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Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco in 1940, but he grew up in Hong Kong.
As a boy, he acted in films and often got into street fights.
His worried parents sent him to a kung fu master, the famous Yip Man.
Bruce trained for hours every day, and kung fu became his life.
At eighteen, he moved to America with one hundred dollars in his pocket.
He washed dishes, studied philosophy at university, and taught kung fu.
This broke an old tradition, because many masters taught only Chinese students.
Bruce did not care.
He believed martial arts belonged to everyone.
Bruce was unbelievably fast.
His famous punch traveled only one inch but could knock a strong man down.
He moved so fast that film cameras could not always catch his hands.
He also created his own fighting style, and he gave his students a famous piece of advice: 'Be water, my friend.'
Water can flow softly, and water can crash.
Hollywood loved his skill but gave him only small parts, never the lead role.
So in 1971, Bruce returned to Hong Kong and made his own films there.
They broke every record in Asia.
Finally, Hollywood offered him the lead role in Enter the Dragon — the film that made him a world star.
Bruce Lee never saw his success.
He died suddenly in July 1973, six days before the film opened.
He was only thirty-two; doctors said his brain reacted badly to a medicine.
Millions of people saw the film and started to learn martial arts because of him.
His films are old now, but fighters on every screen still copy his moves.
