best not to be as.... American as, you know
I have been adjusted to for the last 12 years in the States.
But when I go back to the States,
- it seems to be the other way around,
- you know what I mean? - you're too exotic, eh?
Yeah, man. I mean they're trying to get me to do too many things
that are really for the sake of being exotic.
- Do you understand what I am trying to say? - Oh sure.
So, it's really, I mean
When you live in both worlds, it brings its problems as well as its advantages,
and you've got them both. Time to go to a commercial.
I'll be back in a moment with Bruce Lee.
Let me ask you whether the change in attitude
on the part of the Nixon administration towards China
has helped your chances of starring in an American TV series?
- Well, first of all, this happened before that. - Yeah.
But I do think that
things of Chinese will be quite interesting for the next few years.
I mean not that I'm politically inclining toward anything, you know, but
I understand that, but I was just wondering.
But I mean once the opening of China happens, you know,
- I mean that it will bring more understanding! - Yeah.
More things that are, hey, like different, you know?
And maybe in the contrast of comparison some new thing might grow.
So, therefore, I mean it's a very rich period to be in.
- I mean like, if I were born, let's say 40 years ago - Yeah.
and if I thought in my mind and said:
'boy, I'm going to star in a television series in America',
Well...that might be a vague dream, but I think, right now, it may be, man.
Do you still think of yourself as Chinese
or do you ever think of yourself as a north American?
You know what I want to think of myself?
As a human being.
Because, I mean I don't want to sound like ask Confucius,
saaaayyy...but under the sky, under the heaven, man, there is but one family.
It just so happens that people are different.
OK, we've got to go. Thank you Bruce lee for coming here,
- and thank you for watching. - Thank you, Pierre, thank you.
You've been watching Bruce Lee on the Pierre Burton Show.
A half-hour programme of conversation opinion and debate.
This is Bernard Coven speaking.
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