All these years after his accidental death in March 1993, Brandon Lee continues to fascinate
fans both new and old.
Son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, the actor is best known for his truly haunting
performance in the goth-tinged 1994 film The Crow.
"I see you've made your decision.
Now let's see you enforce it."
Here's everything you need to know about Brandon Lee.
In 1992, Brandon Lee told Deseret News,
"I've always wanted to be an actor.
From the time I was really young, it's just what I've always wanted to do...but it was
never my idea to become a martial arts action actor."
From a very young age, Brandon was trained in his father's own unique style of kung fu,
Jeet Kune Do, which incorporates a mix of martial arts techniques.
As Brandon said in a 1992 interview,
"I started training with my dad really as soon as I could walk.
I mean, my dad was a really diligent trainer."
According to Entertainment Weekly, Brandon could destroy a wooden board with a single
kick by the time he was six years old.
Meanwhile, people were constantly training with Bruce at home, making for quite the unusual
childhood.
"When I was a little kid, a lot of my friends didn't want to come over to the house because
there were always these men in the backyard screaming and breaking things, you know?"
Brandon was only eight at the time of his father's passing in 1973.
Following Bruce's death, the surviving Lees returned to Los Angeles, where Brandon struggled
to find his place.
He was kicked out of two high schools and dropped out of a third.
After earning his GED, he went on to study theater at Emerson College for a year before
attending the famous Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York.
As he started getting more deeply involved with acting, his life began to flow like water.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brandon turned down the opportunity to play his dad
in the 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.
As Lee explained:
"I was a little scared by the whole thing, really.
It's strange to play your own father, you know?
I couldn't really wrap my mind around it."
That makes sense.
If he'd played his dad, he would've had to feign a romantic relationship with a woman
pretending to be his mom Linda…which would have been awkward.
Actor Jason Scott Lee ultimately went on to play Bruce in the film...but opportunity came
knocking for Brandon in 1985 when he was cast in the television film Kung Fu: The Movie,
starring alongside veteran actor David Carradine.
On the whole, it's very dramatic stuff.
"A coward.
A peasant.
Who carries vegetables!
An old woman who runs in the night from shadows."
Soon enough, he began popping up in more and more action films.
In 1985, Brandon Lee made his first and only film in Hong Kong, Legacy of Rage.
Even though the film was in Cantonese, Hollywood quickly took notice of the young star.
Since he was as talented and photogenic as his father, it wasn't long before Brandon
landed his first English-language leading role in 1989's entirely missable Laser Mission.
Curiously, the action film also starred acting legend Ernest Borgnine, but it's definitely
not one of his most distinguished performances.
"You're fond of birds."
"Yes.
Yes.
I have an affinity for them."
By the early '90s, Lee's star was on the rise.
In 1991, he starred in Showdown In Little Tokyo, which co-starred Dolph Lundgren of
Rocky IV fame.
"All right.
Say it."
"Asian task force.
You're Kenner?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Nelson sent me."
Thanks to that film, Lee was subsequently offered a three-picture deal.
One of those films happened to be the action flick Rapid Fire.
But it was his haunting and emotional performance in Alex Proyas' The Crow that made his career,
earning him a cult following that continues to grow to this day.
Unfortunately, the young actor wouldn't live long enough to enjoy that success.
Brandon Lee had a reputation as a reckless daredevil.
As his former fiancée Eliza Hutton explained to People in 1992:
"He's confident, intense and direct, and a lot of people find that intimidating."
In fact, Lee was so confident, he often rode his Harley Davidson motorcycle with no helmet
and his hands off the handlebars.
He once said:
"If I want to put my head in a brick wall, it's my business."
He even owned a Cadillac hearse, and used to joke that it was good for taking on camping
trips.
In an interview with Jay Leno in 1992, Lee talked about coming home to find a burglar
in his home.
Instead of calling the police, he confronted the robber, who lunged at him with a knife
and cut his arm.
The two fought, and Lee finally called the cops…after he separated the thief's shoulder
and broke his arm.
"The police came and took him away, and after he got out of the hospital, he got two years
for breaking and entering and attempted robbery."
"Eh, there you are."
It just goes to show that Lee was a major risk taker, both onscreen and off.
"You have the right to be dead."
He could be super-intense when making movies.
For example, Brandon used his method acting training to prepare for The Crow by soaking
in a tub full of ice.
That way, he could feel how cold Eric Draven must've been while lying in his grave.
A producer berated him for this dangerous stunt and told him to mind his health.
Though it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role, Brandon Lee wasn't the first choice
to play Eric Draven in The Crow.
At first, the producers wanted to cast an actual musician for the role of the murdered
indie rocker.
Names like Michael Jackson and Charlie Sexton were kicked around before the team realized
there wouldn't be as much singing or performing as originally planned.
Even then, Lee's name wasn't at the top of the list.
Comic book writer James O'Barr wanted Johnny Depp to play the dark superhero, but in the
end, Brandon Lee's martial arts experience, and his smoldering good looks, won him the
role.
"What are you supposed to be?
A clown or something?"
"Sometimes."
He was heavily involved with the film even before shooting began.
According to The Independent,
"He also helped shape the story, convincing [director Alex] Proyas...to remove a subplot...because
of its problematic Asian stereotyping."
According to co-star Jon Polito, conditions on the set of The Crow were terrible.
Lee reportedly lost 20 pounds while filming.
Plus, the dark tale of revenge and murder was mostly filmed at night in North Carolina's
freezing winter conditions.
Lee was constantly getting drenched in water, and filming was constantly interrupted to
fix his make-up.
Lee reportedly filed a formal complaint against production conditions mere days before his
death.
In fact, things were so rough that his manager called producers in a rage, accusing them
of trying to kill Lee.
"Creatures of the night, they never learn!"
During the scene in which Eric Draven crashes through the glass door of a pawn shop, Lee
was cut badly by the prop glass, prompting Polito to express concern about all the physical
risks his co-star was taking.
All sorts of on-set injuries occurred during shooting.
Speaking to Inside Edition in 1993, an anonymous crew member stopped just short of saying the
shoot was "haunted":
"Nothing ever seemed to go right....There definitely were some bad vibes on the set."
One crew member reportedly drove a screwdriver through his hand by accident.
Another member was severely burned after the crane he was operating came into contact with
power lines.
A stuntman reportedly fell through the roof of a set during rehearsal, breaking a number
of ribs.
Meanwhile, a series of hurricanes tore through North Carolina during filming, destroying
a number of The Crow's sets.
But the most tragic accident was yet to come.
On March 31st, 1993, Brandon Lee was accidentally shot in the abdomen by co-star Michael Massee
with an improperly loaded prop gun.
They were filming the scene in which Eric Draven comes home to find his fiancée being
assaulted.
The tip of a dummy bullet, a mock round used in close-ups, was lodged in the barrel in
front of the blank.
When Masse pulled the trigger, the blank sent the fragment flying.
Tragically, it lodged in the actor's spine, and after six hours of surgery, Brandon Lee
died in Wilmington, North Carolina.
He was just 28 years old.
His death was ruled an accident by negligence.
Contrary to popular belief, Brandon Lee's death is never seen in the final cut of the
film.
What we do see in the finished movie in a body double.
Brandon Lee's mother Linda and fiancée Eliza Hutton were both in favor of director Alex
Proyas finishing The Crow.
However, Linda filed a lawsuit against the production company, naming 13 people at fault
for her son's wrongful death.
The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court.
Sadly, Lee and Eliza Hutton were set to be married just a couple of weeks from the day
he died.
When Brandon Lee died, he still hadn't filmed all his scenes for the crow.
As we mentioned earlier, filmmakers used a body double to finish the film.
In fact, it was future John Wick creator/director Chad Stahelski who was hired as the stand-in
for Lee.
Stahelski filmed all of Lee's remaining scenes, and Lee's face was subsequently superimposed
over his own in post-production.
The famous face-painting scene was one of the most expensive scenes to complete, since
Lee's face had to be digitally inserted into the broken mirror.
Seven years after his death, Brandon Lee could be seen in a brief cameo role in the 2000
Swedish film Sex, Lies, and Video Violence.
The film is a very low-budget, hard-to-find horror movie satire about a young man who
loves watching violent films.
This truly bizarro movie references loads of classic pictures, including Alien, A Clockwork
Orange, and RoboCop.
Somehow, even Mel Brooks makes a cameo…and so does Brandon Lee.
In his very brief appearance, Lee plays a befuddled pedestrian who's clearly seen some
very hardcore stuff go down.
"He's got a gun?
I just saw the guy.
He's like over there."
Before Bruce Lee died of a cerebral edema in 1973, the martial arts star had two kids:
Brandon and Shannon.
Today, Shannon Lee is his sole remaining child, and she's doing everything she can to preserve
the memories of both her father and her brother.
She runs the Bruce Lee Foundation and oversees movies and documentaries about her dad's life.
In 2018, on the 25th anniversary of Brandon Lee's death, Shannon appeared on the Bruce
Lee Podcast to talk about her beloved big brother.
She even shared some of Brandon's journal entries for the first time.
During the podcast, Shannon talked about how Brandon would often prank her, but when it
came down to it, he was her fiercest defender.
Shannon recalls the time her aunt tried to force her to stop using her comfort blanket
just after Bruce Lee's death.
"Brandon just, like, stood up for me.
And he, like, put his hands on his hips and was yelling."
Long story short: Brandon triumphantly got Shannon's blankie back.
What a great brother.
Shannon also talked about Brandon's love of reading and books.
He was apparently quite fond of curling up with a dictionary to look up words he didn't
know.
"He knew the definition of everything."
Brandon was a born showman, too.
As a kid, he'd write down episodes of The Twilight Zone by hand and perform them at
school.
Sadly, Shannon was supposed to be the best man at her brother's wedding, but that never
came to pass.
Brandon Lee is still loved and missed by his family, friends, and fans.
Buried next to his father in Seattle's Lake View Cemetery, the site has become a shrine
to both legends, and it's visited by fans from around the world.
People leave flowers, notes, and other memorabilia to pay their respects to the father and son
who touched so many peoples' lives through their work.
Reflecting on The Crow twenty-five years later, The Saturday Evening Post wrote that,
"[The film] captured the angst of a generation."
As Roger Ebert wrote in his 1994 review of the film:
“It is a sad irony that this film is not only the best thing [Brandon Lee] accomplished,
but is actually more of a screen achievement than any of the films of his father, Bruce
Lee.”
Every time someone watches The Crow, they help ensure that Brandon's unique legacy lives
on.
"It can't rain all the time."
"Eric?"
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