Movie Review: Bruce Lee My Brother/李小龍

I used to teach public speaking, and I found that students most often benefited from hearing the bad news first, so to speak. While it may at first seem harsh, it allowed me to end my critique on positive aspects of the student’s performance.

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I have, at least once before, tried to do so here as well.

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The problem I encounter now is that the negative, or lets say my addressing of it, could very likely overwhelm, at least in size, the positive aspects of my review ofBruce Lee My Brother/ 李小龍 , and the positive is not insignificant.

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So, out of a sense of obligation to a friend, whose role, both literal and figurative, will be addressed in the review, let me try to minimize the negative even as I present it first.

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This film, like so many others in recent China-friendly film history, makes clumsy, interruptive assertions that Westerners and Japanese are evil. Like all the other similar films released in recent memory, Bruce Lee My Brother/ 李小龍handles these issues with the subtlety and grace of an epileptic juggler.

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While the historical realities of colonialism and WWII lend some degree of truth to these assertions, it is in no small way rather odd that Bruce Lee My Brother/ 李小龍demonizes Westerners in a film about a man who found not only success but love among them. So the film’s star would not agree with the film’s premise.

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Of course, China-friendly films never let truth get in the way of didacticism, and for that, I suppose, someone is grateful. But its not me.

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Neither am I grateful for the obvious double-standard at work in terms of the moral quagmire that is narcotics. The film contradicts itself so badly here that I find it both laughable and infuriating. Bruce Lee’s father was an opium addict, and he is portrayed both implicitly and explicitly as a victim of colonialism as well as being deserving of not only pity but indulgence.

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This cannot be said of Bruce’s friend who becomes a drug addict, whom, it must be noted, is victimized wholly by Chinese dope peddlers.* He is at best tragic, and at worst considered reprehensibly weak even by a woman who purportedly loves him.

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Don’t ask me how I know, but accusing a heroin addict of weakness or lack of will power is a lot like saying people who jump in water could stay dry if they really wanted to. To get an idea of what it is like to withstand addiction, try holding your breath for an hour. If you fail, you’re justweak.

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I’m not an animal rights person. I’ve always said that if God didn’t want us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat. I have killed and eaten deer and other animals. But that doesn’t mean I will condone mistreating animals for cinematic purposes.

In an attempt to evoke the final battle in Bruce Lee’s Way of the Dragon, we are repeatedly shown a cat who is a spectator to young Bruce’s climactic battle with the evil gweilo.  But the cat is obviously very stressed and becoming physically ill. It’s not funny, it’s not cute and its not useful. It’s gross.

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So for these reasons, Bruce Lee My Brother/ 李小龍tends to inhibit a pretty big, strong wave of positive momentum. The film has a lot of good things going for it, and in the interest of being both kind and fair, I shall enumerate them here.

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First, I really enjoyed the cinematography. Granted, the film sometimes slipped inexplicably into video, but most of the time it looked an awful lot like the old Shaw Brothers films we all know and love.

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If you don’t know and love them, start doing so immediately.

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It may be somewhat odd or unnecessary to show a story set in the past in the aesthetic that all stories had at that time, but I liked it. It was fun to watch.

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So too are the exteriors and wide shots. Some are obviously CGI, like the panoramic view of Kai Tak airport. But it’s nice to see just the same. Most local films are set in the present simply because it’s cheaper to shoot; no need to spend $ on costumes, sets, etc.

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Besides, how can you whore your film to product placement if it’s set in the past?

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Bruce Lee My Brother/ 李小龍creates a convincing replica of 1950s Hong Kong, and the costumes are a big part of the success.

This could be a Wong Kar Wai film. Except that people are smiling. And moving.

Seeing MC Jin dressed like his grandfather was especially funny, but only in the best sort of way.

****

“Trust us… we’re here to help…”

Hearing him sing Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” was funny too, for almost all the same reasons.

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This kind of friendly relationship to the past manifests itself in no small amount of good-natured p*ss-taking. Some of Hong Kong ‘s legendary actors are lampooned, but in a very affectionate way. Chin Kar Lok does a marvelous Shek Kin impression that amuses as well as affects. Hong Kong ‘s cinematic past is treated with the same kind of arm-punching love and playfulness that good friends share, and it is very, very fun to watch.

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I also really enjoyed the acting. ‘Big’ Tony Leung Kar Fai turns in a strong performance here as Bruce’s father. He is subtle, believable, and entertaining, all in large amounts.

“Jesus, you married a young one!”

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It was great seeing Christy Chung Lai Tai on the big screen again, and her performance is convincing, complex, and again wholly engaging.

And she’s Christy Chung.

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I wish I was one of her kids, because that would normalize my responding to her every appearance onscreen with “Oh,mommy …”

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Cheung Tat Ming is engaging, funny, and believable as well, and his little girl, played by Manfred Wong’s daughter, is almost as cute as my own goddaughter.

But not quite.

When Winsome and I are together, I think this is how people see us. Except I’m not Chinese.

The film starts rather clumsily, with a title card stipulating that the film has no association with the estate of Bruce Lee, i.e. his widow and daughter. The film then opens with an overly long shot of a camera showing us Bruce’s boyhood home (or at least the filmic reproduction thereof). We are then introduced to Lee’s real-life siblings, who offer their reasons and rationales for the film. This would have made a very nice optional DVD Introduction, but none of these three things helps or contributes to the film in any way whatsoever.

Speaking of real life and siblings, it might have been a good idea to have Bruce’s youngest brother played by a Chineseperson.

I’m not joking. Judging by the kid’s appearance, they recruited him out of Chungking Mansions.

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The casting of Aarif Lee as Bruce is an odd choice; he bears little resemblance to Bruce and doesn’t seem to behave much like him. Still, Aarif tries and that’s all I can ask of actors. In his favor, he’s being asked to do the impossible; to re-create one of the greatest action stars in film history.

One of my favorite moments in the film comes when Bruce Lee cockily tells his siblings that someday the  whole worldwill want his autograph.

Because he was right.

The film tells an interesting story, but honestly it doesn’t always tell it very well. The narrative seems to wander quite a bit, and I found myself at times wondering where it was going, though not in a good way.

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For example: the film’s climactic moment is told in a flashback after the film’s climax.

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Huh???

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Another example: A short scene shows Bruce’s father at work, stealing a rather protracted glance at a young actress. This event then goes virtually unanswered for the rest of the film.

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Perhaps it’s some China-friendly portrayal of infidelity, who knows?

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What I do know is that it is jarring and confusing.

The same can be said of the entrance of Bruce’s love interest, played here by Jennifer Tse Ting Ting in her inaugural role.

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“Oh my God… I’m standing between Cecilia Cheung and Jennifer Tse…”“That’s not my sister-in-law, you moron…”

*****Her literal and figurative entrance makes her character easily confused with another actress; we see a scene being shot, we watch the actors and actress act, someone says its time to go home, they all leave the set, and the next thing we see is a woman in regular clothes. But it’s not that actress, it’s* Pearl (Tse).

Speaking of which, that’s not Cecilia Cheung, it’s Gong Mi.

Still, it’s nice to see Cecilia’s stunt double getting work.

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Jennifer’s entrance is nevertheless memorable, because frankly the Tse family has been blessed by the photogene, if you will. The camera likes Jennifer, and it is her lineage, both genetic and professional, that allows her to make such an impact.

Jennifer Tse stars inThe Hottest Librarian in the World.

Indeed, how can you talk about pre-Bruce Hong Kong cinema without thinking of her father (who is name-checked in the film though not presented)? So when we see Jennifer, she helps complete the picture; she reminds us of her father, who reminds us of the rich legacy of local film before the martial arts explosion, which is what we’re looking at in the film.

She is also (more than) pretty enough to convince us that Bruce Lee took one look at her and fell madly in love.

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Sadly, her role is mishandled to a great extent by the director and screenwriter. If she is indeed his love interest, you’d never know it by the way the film unfolds. She is present, but not really there, except as an apparition, as something always just out of reach.

See what I mean?

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Maybe it’s the China-friendly version of a romance.

It’s thesecond purest love story ever put on film.

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Given little to work with, Jennifer nevertheless plays the part with conviction and acquits herself well.

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Trust me, I know about conviction and acquittal.

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Bruce Lee My Brother/ 李小龍is a flawed film. Its flaws are both cinematic and didactic in nature. It is, inescapably, a product of its time. Maybe a few years earlier or later, we wouldn’t have to watch 1/3 of the film dedicated to assuaging China ‘s self-esteem issue, and that running time could have gone to something more constructive or useful like exposition, character development, or narrative.

Or more cha-cha.

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Still, I have to say that there’s more to like about this film than dislike. It is quite a lot of fun to watch, and has some very good acting, some fine cinematography, and sets that had me missing subtitles because I was looking elsewhere in the frame.

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No one on the acting side of the camera has anything to be ashamed of in this film, and even if they do, it is still nowhere near as much embarrassment as the director, screenwriters, and producers must bear.

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But what do I know? I’m just a Gweilo who likes Japan .

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Am I evil? Yes I am.

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**While the British and others indeed controlled the opium trade, the heroin trade was at that time controlled by former members of the KMT stranded in* Laos and Burma after 1949. Hong Kong was famous within the trade for being the home to the best heroin labs in the world, producing the purest, strongest heroin the world had yet seen. After American law enforcement broke up the Turkish/Corsican heroin smuggling operation known as The French Connection, the Chinese underworld became the pre-eminent players in the dope trade.

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Bruce Lee’s original two films had their English titles switched for reasons that remain uncertain. His first film, whose real title isThe Chinese Connection , is about a heroin smuggling ring in Thailand . The film’s name was meant to capitalize on that ofThe French Connection , the film about the Corsican/Turkish operation and its demise at the hands of American law enforcement.

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You learn something new every day if you’re lucky.