His roles in America, including playing Kato in The Green Hornet introduced him to American audiences, but the cultural frictions that existed did not allow Lee to fully express himself.

[citation needed] In 1953, Lee's friend William Cheung introduced him to Ip Man,[30][31] but his European background on his mother's side meant he was initially rejected from learning Wing Chun kung fu under him because of the long-standing rule in the Chinese martial arts world not to teach foreigners.

[32][33][additional citation(s) needed] Cheung spoke on his behalf and Lee was accepted into the school and began training in Wing Chun with Ip Man.

[39] However, Lee showed a keen interest in Wing Chun and continued to train privately with Ip Man, William Cheung, and Wong Shun-leung.

At the invitation of Parker, Lee appeared in the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships and performed repetitions of two-finger push-ups, using the thumb and the index finger of one hand, with feet at approximately shoulder-width apart.

[55] In Oakland's Chinatown in 1964, Lee had a controversial private match with Wong Jack-man, a direct student of Ma Kin Fung, known for his mastery of Xingyiquan, Northern Shaolin, and tai chi.

[72][73] The same year, he was credited as the karate advisor in The Wrecking Crew, the fourth installment of the Matt Helm comedy spy-fi film starring Dean Martin.

[citation needed] In 1972, after the success of The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, a third film was planned by Raymond Chow at Golden Harvest to be directed by Lo Wei, titled Yellow-Faced Tiger.

A tape containing a recording of Lee narrating the basic storyline to a film tentatively titled Southern Fist/Northern Leg exists, showing some similarities with the canned script for The Silent Flute (Circle of Iron).

[35] Ip's regular classes generally consisted of form practice, chi sao (sticking hands) drills, wooden dummy techniques, and free sparring.

[23] After moving to the United States, Lee was heavily influenced by heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, whose footwork he studied and incorporated into his style in the 1960s.

[115] Lee trained with several judo practitioners in Seattle and California, among them Fred Sato, Jesse Glover, Taky Kimura, Hayward Nishioka, and Wally Jay, as well as Gene LeBell.

[135] When Lee returned to Hong Kong in the early 1970s, his reputation as "the fastest fist in the east" routinely led to locals challenging him to street fights.

At the same time, concerning balance, Lee maintained that mental and spiritual preparation are fundamental to the success of physical training in martial arts skills.

"[143] Aside from martial arts and philosophy, which focus on the physical aspect and self-consciousness for truths and principles,[147] Lee also wrote poetry that reflected his emotions and a stage in his life collectively.

Despite the advantage of his family's status, the neighborhood in which Lee grew up became overcrowded, dangerous, and full of gang rivalries due to an influx of refugees fleeing communist China for Hong Kong, at that time a British Crown Colony.

[157] Lee's relative Eric Peter Ho, in his 2010 book Tracing My Children's Lineage, suggests that Grace was born in Shanghai to a Eurasian woman named Cheung King-sin.

As a young adult, Brandon Lee found some success acting in action-oriented pictures such as Legacy of Rage (1986), Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), and Rapid Fire (1992).

[174] Lee's brother Robert with his friends Taky Kimura, Dan Inosanto, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, and Peter Chin were his pallbearers.

Lee also did fight choreographies for the film A Walk in the Spring Rain (1970) and played Li Tsung, a Jeet Kune Do instructor who teaches the main character in the television show Longstreet (1971).

[67][129] In July 2021 a private collection of over 40 handwritten letters Lee made to fellow Fist of Fury actor Robert "Bob" Baker was sold for $462,500 at Heritage Auctions.

[190][191] On May 10, 1973, Lee collapsed during an automated dialogue replacement session for Enter the Dragon at Orange Sky Golden Harvest Film Studio in Hong Kong.

Polly further theorized that this caused Lee's body to overheat while practicing in hot temperatures on May 10 and July 20, 1973, resulting in heat stroke that in turn exacerbated the cerebral edema that led to his death.

[205][206] In an article in the December 2022 issue of Clinical Kidney Journal, a team of researchers examined the various theories regarding Lee's cause of death, and concluded that his fatal cerebral edema was brought on by hyponatremia, an insufficient concentration of sodium in the blood.

Sascha Matuszak of Vice said Enter the Dragon "is referenced in all manner of media, the plot line and characters continue to influence storytellers today, and the impact was particularly felt in the revolutionizing way the film portrayed African-Americans, Asians and traditional martial arts.

"[219] Kuan-Hsing Chen and Beng Huat Chua cited fight scenes in Lee's films such as Enter the Dragon as being influential for the way they pitched "an elemental story of good against evil in such a spectacle-saturated way".

[223] Numerous entertainment and sports figures around the world have cited Lee as a major influence on their work, including martial arts actors such as Jackie Chan[221] and Donnie Yen,[223] actor-bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger,[223] actor-comedians such as Eddie Murphy[237] and Eddie Griffin,[221] actresses such as Olivia Munn and Dianne Doan,[221] musicians such as Steve Aoki and Rohan Marley,[221] rappers such as LL Cool J and Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA,[222][223] bands such as Gorillaz,[223] comedians such as W. Kamau Bell[221] and Margaret Cho,[223] basketball players Stephen Curry and Jamal Murray, skaters Tony Hawk and Christian Hosoi, and American footballer Kyler Murray, among others.

[253] In France, the Yamakasi cited the martial arts philosophy of Bruce Lee as an influence on their development of the parkour discipline in the 1990s, along with the acrobatics of Jackie Chan.

According to DAFT FM,[260] the lyrics can be interpreted as encouraging the idea of self-actualization and individuals to be true to themselves, thus paying tribute to Lee's philosophy of empowering oneself and living life to the fullest.

[223] Nokia launched an Internet-based campaign in 2008 with staged "documentary-looking" footage of Bruce Lee playing ping-pong with his nunchaku and also igniting matches as they are thrown toward him.