HK superstar
When I was a kid growing up in Vancouver in the early 1970s, I used to love Bruce Lee, as did all my friends. With Kung Fu also in its heyday, it was a rather common occurrence to see kids in my neighbourhood kicking the tar out of each other trying to emulate their favourite martial arts heroes.
Lee was a particular favourite of the neighbourhood gang as everyone knew him as Kato from the rather corny detective series The Green Hornet. In hindsight, Lee was really wasted in the series as he seldom spoke or fought. Most of the time he was chauffeuring Green Hornet star Van Williams around in 'Black Beauty', a customised 1966 Chrysler Imperial with a built-in special exhaust unit which could spread ice over the road. Sadly, the car had more exposure than Lee.
After the Green Hornet ended in 1967, Hollywood didn't really know what it had in Lee. After a few guest spots in such series as Ironside and Longstreet, Lee returned to Hong Kong in 1971 to discover he was a star in his old hometown. A film contract with the fledging Golden Harvest film studio soon followed and the rest was history as Lee would go on to become the martial art's biggest superstar - a title he still holds, exactly 25 years since his death.
In Bruce Lee The Legend (World, 9.30pm), this excellent documentary takes a look at Lee, both on and off-screen. Especially good is the rare footage and the many interviews with the people who knew him in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco. Also interesting to view is the extreme fitness regime Lee went through to develop his famous physique. If you watch Lee in the Green Hornet and during his first film, Fists of Fury, he is extremely skinny while in his final film, Enter the Dragon, he is extremely pumped, a factor which has been speculated as a cause of his early death.
The Lee legacy continues next month when Shannon Lee makes her Hong Kong debut with Michael Wong in the HK$40 million summer blockbuster Enter the Eagle, released by none other than Golden Harvest.
In Seinfeld (Pearl, 9pm), Kramer (Michael Richards) goes on the chat show circuit to promote his book on the Live with Regis and Kathie Lee programme. His appearance is soon marred after an incident with the hosts. Elsewhere, George (Jason Alexander) decides to change his style and is rewarded with a date with a beautiful woman. It is a shame that Ally McBeal (World, 8.30pm) shares the same time slot as Seinfeld as both are good programmes. McBeal (Calista Flockhart) is a good counterpart to Jerry Seinfeld as her views on men are similar to his distorted views on women. Tonight, lawyer McBeal, in her never-ending search for justice, gets arrested for aggravated assault and attempted shoplifting. After getting bailed out by her room-mate Rene (Lisa Nicole Carson), McBeal's troubles continue when she is hauled before the State Bar Review Board.
