Brandon Lee was only eight years old when his father, Bruce Lee died from unexplainable reasons. Lee was perhaps the most predominant figure in martial arts during his time. Lee became an icon for the Chinese people and an action star of many such films as Enter the Dragon, Lee�s last film. A great mystery resides behind Bruce Lee's death. After an unprecedented nine day inquest into his death, the Chinese coroner determined his death as a freak allergic reaction to a pain remedy for headaches. Many people who knew him could not believe that Bruce, as healthy and physically fit as he was, could be put under by a silly headache pill. That is when the questions and the rumors of a curse arose. First rumor that surfaced was that it another film company had Bruce killed. Then it became the Chinese Mafia killed Bruce because Lee had dared to reveal the secrets of martial arts to the world. Here in the United States there were rumors of either a massive heart attack, or even more far fetched, a brain tumor. These thoughts quickly became the questioned Curse!
An unexplained curse has supposedly been on the Lee family for many years. It dealt with something called FUNGSHIE and the powers that surrounded the Lee Estate. Apparently the house while in the stages of being built was actually built inappropriately by the builders. According to Fungshie experts, evil spirits were being directed into the house. The fungshie experts put a small mirror on the house to deflect any evil spirits from gaining entrance. The day before Bruce's death, a typhoon ripped the mirror off of the Lee Estate, the following day Bruce mysteriously died. That date is July 25th, 1973, Bruce was only 32. He left behind him a widow, Linda �Cadwell� Lee and two small children, Brandon (deceased) and Shannon.
�Enter the Dragon� was the last film Bruce completed upon his mysterious death. Bruce Lee was a very special man and what he brought to Martial Arts was unmeasured by anyone of his time. It has been said that at times Bruce moved so fast that many of the producers who produced his movies had to slow down the film so that the viewing audiences would be able to see what Bruce was doing at a more normal pace. This was not the end of the Fungshie curse rumors. They came back upon the death of Brandon.
Brandon Bruce Lee...........
Brandon Bruce Lee was born in Oakland, California on February 1, 1965 to legendary martial artist Bruce Lee and his wife Linda �Cadwell� Lee. Soon as Brandon learned how to walk, his father, started training him in the martial arts. Bruce Lee originated a style called Jeet Kune Do, and Bruce trained young Brandon in this style while he was still alive. After his father's unexpected death at the early age of 32, eight year old Brandon, his mother, and his younger sister Shannon moved to Los Angeles. Linda wanted to take her two children out of the Hollywood limelight, and gave them a chance at a normal childhood which they had been denied with their father being Bruce Lee.
From a very early age, Brandon was drawn towards performing. He always wanted to be an actor and pursued his dream endlessly in his short life. Acting was all Brandon wanted to do. It was Brandon�s hopes that one day he would be known for his acting ability, and not for who his father was. After taking high school drama classes, Brandon left to attend acting classes with Lee Strasberg, and later continued his studies at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. He joined up with Eric Morris' �American New Theater� company in New York City and followed the company's relocation to Los Angeles and appeared in their production of �Full Fed Beast� for playwright John Lee Hancock. Brandon would later return to his martial arts roots by training at the �Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts� in Marina Del Rey, California, which was run by two of his father�s former students and instructors, Danny Inosanto and Ted Wong.
,p>Brandon�s first professional acting job came at the age of twenty when he appeared in the CBS television movie, �Kung Fu: The Movie.� The year was 1986. Brandon played the long lost and vengeful son of David Carradine's character Caine. Brandon also made several appearances on Hong Kong television and would later land a role as the evil son of a Yakuza Godfather on an episode of �O'Hara� costarring with Pat Morita.It began to bother Brandon that Asian actors were not consistently getting starring roles in American films or on television. Brandon had to travel to Hong Kong in order to make his feature film debut, starring in a movie called �Legacy of Rage.� The year was 1988, and Brandon was twenty two. The movie was enough that it help Brandon land a role in the 1990 movie �Laser Mission� which was filmed in Namibia and featured star Ernest Borgnine. Brandon was now twenty four, on the name list with two movies, but still had not made a real debut in the United States.
That all changed when Brandon made his American feature film debut in �Showdown in Little Tokyo� for Warner Brothers. Brandon played a policeman. The movie reviews were good for Brandon, for he landed a major starring role, that of Jake Lo in �Rapid Fire� for 20th Century Fox, written with Brandon specifically in mind. Brandon helped work on �Rapid Fire's� fight choreography to bring some Hong Kong movie flair to the film. It worked for the movie was brilliant, and Brandon was signed by 20th Century Fox to do two more films. Brandon had made his nitch in acting.
��People once believed, that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens, that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes the crow could bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.��
1993 production of �The Crow� starts. Brandon Lee died during the making of the film �The Crow.� On March 31st, Brandon was injured while filming one of the last few scenes left to be shot. A tip from a "dummy round" (a prop bullet that has no gun powder) had lodged in the gun and was subsequently ejected from the barrel when a blank cartridge was fired. Brandon died hours later at the Wilmington Hospital. Mystery soon surrounded his death. After fifty eyewitnesses and more than a dozen ballistics tests, Detectives Rodney Simmons and Brian Patterson of the Wilmington North Carolina Police Department came forth with their official findings surrounding Brandon's death. The cause of death was from a single 44 Mag. gunshot, that was projected into Brandon's abdomen during the death scene of his character Eric Draven in the movie �The Crow.�
The way the story goes is that the first of many mistakes started when some of the gophers ((errand boys basically)) were told to go out to a local pawn shop and get some items for the pawn shop scene. One of the items purchased was one box of live 44 caliber bullets. The ammo was found on the set by one of the effects men. After he told everyone on the set that live ammo was not permitted, he took the ammo, and he set it in the trunk of his car for two weeks. They were brought out a second time to create some dummy shells for a scene involving the close-up of a barrel of a gun. One of the shells that had been made had no gunpowder to it, but had a live primer still in tact. When the 44 Magnum was fired the bullet was wedged into the barrel of the gun and there it lay until the 44 Magnum was needed again.
Many people heard the primer fire, but the lack of experience and the mistake of not having a professional gun handler on the set was the biggest downfall. The gun was never properly cleaned and the day came when the 44 Mag was needed for Eric Draven's death scene. The director ordered a full charge blank for this scene and when the actor (Powers Booth) pulled the trigger the bullet which was still wedged into the barrel of the gun was projected into Brandon, ending his life at only twenty eight years. Brandon's performance in this film showed the world that he was definitely a rising star and diverse enough for more serious roles in the future if Brandon had in fact survived.
No criminal charges were brought upon any of the people working for the studio or to the studio itself. Since so many people were actually involved in the mishandling of the weapons and the ammo it would have been too hard to get a conviction on any one or all of the persons involved. Everyone was to blame, everyone from the Director, to the Producer, to the man who made the dummy shells and to the man who bought the live shells in the first place. Brandon was to have been married to his soul mate, writer Eliza Hutton, they had planned their wedding for April 17, 1993. Brandon died March 31, 1993 seventeen days before their wedding. Brandon left behind him a legacy, a mother who loved him dearly, and a sister who adored him unabashedly. What a shame for his family. First they lose Bruce at a young age, then they lose Brandon at an even younger one. Maybe there was a curse, maybe there wasn�t, we will never know now will we?.
If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on, is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever.� ((From the movie �The Crow� the fifth and last film by Brandon Lee))