Philip Ng Wan-lung in Birth of the Dragon (2016)



Ng should, by all accounts, have made for an excellent Bruce Lee. He was born in Hong Kong and was a student of numerous martial arts styles, including wing chun, taekwondo and hung ga. By the time of Birth of the Dragon he had already worked with some of the Hong Kong movie industry’s finest like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen.
Unfortunately, Ng’s Bruce Lee biopic was another flick that was tarnished by accusations that Lee’s character was upstaged by a white co-star. Early screenings of the film focused more on Billy Magnussen, who played Steve McKee, a student of Lee’s. Fans were so enraged by this whitewashing that director George Nolfi was forced to re-edit the film so it focused more on Hong Kong’s hero.
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