Year of the Synchromystic Dragon (Part Three)

Bruce played Kato in
The Green Hornet
TV show in the 60's

Continued on from - 
Year of the Synchromystic Dragon
(Part Two) 
Bruce Lee's big break in the acting arena came from a talk he gave at Ed Parker's fighting tournament in California.
In the movie Dragon he has to prove his theory by taking on and defeating any opponent within 60 seconds.
The challenger who steps into the ring is the opponent he took on in the Star chamber type fight where he was supposed to have received his back injury, which in real life he got from lifting weights and crushing a disc in his spine.    

This fight never took place in
real life, only in the movie

This fight above never took place in real life, but he did present his views to the fighters that were present at Ed Parker's tournament, which he had published in his book.

Goldfish/Dragon?

One of the guys involved in The Green Hornet TV show was in attendance at Ed Parker's and asked Bruce about playing a role in the show. 
That's how he got to play Kato.
In the You Tube clip below is the Green Hornet and Kato's guest appearance on the Batman TV show, where they fight Batman and Robin and the fight ends up a draw. 
Listen at the end when the credits are rolling and the announcer introduces the next show and mentions "the fish out of water story".
I also noticed Batman is a "Greenway Production", with a green beam leading to the bat-signal in the sky. 
Hmmm?

Here's one for Christopher/Mercury's Messenger ... who is the guy that plays Commissioner Gordon?  
You probably know anyway, but I thought I would ask ... Neil Hamilton.
And right at the very last it says William Self (Will Self?)(Will I am?) in charge of production.

The Green Hornet ran for 26 episodes, then was cancelled. 
The shot below is a scene in the movie Dragon where the announcement is made to the cast and crew of the show by the guy that gave Bruce the role as Kato.

The real Shannon Lee singing
California Dreaming

The real Shannon Lee is really singing a cover version of  
The Mama's and Papa's hit song California Dreaming, which is interrupted to make the announcement about the cancellation of  
The Green Hornet TV show.

Also in this scene the actress playing Linda Lee tells Bruce she is pregnant  with their second child, which will be Shannon, who is singing California Dreaming in the background behind the two actors playing her parents.

Bruce isn't too worried about the show being cancelled because he thinks a new TV show starring him as the main character "Kane" will propel him to stardom.

And it will be a success, but not for Bruce.

It will rocket David Carradine to stardom instead.

Time has come to become a
silver screen star for Bruce;-)

Bruce will have to cross the abyss once more for his star vehicle to arrive out of the chaos and bring some order to his career, while attending his father's funeral in Hong Kong.

Tiger  vs  Dragon

We see him looking intensely at the painting of the tiger fighting the dragon, which we saw earlier on in the movie near the door to his gym.
He has to return to Hong Kong to attend his father's funeral.
We see him answering the phone just after he and Linda had sat down to see David Carradine walk on their TV screen, playing what Bruce thought would surely be his part in the show Kung-Fu. 

Bruce's father was a Chinese opera star, but he was also an opium smoker (which is not mentioned in the movie ... except by Rob Cohen in the audio commentary on the DVD) and was addicted to it. 
When Bruce is leaving Hong Kong to go back to The States, the black car with the AA2623 number-plate pulls up at the ferry terminal as the boat is pulling away from the dock and these Chinese movie producers jump aboard (without paying the ferryman;-) and offer Bruce a chance to become a star.

North Star?

In the audio commentary Rob Cohen says it was the

North Star ferry, but it says Man Shing, which might mean the same thing ... I don't know.

Oldest teak junk in Hong Kong, used in Dragon

According to the DVD commentary this red sailed junk is the oldest junk sailing in Hong Kong Harbour.
A party was thrown on it first day of filming in Hong Kong and just about everyone got seasick according to Rob.

The first film Bruce made was called The Big Boss in the States, but Fists of Fury in Asia.
 It was filmed in Thailand.
Then he made The Chinese Connection  AKA Fist of Fury.

 I like the music they were playing in the above clip ... but it is no 2001:A Space Odyssey;-)

Bruce getting literally carried
away with his first major success.

In the movie Bruce is shown being carried on the shoulders of the grateful Hong Kong movie going public, who finally have a real star they can look up to. 
This is just more Hollywood myth making. 
While the movie was received well and made a star of Lee, this didn't happen.
That temple above and the crowd scenes were filmed in Macao, because according to Rob the Hong Kong authorities won't let you stop traffic to film movie scenes. 
Macao was a Portuguese province and Hong Kong was a British colony.
Maybe there is something to look into there ... I don't know?
But this scene looks like the Chinese version of Mecca to me.

 Rob says that he changed Raymond Chow's name in the film to Phillip Tan in honour of the Asian American author Amy Tan, who wrote the novels The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife.
The movie version of The Joy Luck Club would come out on

Mother's Day 1993, the same year as Dragon and the same year Brandon would die filming The Crow.

He was now a big star in Asia.

Bruce's silver Merc

But Hollywood would try to make him into a bigger star of the silver screen.

Interestingly, that last You Tube clip was a trailer for 
Return of the Dragon.
In the States the movie length was 88 minutes.
But in China it was called The Way of the Dragon and ran for 99 minutes.
Year of the Synchromystic Dragon 
(Part Four)