Shannon Lee On Preserving Her Father Bruce Lee's Legacy On 'Warrior' And His Two New Movies

It’s a tale as old as time: In 1971, Bruce Lee pitched a TV series for him to star in: as a pugilist master roaming in the American Wild West, but Hollywood balked at the notion of an Asian headlining a prime-time show. A year later, Kung Fu, a TV show starring a very white David Carradine as an Asian pugilist master in the Old West, premiered. The studio insisted that it was not based on Lee’s spiel. And so the legend goes... (According to the 1993 biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, it was hinted that Lee knew it was his idea.)

The legend lives on: Bruce Lee in 'Enter the Dragon'.

Flash forward to nearly 50 years later, Lee’s then-radical concept is finally posthumously realised by his daughter, Shannon. On the 10-part Cinemax series, Warrior, Japanese-British actor Andrew Koji stars as a young man who arrives in 19th century San Francisco from China to search for his sister but winds up embroiled in Chinatown’s feuding gangs, the shenanigans of racist politicians, and a forbidden romance with a Caucasian woman.

For Shannon, 50, Warrior — on which she served as executive producer alongside Fast & Furious impresario Justin Lin — is one of the many ways to honour her father’s legacy by showcasing his creative ideas and philosophies. She runs Bruce Lee Enterprises — “the family business” as she calls it — which handles merchandising and licensing, and the Bruce Lee Foundation, a charity dedicated to spreading Lee’s beliefs through educational and social programmes.

On Warrior, Shannon’s main task as EP is to ensure the action “is designed up to the standard within the guidelines of my father’s legacy” and “it’s not just fighting for fighting’s sake.” “We really wanted the fighting to not just be about the most beautiful choreography, but really be vital to the story and the characters which my father believed in, says Shannon, whose brother, Brandon, was killed tragically while filming The Crow in 1993.

But Shannon hopes to “be more involved on the show” should it return for Season 2. Does that mean she might be persuaded to unleash off her fists and kicks of fury like she once did in on the Sammo Hung cop show Martial Law, and the Hongkong thriller Enter the Eagles? But that’s another story for another time.

Here, in a recent teleconference from LA, Shannon reveals to journos a few more things about Warrior. (P/S: Not too long after the interview, Warrior is renewed for a second season.)

Warrior airs Sat, Cinemax (Singtel TV Ch 424 & StarHub Ch 611), 10am. It’s also streaming on HBO Go. Ip Man 4: The Finale opens July 25, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Aug 15.

Photos: Cinemax, Sony Pictures, TPG News/Click Photos

1. She owes Justin Lin big time for getting Warrior off the ground.

“Really, there would be no Warrior without Justin. Justin, first of all, he’s the one who reached out to me. Not only does he have the skills and expertise to help make the vision come to life, he’s also a wonderful collaborator and human being. He and I just worked together very well. He’s always wanting to do what’s best for my father’s legacy which I really appreciate because many people who wanted to work with me but they really just wanted to get me out of the way. They didn’t actually want to work with me. They just wanted to get their hands on whatever they could on Bruce Lee and write a check to me. That’s not how I operate because I want to make sure that the projects stay within what I believe to be in the framework of my father’s legacy. Justin is really a wonderful collaborator and a lovely man and a human being. I hope to work with him more in the future.”

2. Andrew Koji is no Bruce Lee copycat.

He is definitely his own man, says Shannon of the 32-year-old Japanese British actor who plays Ah Sahm, the fresh-off-the-boat hero on Warrior. “We were definitely looking for somebody who could do the martial arts, act, and has charisma. We were definitely not looking for a Bruce Lee copycat or lookalike. A lot of people came in and auditioned and kinda be like Bruce Lee. We didn’t really want that. We wanted somebody to come in and own the role, somebody who could take directions… and we felt fortunate to find Andrew. We looked all over the place for actors to play this part. Andrew didn’t have a ton of acting experience and martial arts experience although he had some of both. He came in and wanted to create the character of Ah Sahm. He has this soulful quality about him, and this charisma which we thought is wonderful. [That's why he's] the best choice for the part.”

3. The show isn’t intended to be a commentary on Trump’s anti-immigration policies.

“My father purposefully set the show in the late 1880s because he wanted to touch on the experience of the Chinese immigrants, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 [which outlaws Chinese migrant workers], and the Tong Wars [a series of gangland feuds in San Francisco’s Chinatown]. They certainly served an important backdrop for the show that creates a lot of conflicts [for the characters]. The show definitely deals with racism, xenophobia, and immigration — topics that have become front and centre in the US as of late. We started working on the show and putting it together before the current presidency, so it’s just a coincidence that [these topics] are in the headlines right now.”

4. It isn’t easy being Bruce Lee’s daughter.

“It’s something that I had [struggled with] throughout my life. I think, overwhelmingly, it is an honour to be his daughter. He was a remarkable human being and, of course, there’s pressure. I have been challenged in finding my own identity in having people relating to me for who I am rather than who I am related to. There are a lot of assumptions people make about my life — how should I lead it and how I should run my business. The thing that really guides me the most in all of this is that my father’s own philosophy. He said that my job as a human being is to maximise my own potential and live my own life to the best of my ability. So whenever I feel a little bit pressure, I just remember the most important thing for me to do is to live the best possible life and be the best possible person I can be. If I do that, I would have honoured my father’s legacy.”

5. She’s kinda curious to see her father in two new movies.

As the CEO of Bruce Lee Enterprises, Shannon has strict control over the use of her father’s name, image, and likeness. When asked about her thoughts on her father’s ‘appearances’ in the upcoming Ip Man 4: The Finale; and Quentin Tarantino’s 1969-set drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, she says, with an awkward chuckle, “I do not have anything to do with either those projects and I really don’t know how they are portraying my father and if they will be respectful or not [in his portrayal]. I’ll just have to wait and see.” In 2015, t he BLE tried to stop the producers of Ip Man 3 from using a digital double of Bruce Lee, a real-life student of Wing Chun master Ip Man (Donnie Yen). The producers had permission from Shannon’s estranged uncle, Robert, Bruce’s brother, who served as a consultant on the film. In the final version, Bruce is played by Hongkong actor Chan Kwok-Kwan, who’ll be reprising the role in Ip Man 4.