Real Reason Bloodsport and Enter the Dragon Stood the Test of Time! / Hong Kong Producer Bey Logan

[00:00:00]The films off that they came off to even films like for example The Quest where it had some of the tropes of Bloodsport.

[00:00:07]And the Bloodsport sequels, you know, that they didn't work. Why?

[00:00:19]It always sounds like an anime waiting to happen. Viking Samurai versus the Beast. I mean, it's just, you know, Beast from the East. But you're kind of like the big crowning glory of my day.

[00:00:29]My son Shawn played Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music.

[00:00:34]Uh and then there's a famous local actress Michelle Yeoh, my suit, had her 55th year anniversary event party. And then I had it back home with my producing partner Andrew, who you just said hi to. And now I top off an exciting Saturday in Hong Kong with Viking Samurai.

[00:00:53]>> Yeah, what a night, man. What what what a great life you have there, man.

[00:00:56]Exciting exciting full night.

[00:00:59]Yeah.

[00:01:00]>> But yeah, so last time we spoke of course we were addressing Michael Biehn.

[00:01:04]And then what ended up happening is you went to his podcast. Now you guys are cool again.

[00:01:08]>> It was amazing. What was funny about it was if you remember when I was kind of kind of told giving my side of the story so to speak thinking almost, you know, this will never go anywhere other than I'll for once vent and get it off my own chest. I was never Michael Biehn's [ __ ] gopher.

[00:01:28]Down in the comments it was like, I'm Michael Biehn. I'm Michael Biehn. And I'm like, like hell you are.

[00:01:33]And guess what? I think you called him, right? Yeah.

[00:01:38]You said you called him and you said, are you really Michael Biehn? And you gave him some test questions. You know, it says, okay, so did you did you not have a mustache in The Abyss? And [laughter] whatever.

[00:01:48]But no, and then we had he got me on his show, which I was enormously grateful because if you look at the caliber of people, I I think four after me was James Cameron. You know, it's like so I felt he was very kind and generous and it was lovely cuz people in the comments I've got no idea who this guy is, but he seems charming and funny, which which was great. And then yeah, I remember I called him on Christmas Day having watched the James Cameron interview, which is amazing if people haven't seen it on Michael's channel just fooling.

[00:02:15]You should watch him talking to James Cameron. And um Michael said, you know, you almost make me uh emotional the fact that we've come to a place now where you can call me up and tell me you saw that and appreciated it and wish me a happy Christmas because we hadn't spoken for so long and it's all down to Viking Samurai because I went on your show and you know, I did the thing is I wouldn't have thought Michael Biehn necessarily was a Viking Samurai content >> [laughter] >> consumer, right? Because you're you're very much into the world of 80s martial arts actions and I guess you go over into the still he he done Terminator and I you probably like those action films, but you know, my the perception is you're talking about Van Damme and Segal and Frank Dukes and all this stuff. I wouldn't have thought Michael Biehn was sitting at home going, "Boy, I really want to know whether Frank Dukes really fought in the Kumite or not."

[00:03:09]>> [laughter] >> But um anyway, but it it worked out great and that was indeed the last and then since then I had a busy time. Uh I've actually uh published two new books. This one 36 Chambers of Kung Fu Cinema.

[00:03:21]>> Nice.

[00:03:22]>> And I've been told I need to hold the cover up like I'm on the shopping channel. There you go.

[00:03:26]>> And if people want to buy these books >> www.reelist.com uh is the only place that you can buy them and I'm happy to say that they the reason this is actually the revised the re-edited new version of Bruce Lee and I because the last one completely sold out and then um >> Nice.

[00:03:52]>> I the reason that we just do it through the website is the way the industry is at the moment if you're a small press like we are and you try to cooperate with the major platforms and you try to deal with all the issues that have arisen out of all the tariffs and things it just doesn't work as a business. So it's much better for somebody like me who has you know who's like a big fish in a small pond to go out and say listen guys I've done a book Bruce Lee and I and the next one's going to be Jackie Chan and I and you can get it here if you want it and I either end up with a warehouse full of unsold books or people do buy them and then we ship them ship them and I can sign them and it's more of a cottage industry but yeah I I though years and years ago my first book Hong Kong action cinema was with a publishing company called Titan and I'm talking to them now about doing another book with them in a more working with a more conventional publishing house. But I do want to do more books it's very exciting to to do Bruce Lee and I and that kind of you know be careful what you well you know if you want to if you if you want to make God laugh you make plans cuz I was like okay I've been into Bruce Lee like I'm in my mid 60s now so I was like probably 12 13 when I first got into Bruce Lee and everything that I found out everything I experienced is in these 700 pages and I did a documentary for History Channel about the death of Bruce Lee which is kind of a downer.

[00:05:22]Um because it was purely about that it was just researching the death of Bruce Lee and then in the wake of that I was like well maybe that's it for me and Bruce Lee maybe I don't maybe I still appreciate him >> [laughter] >> and then with the thing is there are more people like Arrow Arrow video which is a big DVD company who brought out this gorgeous 4K Blu-ray restoration and I enjoyed that Um, this um, Lex Luthor look-alike called Alan Canvan who brought out this new documentary Broken Rhythm. I'm looking forward to seeing that. My good friend Steve Kerridge, he sent me a 3-hour documentary and he's got more stuff coming. So, I would just be a consumer Sure. of Bruce Lee content and I'd done so many documentaries and so many things relevant to Bruce Lee. That would be it.

[00:06:08]And then, um, I was talking to Bruce's brother Robert and we thought about um, how in 1971 a guy showed up in Pak Chong, Thailand to make The Big Boss.

[00:06:22]And that was the Bruce Lee the world was going to embrace overnight.

[00:06:28]But, he had been in Hollywood for 10 years without really breaking out as a movie leading man. And he had been in Hong Kong before having the experiences he had as a child and as a youth.

[00:06:40]So, why was he that specific individual with those component elements that made him a star? And given that I've been fascinated with Bruce Lee and been kind of on the forefront of people researching and evangelizing for Bruce Lee over the years, this this I thought I'm interested I've never really looked into this, you know? And I guess I don't want to say in too much detail, um, because somebody else will do the documentary first, but it was interesting going upriver particularly, um, having Robert involved and Andrew Pang, my producing partner who you you met, um, because you get more of the Chinese perspective because there's this key, obviously, from when he was a very even though he was born in San Francisco, Bruce was raised in Hong Kong. And a lot of the influences on his life and even things that he later in later life in interviews would kind of dismiss out of hand. I think they had a very profound effect on him. And it's interesting, I don't know if you found this, David, but a lot of the times when I'm talking to people, the things that they don't really want to confront or the things that they dismiss as immaterial are actually at the heart of the those traumas or those um inspirations are at the heart of what they are.

[00:07:59]>> Sure.

[00:08:00]>> But the almost the less willing they are, like if you said to me, "Oh, you never met your biological father." I would just dismiss it. "Oh, he's an asshole."

[00:08:08]>> Mhm.

[00:08:09]>> But to some degree, the drive, the energy, the motivation for me to do the things I've done came from that. Came from wanting to impress this invisible biological father who I've never met. So I kind of like tried to examine the Bruce Lee persona from that view of like what really made him who he was. And sometimes who you are comes out without you willing it, particularly if you're a movie star.

[00:08:41]>> The real real quick, I would say that makes you such a great writer in general, not just books but screenplays, stories, everything else is because you really understand human psychology and motivation.

[00:08:53]That's why people could connect with this stuff, you know.

[00:08:55]>> Well, I hope so. And I mean, I've been alive a long time and as a writer, I mean, you're um you know, really everything is about the story of a person. And it's interesting cuz I mean, maybe we can segue into we'll come back and talk some more about the documentary later, but um it it's funny. Today, I went to Michelle Yeoh's concert and um met Philip Chan outside. Uh you know, the police inspector for Bloodsport.

[00:09:20]>> Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

[00:09:22]>> my Death of Bruce Lee um documentary. And uh he um you know, we just chatted and I said, "I'm doing something else about Bruce Lee." And he also said, "Oh, is there anything" he's got this great voice. "Is there anything else to be said?" And I said, "Well, we think there is. Yeah." we'll catch up another day. But then having just seen him, I sat down and said, "Actually, it's interesting, you know, cuz I know you've you've spent a lot of time talking about Bloodsport.

[00:09:46]>> Oh.

[00:09:46]>> And um peripherally, I I know there's a lot of people talk about Enter the Dragon. But they remain the two kind of the the the they are the martial arts picks by which all others are judged. They >> By far, man. They set the standard.

[00:10:00]>> genre I mean, definitely English language ones, but of globe films that have been appreciated globally, they are they are the two. And I think um what you were just saying about the the the the core of of of a writer as a filmmaker as an author being to somehow explore aspects of the human condition and the human spirit. Um it's it's the films in the martial arts genre that have succeeded in doing that as well, that have stood the test of time.

[00:10:35]And if you look at um Enter the Dragon, which has been this um which I think is greatly under um kind of I think it's appreciated as a vehicle for Bruce Lee to be charismatic and to fight.

[00:10:50]>> Mhm.

[00:10:50]>> I don't think it's been appreciated for quite how wonderfully constructed it is and how it has more ideas in it.

[00:11:00]How many times have you seen Enter the Dragon? I'm curious.

[00:11:04]>> Dozens.

[00:11:05]>> Actually, probably not enough. Not nearly as much as Bloodsport.

[00:11:09]>> Right. And I think >> like I had it bait every day playing on my VCR as I was stretching in front of the TV and wanting to be able to move like Van Damme cuz I was taking Taekwondo at the time.

[00:11:22]>> I suspect that um there are people who've seen Bloodsport like you [clears throat] and dozens of times. And if you said, "What's the second movie?" They would say Enter the Dragon. And there's people who see Enter the Dragon many, many times and said, "What's the second great English language American produced martial arts movie?" Be Bloodsport. And I And I think And then there's people like myself, perhaps, who have an equal appreciation of the two. But Enter the Dragon's interesting because in the movie Bruce Lee's character is a lay monk from the Shaolin Temple who um is sent on a mission. Like his his motivation is he needs to redeem the honor of the Shaolin Temple because a former monk has gone renegade, which is this Mr. Han, played by Set Kien.

[00:12:05]We later find out that not Set Kien, but not Mr. Han, but his bodyguard, O'Hara, has killed um or caused the death of Lee's sister. So, there's a personal And at the end of the film, the last line of the movie is Bruce comes in, "You have offended my family. You have offended a Shaolin Temple."

[00:12:25]And my mom said, "What's she doing to Shirley Temple?" No, no, Mom. It's Shaolin Shaolin Temple.

[00:12:31]Um but it's interesting because the the In a way, if you actually analyze it with like a karate cinema view, it's actually about the um the corruption of a monk. Because at the beginning of the film, we find the Lee characters living in a Shaolin Temple. And it's interesting cuz the place that they filmed the scene, "Don't concentrate on the finger, you miss all the heavenly glory." That place is in Hong Kong and it is Ching Shan Temple. The story of it is really a parallel to Shaolin Temple. And they have a statue of Dharma, the founder of Shaolin Temple, actually on that site.

[00:13:11]So, it's a very interesting choice of location because it is the closest we have in Hong Kong to a Shaolin Temple kind of space. But he's teaching this young kid. He's having sparring matches with Sammo Hung. He's publishing books.

[00:13:26]He's just living this kind of life, you know, kind of kind of life I lead, you know, living on a remote island in Lantau and, you know, kind of doing all those other things.

[00:13:36]>> Sure.

[00:13:36]>> And um then he's just out of the blue, a guy shows up and says, "We want you to enter this tournament as our agent." And then the abbot says, "Hey, and by the way, um you need to get vengeance uh because the the you know, you have to avenge the honor of the temple." And then his old man servant says, "And by the way, I've never told you this, but one of Han's guys um caused the death of your sister." So, he then, in the course of the movie, starts killing people and breaking necks and breaking arms and doing a lot of stuff that Shaolin shouldn't do. And I think the greatest moment a cinematic moment with a capital M in the genre, or at least in the Western version of the genre, is when towards the end of the film when he kills Bob Wall and he kind of jumps up, jumps down, crushes, kills Bob Wall. And then there's this expression on his face that's almost it works as a cinematic moment.

[00:14:36]>> Yeah.

[00:14:37]>> I mean, if you and I did it, I think the audience would fall off their chair laughing.

[00:14:40]>> [laughter] >> I think it'd be hard to pull off, man.

[00:14:42]It would be hard to pull off.

[00:14:43]>> the Bruce Lee look-alikes do it, you know, like Dragon Lee with all those veins popping in his face. But when Bruce Lee does it, I've played that either as a clip or we played the film as a whole and the audience goes silent.

[00:14:54]They just react to it.

[00:14:55]>> Powerful stuff.

[00:14:56]>> floats back. And my read on that is that he feels from the peaceful Shaolin master he was at the beginning of the film, he's reached a point where he's committing sins, breaking his vows, um and he has this reaction to it. And then at the end he's weary and he disappears and and know, wrote a novel called Daughters of Han and in that we kind of find out what happened to him after Enter the Dragon as per my imagination.

[00:15:27]And then the secondary character is Roper, played by John Saxon, who starts the film as a kind of devil-may-care gambler, riverboat gambler.

[00:15:36]And he doesn't really care about anything, but it's about him becoming a man of integrity, of finding his lost honor.

[00:15:45]Uh and there was actually a line cut from the film where at the end Mr. Han wants Roper to fight Bruce, uh the Lee character, and um Roper says, you know, whether there are men a man must fight, and there are those he must stand beside.

[00:16:02]And that is a decision he's making to risk his own life for the cause of the good, whereas everything we saw before with him, he was just a gambler and a hustler and didn't have a particularly strong moral code. So, that was happening. And the third character, Mr. Han, who rather than being just a one-note villain man, >> You come right out of a comic book.

[00:16:25]>> has this incredible speech when he takes Roper, played by John Saxon, into the weapons chamber, and he says, uh you know, it's hard to associate these horrors with the proud civilizations that created them. Greece, Sparta, the knights of Europe, the samurai, they worship strength cuz it's strength that makes all other values possible. It's this very Nietzschean um a philosophy, a kind of a justification for why he's living the way he is, um and why he's made the choices that he has. And it wasn't surprising to me that the Michael Allin, who wrote the script for Enter the Dragon, was a protege of John Milius, who had directed Conan the Barbarian, cuz I think, you know, there's a parallel with the riddle of steel in that scene, and it's very Miliusian um that that whole thing. So, one of the reasons I think Enter the Dragon has resonated with people is yes, it it moves at a cracking pace.

[00:17:25]It's got the formula of Dr. No, the old James Bond movie and book or Fu Manchu.

[00:17:31]Of course, it has Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee fighting less than in Fist of Fury or Way of the Dragon, but looking magnificent and in a vehicle that foreign audiences can relate to. But, I think it was what what really works is the human factor.

[00:17:49]And you see in the wake of Enter the Dragon, nobody did a movie where you had to wait until The Matrix to have philoso- philosophy >> Oh, sure.

[00:18:00]>> And you had to and I I don't I look at the other martial arts films, even those made in Hong Kong, even those made in uh the West, I I I see them primarily as, you know, my late our late friend Richard Norton, he said like, you know, a martial arts movie is eight fights and the reason they happen.

[00:18:18]And I think that's true. And that has driven the martial arts movie industry over the years. But, the ones that have really resonated with people are um that you know that the the kind of the movies which actually take a human character on a journey. Then when you go to Bloodsport, the Frank Dux character as depicted in the film, and I'm not going to make any claims or counter claims about the veracity of the story.

[00:18:47]>> Oh, that's real. I think so, too.

[00:18:50]>> This young man who like you, like me, came into the world and after a certain amount of time goes, I'm actually in the wrong skin. I should be somebody else living another life.

[00:19:04]>> [music] >> Teach me.

[00:19:07]I can do it.

[00:19:08]>> You know?

[00:19:09]>> Yeah.

[00:19:09]>> And And the question is, how far are you willing to go to fulfill that instinct?

[00:19:16]Cuz I think some people just sublimate it and never do anything. They just work in a bank and they go home at night and they watch kung fu movies or whatever, right? That's as far as they go. Or you get somebody like me, somebody like you, you become Viking samurai and you do movies and you do boxing matches and you have this this thing. And I come to Hong Kong, learn Chinese and start making movies and learning kung fu, doing all the stuff that I did. In Bloodsport, Frank Dux's character, we don't really see much of his real family because as soon as he meets uh Tanaka, that is his father.

[00:19:48]>> Yeah.

[00:19:48]>> I am your father. That is the surrogate father.

[00:19:52]And he wants to at least match the achievement of Tanaka's blood son, of his real son. And then when the son is killed, he takes that position.

[00:20:03]And the motivation throughout is I want to make, you know, I do it for Yu Shidoshi. I want to make you proud. If you took that out and you just had a guy like Jackson who's like, "I want a few more scars on my face. I'm just going to enter this tournament. I want to make money. I want to I want to get the hot chick and that's why I'm there." I don't think the film would have stood the test of time.

[00:20:27]>> Very shallow then. Yeah.

[00:20:28]>> Right. I mean, it's that lovely moment.

[00:20:30]They're actually in the forests in Yuen Long. It's the same place that Jackie Chan fought Yuen Siu Tien in Drunken Master when he gives him the sword and the music is so beautiful and the camera pulls back.

[00:20:40]And it's those quieter beats and the the the feeling of like, you know, I he desperately needs to prove himself and he can't step away even if the army are after him, even if um you know, the Hong Kong police are after him, even if the girlfriend's begging him not to do it.

[00:21:02]He has to. Why is he doing it? For ego?

[00:21:04]For the money? No.

[00:21:06]He's sworn an oath to this new father. And I had the same thing in my own life. I I adored my adoptive father, Morris, who I grew up with in England, who was an accountant and very square, and but a lovely, lovely man. He bought me my first copy of Enter the Dragon.

[00:21:21]And he would have bought me Bloodsport if I'd asked him, but I didn't need that by that point. I didn't need him to.

[00:21:26]>> But, um then when I found my biological mother in Australia, I found that my stepfather was a karate style karate master, Tino Zabrado, Richard Norton's instructor.

[00:21:39]>> Oh, wow.

[00:21:39]>> And so I had that. And then pledged allegiance to my my um adoptive father, rest rest his soul, had passed away, and I kind of in my mid-20s became the son, the adoptive son, of Tino, and treated him as a father.

[00:21:56]So, I could really relate to the I think my reconciling with the family was I can't remember the time frame if I seen Bloodsport, but I certainly over the time watching it related to the idea of one, this white French guy who goes, "I'm Japanese. I'm a ninja or I'm some kind of Asian warrior." Number one.

[00:22:18]Number two, um I've been adopted into this family, and I've got these amazing surrogate parents, which we all would like to have Mr. and Mrs. Tanaka as our parents, right?

[00:22:30]>> You know, it's kind of like Bloodsport is kind of like Karate Kid with Mr. Miyagi, but if they if it if if any of them in Karate Kid could really fight, right?

[00:22:38]>> Yeah, that's true.

[00:22:39]>> Yeah. And then and then um you you had that the driving thing from that is what people react to. And I think the reason other tournament movies and other the films after that they came after, even films like, for example, The Quest, where it had some of the tropes of Bloodsport, and the Bloodsport sequels, you know, that they didn't work. Why? Cuz they didn't get that.

[00:23:03]They didn't see why that was the draw That was the soul and the heart of the film. They were just like, "Yeah, we'll just get good-looking European guys that can kick." Same thing with the Kickboxer sequels, same But they moved away from, you know, what our audiences viscerally reacting to.

[00:23:23]They're not I mean, if they just want to watch people punch each other for spurious reasons, they can watch the wrestling, right?

[00:23:29]>> Sure.

[00:23:30]>> There's no Don't need to watch a my Yeah, and and you can But it it it's interesting cuz in the Hong Kong films, which of course is my métier, there's always been this extraordinary blend between remarkable storytelling and, you know, incredible kinetic action.

[00:23:45]If you ask me as a a connoisseur you like a connoisseur of the genre, okay, 10 American-made English-language martial arts films that have human spiritual quest stories that you can relate to.

[00:24:01]And um have cutting-edge, you know, martial arts action scenes that you can really appreciate and have the score and the finish and the polish. Lately, there's probably been a few more, but in the full If you go back to say that the the the genre came into being, I don't know, in in America, I mean, in the wake of Enter the Dragon in '73, there's probably 20 years when there's really nothing really, you know, kind of that that hits all those points. And the only movie that did, I think, was Bloodsport.

[00:24:35]And then um maybe years later you could you could make it you obviously make claims to The Matrix and maybe the John Wicks and some of these other movies that, you know, really a class A studio projects where they spend a lot of time on the script, they have a lot of things going on. Yeah, theories about why these what why these films Cuz I think it's interesting cuz people I can see somebody looking at your channel and looking at your fascination with Bloodsport and going, "Why does he care so much?" And or even these obsessives about Bruce Lee, why do they care so much? And what I think um it's like a manifestation of Joseph Campbell's Hero of a Thousand Faces. It is like there's a there's a very profound hero's journey kind of in the heart of these these movies.

[00:25:24]And people responding to that.

[00:25:27]And there's two ways to respond to art.

[00:25:30]One is a pure appreciation as an audience.

[00:25:34]>> Mhm.

[00:25:35]>> Which is most art with most people most of the time, whether it's paintings or music or books or films.

[00:25:40]Then there is a transformative thing, which I think you've experienced.

[00:25:44]>> Oh, sure.

[00:25:45]>> And I've definitely experienced. When you saw a film or you saw a picture and you just changed in that moment.

[00:25:53]>> It's powerful, man. Art is >> What was the one What was the one for you?

[00:25:57]>> I mean, it was Bloodsport and you know, everything you said you hit the the nail on the head. Like there's a reason why these things are still talked about decades later and remembered because there's a lot more depth. Like when you were explaining everything with Enter the Dragon, of course, you know, like it's it's deep. People think, "Oh, you know, Bruce Lee looks cool and he's doing kung fu." It's like, "Well, yeah, that's cool, but that's not why we love the film. That's why we like the film, but that's not why we love the film."

[00:26:25]And with Bloodsport, it's all about honor. Even when Van Damme, you know, the Frank Dux character was telling the reporter, like, "This is not for the press. You know, this is not for money.

[00:26:34]This is not for glory. This is for honor." Yeah. You know, it it it's deeper. It's a different kind of motivation that is powerful and it really connects with people, you know?

[00:26:43]So >> I think so. I think for me it was like I just and I talk about it in my book Bruce Bruce I, available now. But I mean, but I just saw a photograph of Bruce Lee and just I can almost track a path of my life to that moment.

[00:27:00]And then looking at the picture and everything transforming and going, "Who's this guy? What is kung fu?" But getting down the family atlas, "Where is Hong Kong?" And I've lived here 30 years now, so it it ran deep, you know? And I think um in terms of experiencing reflections of the life of Bruce Lee in my own life, I've done more than other people, but then at the same time to do things that were um kind of uniquely my own. I mean, that was what Bruce was philosophizing about, wasn't it? You know, like uh you know, absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and create what is specifically your own. And you can do that if you do guitar, if you're writing books, if you whatever it is that you're doing, you can you can apply that to it. But I definitely had that moment, and I think um that there's a very profound atavistic reaction to something in stories and storytelling.

[00:27:55]Whether it was like now cuz Christopher Nolan's doing the Odyssey, right? And then that began with Homer, if Homer was a person, telling a story, "Once upon a time there was a man, Odysseus. What happened?"

[00:28:09]And then it's a space odyssey, and then it's now the movie, whatever the film is that is being done now.

[00:28:14]Or even the cave paintings, you know, that was somebody bothered to go through all the trouble of preparing the pigment and going, "Here's me and my friend hunting buffalo."

[00:28:23]And people reacted to that.

[00:28:25]Um and I think martial art films actually uh have an element of them, a modern mythology. It was so interesting cuz I met Jean-Claude recently in Hong Kong, just down the street from where I am now, because he has uh he's Do you know about the fact that he's now um producing art? He does drawings.

[00:28:44]>> Oh, he like paints and stuff, right?

[00:28:45]>> He does. And it's places the the exhibition I saw it was primarily places that he'd been and he done like an impressionistic image of it and then but and he was there for the exhibition so I just went down the street and I brought one of my sons with me who's very into bodybuilding and whatever and he comes in and I show Kyle and it was interesting cuz these Calvin and Carl's are they're it was almost like Chad and Alex from Double Impact, you know, but I just brought one of them. I think I brought Alex and then so he came in and then he says, "Oh, do you take a photograph?" Jean-Claude couldn't have been sweeter, couldn't have been nicer.

[00:29:17]Um and so of course Kyle takes off his jacket and he's got like a tank top and all these muscles and what have you and you know, he's posing and he said, "You're just an inspiration like I'll I'll watch 5 minutes of Bloodsport or whatever your other films before I go to the gym >> Oh, sure.

[00:29:35]>> me all ready to to rumble." And I was so happy because, you know, I think you know, you and I have a obviously quite a bit older but I definitely was inspired when I saw the physicality and everything, whatever Jean-Claude was doing to kind of in my own way, gee, I want to do some of that stuff or follow some of that path, right? Um and I see it now in my kid and then I also gave him a copy of the book which is wonderful and I think a mutual friend of ours actually, James Bennett, was in his place in Hong Kong and it was on the side he says, "Oh, Bey Bey gave me this book." I was kidding with him. I said, "The next one will be Jean-Claude and I." And then >> say that could be a future book right there, man.

[00:30:13]>> [laughter] >> Years ago I did actually have when I first came to Hong Kong I had a contract to do a book a series of books about Hong Kong actually about sorry, about Hollywood action stars which was Seagal and Schwarzenegger and Van Damme and I think in the end I just basically gave the money back and didn't do the books. The reason was it just felt kind of counterintuitive. I just moved to Hong Kong >> Mhm.

[00:30:40]>> and I just done a book about Hong Kong.

[00:30:43]And my main aim at that time was to do films. At the time I was shooting a movie called Circus Kids in China where I was playing the bad guy. And it just felt like I don't see how I'm going to do justice to these books. But I remember having a conversation with John Clouse about it because he was very worried about somebody doing an unauthorized biography of him.

[00:31:05]But I don't know. I got a lot of books I want to do. Even then I think you should. I mean, I think there's people better suited who are in LA or in America or in Europe to do a book about those guys than I am. Whereas conversely um It's interesting if somebody was somebody was um uh accused me of being critical of I I'd for different reasons stopped doing DVD Blu-ray commentaries. At least not in any great numbers.

[00:31:33]>> Okay.

[00:31:33]>> And it it obviously in the wake of that some people have done that many people have done them and some of them were good some of them were not good. And in general I um didn't ever um you know, kind of criticize or comment on them. I didn't think it was appropriate.

[00:31:49]Somebody recently was saying oh and I criticized Frank Djeng. And that's completely not the case. I greatly admire Frank Djeng. He's like one of the preeminent commentarians now for Hong Kong films and he's ethnically Chinese speaks much better Cantonese than I do better accent does a good job. What I had said and I think it's true is it is impossible for anybody to um if you're an insider in the industry and you speak Chinese and you know all the actors and you know where all the films were shot and you have access to all the information you live in Hong Kong for 30 years you can't match that however well informed you are and however diligent you are when you're living in San Francisco or somewhere. It would like be like me writing doing commentaries for Bollywood films um without living in India. And there's another guy who's lived in India 30 years who's doing it.

[00:32:39]It's just a different perspective. So, that was as much as I wasn't being critical. I was purely saying everybody has their own strength or weakness. When I I'm for a white guy pretty good when I say the names of Chinese actors when I talk about Chinese phrases. My accent is probably if you're a Cantonese speaker you go, "Well, you can tell he's a foreigner." When Frank says something you don't. He sounds like a native.

[00:33:05]I don't know if he's from Hong Kong, but he sounds like a native Chinese person.

[00:33:08]But at the same time he may not know where somebody shot or somewhere was shot. He might know who some actor is because he's not in Hong Kong. So, this is that that's what I was kind of, you know, alluding to. And so, to me if somebody's doing a Van Damme book probably they should be in the States.

[00:33:23]And if somebody's doing a book about Jackie Chan like I'm working on now, you should be in you should be in It kind of makes sense, right? Like I said to you you're going to do a film about you know, Amitabh Bachchan. You probably it's not an essential, but I think it's better if you're in India because you'd have access. I mean even Matt Polly who did a wonderful biography of Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee a life. He spent a considerable amount He's working out of my office. He spent a bunch of time here. And again, if I had criticism of his book it would just be there's probably a limitation to how much you can truly embrace the Chineseness of Bruce Lee's influence Bruce Lee's life and the influences on his life as American. Just as I think if you were a non-English speaking Chinese person trying to understand American Westerns, there might be something of a barrier because culturally linguistically you wouldn't really be getting a very pure the pure essence of it. I mean essentially I'll give an example and this is something we're exploring in the documentary. Bruce Lee's first teacher of martial arts as far as I can ascertain was his father.