Review of Bruce Lee: The Lost Interviews

Introduction

Bruce Lee. The mere mention of the man`s name evokes something of wonder and respect in most of us who are interested in martial arts. The man has become legendary more so after his death than during his life and there`s still some quiet speculation on his death 30-years after the event. To me he epitomises supreme strength, discipline and tenacity coupled with a philosophical outlook on life. Anyone who`s seen his films, seen the interviews he gave, read any of his books, or practised Jeet Kune Do/Wing Chun or any other martial art, will have an opinion on the man; he was undeniably charismatic, energetic, athletic and driven. How much of this is on the surface, and how much is the real man coming through for the public to look at? No matter how many times you`ve seen his interviews and heeded the words he once said, there was far more going on beneath his engaging surface.

Bruce Lee: The Lost Interviews are just that, lost interviews, plus something new too. There`s an unedited 25-minute interview conducted by Pierre Berton, which is the main feature. Then there are the extras: a Bruce Lee screen test from 1964, a new interview with Grandmaster Cheung made in 2004, as well as interviews with Ted Thomas and Alex Ben Block. That`s a lot of interviews by anyone`s book.

I lent this DVD to someone who was very much into Bruce and his opinion of Bruce changed so I knew there had to be something compelling about watching a load of old black & white interviews.

Video

The main interview feature is black & white and the quality is okay for what it is. Apart from being soft, you can see and hear everything without any problems. The interview with Grandmaster Cheung is widescreen enhanced and was made this year. It looks a little soft, but is fine otherwise. The other segments on the disc are black & white as well.

Audio

The audio quality is variable due to the age of the interviews. Since these are interviews, the main ones are clear and problem free. The only one with consistent background noise is the Alex Ben Block phone interview, which can be a little irritating, but worth persevering with. Subtitles would have been very helpful however.

Features

Easy to navigate menu with a few extras:

• Grandmaster Cheung Interview (widescreen enhanced) (1:00:14) - He`s a Grandmaster of Wing Chun and has been practising it for 53-years! He starts off with a little intro to Wing Chun, his background, and his relationship with Bruce Lee. He was one of Bruce`s Wing Chun`s teachers, a direct student of former Grandmaster Yip Man (the father of modern Wing Chun), and speaks with ease and humour about Bruce. He`s very well spoken and recounts a few anecdotes, which makes this easy and interesting to watch. It`s when he mentions Bruce Lee and steroids in the same sentence that had me acutely interested.

• Original screen test 1964 (8:11) - This is something that I`m sure a lot of fans would have already seen. He shows a few moves in front of a TV producer and briefly demonstrates tiger and crane patterns.

• Ted Thomas Interview (13:51) - This is a phone interview and accompanies a photo gallery. There`s a lot of basic conversation here covered in other interviews and while it will be familiar to fans, it`s still worth listening to because there are lots of pictures and a Bruce Lee demonstration video clip too.

• Alex Ben Block Interview (22:01) - The audio quality is quite poor so you have to concentrate to pick up all the words. Again, this phone interview is accompanied by the same photo gallery as the Ted Thomas Interview and covers the usual basic things that most Lee fans would already know. Still, it`s interesting to listen to at least once.

There are no English subtitles.

Conclusion

While I found this DVD interesting to watch and listen to, it`s not something that`s earth shattering, except for the comments about Bruce using steroids. This was in the last 12-months of his life where he lost a lot of weight. Drawing conclusions from this in the run-up to his death would be yet another theory in the long line of "Why and how Bruce Lee died".

Pretty much all of the interviews cover similar ground to a lot of existing printed interviews, with the exception of the new interview with Grandmaster Cheung. He`s an interesting fellow to listen to and this would be the only thing on this DVD worth checking out. He covers a fair bit of ground in his connection with Bruce and sprinkles anecdotes to make it all the more interesting. The other interviews, though perhaps never published or aired, amount to very little. That said, I think Bruce Lee fans might show some interest in this and give it a rent.