Review: "Bruce Lee, My Brother" and "No Regrets"

When it comes to the Beatles, Elvis or Bruce Lee, we're all suckers. No matter how much we complain about the endless biopics, TV features and magazine articles on our much-missed idols, we still stand in line for the next feature. With the legendary Bruce Lee, we've been given a new film that ties-in with his 70th birthday. This one is based on the biography written by Bruce's brother, Robert Lee - who is also the narrator in the film. Aarif Rahman plays Bruce Lee and does a pretty good job overall - the guy even moves like Bruce. Tony Leung and Christy Chung play Bruce's parents. Veteran actress Lee Heung Kam puts in a spectacular 10 minutes as Bruce's grandmother.

What makes this film stand out from other Bruce Lee biopics is that it focuses on his growing-up years in Hong Kong and ends with his departure to America. Upon watching it, I realised that we really know so little about his growing-up years. Most of the other film/TV retellings of his life concentrate on his life in America, his marriage to Linda and then his years as a movie-star. The focus of "Bruce Lee, My Brother" is on the years 1940-1959 and in it, we get a picture of Hong Kong slowly emerging from the dark shadows of Japanese Occupation. In fact, the Lee family is the perfect microcosm of Hong Kong - the depiction of an overseas Chinese family still clinging on to traditional Chinese values of family, Confucian filial-piety and the invading values that come from a Western education.

Another attraction of this film is the amount of cameos by veteran actors and actresses playing veteran actors and actresses from the 1950s! Eddie Cheung is Cho Tat Wah, Candice Yu is Cho's wife, Chin Kar Lok is Shek Kin, Cheng Tan Shui is Ko Lo Chuen, Cheung Tat Ming is Fung Fung (father of Fung Bo Bo) and Alex Man is Ng Chor Fan. My dad noted that the film got Fung Bo Bo's age wrong - she wasn't supposed to be 4 years old but 10 years old in the late 1950s. I think my dad got it right - after all, he met Fung Bo Bo in person some years back.

What struck me about this film is that it really has very little fighting in it. That gives the film a sense of genuineness and sincerity. It is first and foremost a family drama and a time-capsule capturing a bygone era in Hong Kong life. The story of Bruce's family relations, friendships, early crushes, etc. dominate the entire film so much that the final few fight scenes felt more like a distraction. The "Ip Man" films should have been more like this instead of the Donnie-Yen-glorification-and-kungfu-porn that they were.

Overall, the film is a very nostalgic trip down memory lane that allows viewers to revisit a Hong Kong that no longer exists.

If you're still in a nostalgic mood after watching "Bruce Lee, My Brother", check out the excellent TVB series called "No Regrets". The series is set in Guangzhou and Hong Kong in the 1930s-1940s. Opium dens were mushrooming everywhere until the time of the Japanese Occupation. Sheren Teng puts in an excellent performance as the leader of the triads who is secretly trying to close down all the opium dens and to rescue orphans during the Jap Occupation. Wayne Lai plays a cop who helps Sheren in her quest to clean up Guangzhou.

This series is produced to cash in on the success of "Rosy Business" in which both Wayne and Sheren won best performers awards. Thankfully, it's not a direct sequel and this series allows us to enjoy their portrayals of totally different characters. I'm up to the 22nd episode now and can't wait to watch the rest of the series. If you've not experienced TVB-addiction before this, watch "No Regrets" and you'll be hooked too. This stuff is more addictive than opium! :)

Note: Check out this link for pics of the Nanjing Massacre to see how evil the Japanese armies were.