Quest of the Dragon

Bruce Lee Forever!
by Gene Ching

What separates an old martial artist from a young one? Today, it's videogames. The older generation tapped out with Pong and Pacman. But the X generation took it to the mat with martial arts fight games like Mortal Kombat, Double Dragon and Virtual Fighter. Kungfu techniques were lifted from our greatest heroes and stolen straight out of our most action-packed films. Today videogamers bust moves just like Jackie Chan, Jet Li and of course, Bruce Lee.

Now Xbox is releasing an official Bruce Lee game, emphasis on "official." The Little Dragon has been the inspiration for many games like Tekken and Street Fighter before, but like the hordes of Bruce Lee impersonators, they fell miles short of the real Bruce. Designed exclusively for Xbox, Quest of the Dragon is revolutionary, just like Bruce would have liked it. Over a hundred Bruce's moves reproduced with startling accuracy using motion capture technology and his philosophy of Jeet Kune Do is propounded throughout the game.

A legend is reborn.
When Xbox was looking for content for their website BruceLeeGames.com, they approached KungfuMagazine.com and our parent company TigerClaw.com. We are proud to announce that we will be working together to promote this unprecedented project, Quest of the Dragon. Once again, the Little Dragon rises up and once again, it gives us a moment to reflect on the profound impact that one man had on our martial arts industry and our warrior world.

How Will You Carry on his Legacy?
One of my favorite complaints from crotchety old martial artists is about the persistence of Bruce Lee covers on today's Martial Arts Magazines. To them, Bruce Lee died on July 20th in 1973. (Ironically Pong, the first videogame, wasn't introduced until 1975. Bruce could have never imagined being immortalized as a videogame today.) But the Little Dragon lives on and Jackie, Jet and every other Asian or martial artist who aspires to stardom is still in shadow. Bruce's extensive notes are being published as a posthumous book series. His classic movies are getting new exposure on DVD. I don't know any red-blooded martial artist alive that won't pause to watch a Bruce Lee fight scene, even if they've already seen it a hundred times before. Bruce Lee may have sloughed off his mortal coil, but the spirit of the Little Dragon lives on.

As for magazine covers, Bruce has graced the cover of more martial arts magazines than anyone else ever, and for good reason. He sells. Even today, nearly three decades after his passing, people are still interested in him more so than any other Asian or martial artists. Bruce Lee is a worldwide icon, like Marilyn Monroe or John Wayne. We are all in the shadow of the Little Dragon.

In ten years, Bruce has been on the cover of Kungfu Qigong only three times. We did a Wing Chun special in Feb/Mar 1999 that featured Bruce and his Master Yip Man. That was our third best selling issue ever. For the year 2000, we celebrated the year of the Gold Dragon, what would have been Bruce's sixtieth birthday (very auspicious for Chinese) with Bruce on the cover. So did all of the other major martial arts magazines; we all went head-to-head with different Bruce covers. Even though ours was one of the last to hit the newsstands, it still earned a spot as our fifth best selling issue. Then there was our Bruce Lee Collector's Edition in 1998. After publishing four different martial arts magazines, that still holds the record as our best selling issue ever. It sold over twice as many copies of any issue that year and still has a strong lead on any contenders (although the contenders are closing the gap steadily.) Now that I think about it, we're probably due for another Little Dragon cover soon?

In terms of sales, Bruce's books and videos are readily available at any book store or video store. In fact, he has a bigger presence in the general public's eye than any other Asian or martial artist. While our online store MartialArtsMart.com does offer these items in a special Bruce Lee section, we can't really compete with the megachains. But when it comes to weapons, thats another story. Few companies sell as many weapons as MartialArtsMart.com and the best selling weapon at is undoubtedly our Grooved Grip Black Dragon Nunchuk. Now, we sell almost three dozen different kinds of nunchuks, from traditional to modern metal ones, even three patriotic stars and stripes models (very popular since 9/11) but none of them come close to the Black Dragon. It's the one that's most like Bruce's. It even beats the profits from our extensive line of Chinese weapons, some of which are as much as 25 times the price. What's more, nunchuks are illegal in several states and regions, severely limited their marketability. Still, despite all of these obstacles, the Black Dragon Nunchuk is undefeated and much of that is due to Bruce Lee's influence.

It seems that there's always some reason to celebrate Bruce. In 1998, it was the 25th anniversary of Enter the Dragon (the motivation for our Bruce Lee Collector's Issue.) In 2000, it was Bruce's 60th birthday. That October, I had the privilege of attending a fundraising banquet to benefit the Chinese Cultural Center and the Bruce Lee Foundation. There I got to meet many of Bruce's students, the members of the Jun Fan Jeet Kune Do Nucleus as well as Bruce's lovely wife Linda and daughter Shannon. I even got to hold one of Bruce's actual nunchuks. When we launched KungfuMagazine.com, this event was the subject of one of our premiere articles. Other e-zine articles followed sharing the inspiration of the Little Dragon. Now, the unveiling of Xbox's Quest of the Dragon is yet another reason to celebrate our greatest hero as he steps into a new uncharted realm. Little Dragon, you've never been here before.

And just recently, Hong Kong filmmakers announced they were working on a cinematic version of Yip Man's life story. The role of Bruce Lee's real life Wing Chun master has been cast for Tony Leung and noted art film director Wong Kar Wai is associated with the project. It's an intriguing proposal since neither celebrity is known for their work in martial arts movies, but then, such was the case for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Advanced press releases have Leung training with Yip Man's son, Yip Chun. Everyone wants to know who will play Bruce. No doubt that film will give us yet another reason to celebrate the everlasting power of the Little Dragon when it is released.

He Was Undefeated
Now I have a confession to make I'm one of those old martial artists that tapped out with Pong. While I certainly respect the videogame world and its effect on the martial arts, I'm not party to it. When I was growing up, my best friend Mark was a videogame wiz who kicked my butt at any and all games ever to play on a TV screen. It was pretty humiliating since he did it with such ease and nobody likes to get beat so, especially at that age. Consequently, I denied all videogames and focused on "real" martial arts. My best revenge was taking him to Chinatown for the latest kungfu flick or showing him the latest weapon I got for my collection. In this way, I could show him the real stuff, not some silly Atari game. Well, growing up in the Silicon Valley, his skills became very marketable and took him for a good ride on the dotcom rollercoaster. And me, my skills brought me here. Whose path was wiser? Well, that's still hard to say.

Nonetheless, we all had adolescent fantasies about cracking a villain's head with a flick of our nunchuk or kicking someone across the room then uttering "dragon whips its tail." We all wanted to be Bruce Lee. We got our nunchuks and practiced our moves and cat calls in the mirror when no one was looking. Who didn't? Now I'm no where near the Little Dragon, not by a long shot, but I felt I got a lot closer then my old buddy Mark. Now Mark's looking for work like a lot of ex-dotcommers, but I'm sure he'll get that Bruce Lee game as soon as it comes out and I'm sure he'll have his Xbox ready to give me a hearty thrashing. And he won't be the only one. Xbox technology allows multiple players to go head-to-head and with broadband capabilities scheduled for release this summer, your competitors are everywhere. Soon legions of virtual Little Dragons could be duking it out in cyberspace. The philosophy and techniques of Jeet Kune Do will spread in a way that was absolutely inconceivable during Bruce Lee's lifetime. I'm sure it would make Bruce proud. And watching this new incarnation of the Little Dragon rise up, I can only hope that the next generation will benefit from his teachings as much if not more than ours.

Written by Gene Ching for KUNGFUMAGAZINE.COM

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