3/5 stars This documentary about the life of Bruce Lee, by Vietnamese-American director Bao Nguyen, focuses mainly on how Lee’s time in America affected his outlook. That is certainly a valid take, but Hongkongers may find it strange that only three members of the Hong Kong film industry, including film critic Sam Ho and the late producer Raymond Chow , are among its long list of interviewees. First premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, before it was broadcast on Sunday as part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, Be Water covers all of the usual points, and Lee fans will not learn much that they do not already know about the star . The narrative pretty much follows Matthew Polly’s excellent – and more objective – biography Bruce Lee: A Life , and the author even gets a big “thank you” at the end. The documentary starts with the success of Lee’s first two martial arts films, The Big Boss and Fist of Fury in Hong Kong. It then cuts to Lee’s birth in the US, and his early life in Hong Kong, before a lengthy section about his return to the US to study and found a kung fu school in Seattle. Nguyen then swiftly takes viewers through Lee’s TV career in the US , before returning to Hong Kong to show how he rose to fame in the city. Be Water ’s focus is on the way the Chinese-American experience affected Lee’s values, how he was subjected to racism and racist stereotyping in Hollywood , and why Lee became a role model and icon for Asians in America. A commentary by notable cultural critic Jeff Yang sets Lee’s time in the US against the backdrop of the history of Chinese immigration into the US, and the film makes much of his outsider status as a Hong Kong actor working in Hollywood. Hong Kong martial arts cinema – everything you need to know This leads to a controversial claim that Bruce is “neither Chinese nor American”, and that he is a “mid-Pacific man” rather than a Chinese man. A loaded and contentious cultural comment like this needs to be discussed in depth, but instead it is just stated as a fact. For his fans in Hong Kong and China, Lee, in spite of his time spent in the US, is certainly considered to be Chinese. While Be Water , which was made in collaboration with the Lee family, who are frequently interviewed, is not meant to glorify the star, it does gloss over parts of Lee’s story, including the many unknowns about his death . Although Lee is generally assumed to have been having an affair with Betty Ting Pei, in whose bed he died, that is not even mentioned. According to the film, Lee was simply in her bedroom to discuss a possible role in a film for her. The film’s title Be Water relates to Lee’s famed words about how a martial artist needs to be as fluid as water to succeed in fighting, and in life as general. Nguyen builds the film around this idea without mentioning the actual origin of the speech. The words were not written by Lee, but by his screenwriter friend Stirling Silliphant, and Lee spoke these words as a character in an episode of the US television series Longstreet . It’s odd that no notable Hong Kong directors or actors are asked to comment on Lee – after all, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, both of whom knew and worked with Lee , are not exactly difficult to find, and every filmmaker in Hong Kong has an opinion of him. The nearest the documentary comes to a local angle is a short interview with martial arts superstar Angela Mao Ying, who is Taiwanese, and a few words from Hong Kong actor Tony Lau Wing. While not wishing to denigrate the views of the American interviewees, many of which are insightful, a greater Hong Kong presence would certainly have brought a well-needed cultural balance to Be Water , and served to have greater elucidated Lee’s complex character. Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook