The tragic early death of Bruce Lee triggered an iconic image and status that many have tried to emulate – and that yellow and black tracksuit continues to resonate…
The late great Bruce Lee passed away in 1973 and more than 40 years later both his cinematic and martial arts legacy continues. This year saw the shooting of a new Bruce Lee biopic Birth of the Dragon, directed by George Nolfi with Philip Ng (from Once Upon a Time in Shanghai) as the Little Dragon. And it also seems as if Bruce’sploitation is making a comeback too! The term was originally coined to cover the various Bruce Lee imitators or ‘Clones of Bruce Lee’ that included Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee, Bruce Liang, Dragon Shek and others who were groomed as possible successors while imitating the Little Dragon in everything from fictionalized bio-pics to wild and crazy adventures.
The release of the first trailer for Double Dragon, no relation to the video game that became a mid 90’s movie starring Mark Dacascos, heralds a full fledged throwback to the glory days of classic Bruce’sploitation. The trailer opens with a reference to the well known black and white footage of Bruce Lee auditioning for what was to have been Number One Son (the adventures of Charlie Chan’s eldest son). While that series wasn’t to be, the audition did help lead Lee to The Green Hornet and from there the rest is history! This new movie also sees one of the characters donning the infamous yellow and black tracksuit worn by Lee in Game of Death.
But that’s not the only new bit if Bruce’ploitation in the works: the first teaser trailers have appeared for Bruce Mission ( which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1PsqHZL2p8 and the wonderfully named Jeet Kune Do Soul, which also borrows some very familiar Bruce Lee’esque themes for its soundtrack, and also sees yet another hero don that yellow and black tracksuit. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNDZ-RBx_68 )
This, of course, does lead us to wonder about a question which has driven us all at times: who exactly wore the yellow and black tracksuit best? No sooner had the first shots of Bruce Lee wearing the outfit on set in Game of Death appeared – and Bruce had passed away – the clones began appearing, each and every one of them started wearing variations on the outfit, and so did plenty of other people. Long time Bruce Lee fan Stephen Chow wore it in the Little Dragon inspired Fist of Fury 1991 movies, as did Danny Chan in both Shaolin Soccer and The Legend of Bruce Lee, Uma Thurman wore a very GOD inspired outfit for the final of Kill Bill Volume 1, while Karen Mok, Vicki Zhou & Shu Qi donned versions of the outfit to help promote the action thriller So Close. Mmost recently, Jackie Chan protege Zoe Zhang Langxin the beautiful Taekwondo Champion for CZ12 also donned the outfit for a recent photo shoot.
(And I assure you this is not just an excuse to show photos of her dressed like that in the top banner image above..!)
