The Legend of Bruce Lee (2008)

Better than the movie "The Dragon" that's for sure. Sure this is a low budget movie and most scenes (in America) were filmed with modern cars, but you can simply by-pass all of this if you think about the character Bruce Lee himself. Danny Chan did an outstanding job. He deserves more roles in acting.

Gonna keep this short. I really wanted to enjoy this show but, I was so put off (as a few of the other reviewers have pointed out) by the anachronisms like modern cars and buildings in multiple scenes/shots. They just destroyed my personal ability to suspend disbelief enough to be able to just lose myself in the show and enjoy it.Example; I've been a huge fan of Lee (both the actor and athlete) for over 40 years, I'm also a longtime fan of the football team Arsenal and was quite pleased at the 12:05 Mark of the first episode to see an extra showing his support for them in a modern Arsenal jersey (circa 2006) Now this is supposed to be a scene meant to be set in the 1950's! That's just one example but, modern clothing, cars, buildings and I swear I saw a guy on a cellphone in the background at one point too. Its all just too much to ignore. Bottom line, I realize unless you have a endless budget these things can pop up here and there. The show as a whole wasn't bad. But all those inconsistencies, it just feels as if there's no respect for their audience. Which to me, made it un- watchable.

Despite this series having Bruce Lee's daughter, Shannon Lee, at the helm as executive producer it suffers from the same embellished melodrama and historical inaccuracies that other Bruce Lee bio-pics have been plagued with.This is understandable since Chinese productions are notorious with playing loose with the actual facts. The Donnie Yen "Ip Man" series of movies is a prime example of artistic license.Chinese films have always been jingoistic and xenophobic, often villainizing other cultures as being evil invaders, as a means of elevating the Chinese hero in the movie who inevitably and selflessly fights the "foreign devils" for the right of the oppressed Chinese - - which is a bit ironic considering in the last 100 years, the Chinese are possibly the most pervasive cultures to globally migrate to other countries using the affluence of commerce and business as the means rather than military force. Just sayin'.Hollywood is not any better with their highly embellished, Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story. A more apt title would have been A Bruce Lee Fable!It's understandable because real life is much more boring than real life. From everything I have read on Bruce Lee, his life was not as fantastic as that portrayed in this and other films. He did not get into even half the fights and confrontations portrayed in this movie, he faced more institutionalized racism (lack of opportunities) than outward racism, he injured himself lifting weights (as another poster has mentioned), had a bad temper, but otherwise was a hard working, ambitious guy...not exactly enough for a Hollywood or Asiawood movie I suppose.The danger to these over dramatized events of his life is that subsequent generations learning about Bruce Lee take them as fact and it really distorts the real life of Bruce Lee and his accomplishments.I hate to say this but the most accurate portrayal of Bruce Lee might still be the 1976 exploitation movie, Bruce Lee The Man The Myth...and that's not saying much.

Having watched all 50 episodes, I have to say I did enjoy this series, albeit being draggy and boring at times. What I do find interesting is how they took artistic license to change anything at will, here are a few examples of how they busted their own agenda or didn't catch the faux pas at editing: 1. Master Ip - in reality, he was clean shaven, but of course they had to give him a long white beard to make him look venerable. Ironic since part of Bruce's frustration with Hollywood was their stigmatized view of Chinese as being "pigtail wearing" , but yet the series goes to great length promoting this stereotype. 2. Too many examples of the time being out of context with late 1960's early 70's. a. Airport in Hong Kong is Chep Lap Kok, not the older Kai Tak. b. Scenes in Seattle with the restaurant Chipotle behind them. c. Countless other scenes. 3. Episode 47 where a Cathy Pacific jet is landing, but the name is shown backwards on the jet due to the camera not shooting a direct shot (cificaP yhtaC).I also wonder why they changed his name from Lee Jun Fan to Lee Xiao Long, along with other name changes throughout his lifetime, like Jame Colburn became Douglas?I endured the series because I adore Bruce Lee, but would like to know why they were so sloppy with these errors and also the radial changes to people's identities.