Bruce Lee and Me - A Martial Arts Adventure
by Brian Preston
Atlantic Books, HK$148
'There are a million books about Bruce Lee, which is why this one won't have too much to say about him. It's all been said and the man is dead.' Rather a nice line at the bottom of page 77 that just about saves Bruce Lee and Me - A Martial Arts Adventure, which is essentially Brian Preston's story about how he set out to write a book about learning kung fu, broke his ribs, and discovered that kung fu means simply 'skill acquired through hard work'. Apparently Lee wasn't much chop by local standards at the martial arts, but he had a pretty face and that undefinable thing called 'star quality'. Preston writes that 'Bruce Lee was the public face of a rising Asian self-confidence, the ice-breaker who showed Asians they could compete, and win, on the world stage'. Really? It's a rambling read and there's neither a contents page nor an index to act as a guide. It probably works best if you open it randomly and flip the pages until something catches the eye. The stuff about martial arts is actually interesting, as are the workmanlike interviews with its practitioners.