Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee (November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973), was a Chinese American martial artist and actor who is widely regarded as among the most influential martial artists of the 20th century. Lee's few movies, especially his performance in the Hollywood-produced Enter the Dragon, elevated the traditional Hong Kong martial arts film to a new level of popularity, paving the way for future martial artists actors such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chuck Norris.

Characters based on Lee

Anime and Manga

• Lee Bailong (Lee Pai-Long) in Shaman King, essentially the manga's version of Bruce. The character was killed so that his body could be made into a Jiang Shi in service to the Tao family.
• Rock Lee from Naruto, bearing some similarity to Bruce Lee (as does his teacher Gai). In the anime and manga, the character is a martial arts master.
• The Pokémon Hitmonlee was named after him.
• Spike Spiegel from the anime Cowboy Bebop uses the quote "be like water" and fights in a fashion similar to Lee's movie characters. Spike uses the nunchaku as Lee does and shares similar fighting stances. Cowboy Bebop contains other Bruce Lee references such as Kareem Abdul Jabbar (an NBA player and one of Lee's students) and Bruce Lee posters. Cowboy Bebop also incorporates many elements of Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do philosophy.
• Kenshiro from the manga and anime Fist of the North Star got the same famous "cat screech" noise and "atatatah" battle cry whenever Kenshiro is punching his enemies. The creator Tetsuo Hara admits that he is a big fan of Lee's movies and his character Kenshiro is a tribute to Lee.

Video games

• Several fighting games have characters based off of Bruce Lee, enough that it has become an archetype within the genre. Notable examples include:
• Fei Long in the Street Fighter series.
• Marshall Law and his son Forest in the Tekken series. In the early Tekken games, one of Marshall's outfits was a yellow jumpsuit.
• Kim Dragon in the World Heroes series.
• Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat series.
• Jann Lee in the Dead or Alive series.
• Maxi in the Soul Calibur series.
• Fei Fong Wong in Xenogears have a similar fighting style, techniques, and stance as Bruce Lee. Fei Fong Wong also wears simlar pants Bruce Lee wore in many of his movies.
• In Double Dragon, Billy and Jimmy Lee are a tribute to Bruce Lee (the surname Lee is a big give away). In the remake Double Dragon Advance, there are Bruce Lee posters during the China Town level and in the cutscenes Billy and Jimmy looks similar to Lee when angry.

Movies

• Stephen Chow, Hong Kong actor and director, is a fan of Lee and has played roles which are reminiscent of Lee, such as:
• Sing (Brother #5) in Shaolin Soccer (2001)
• Sing in Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
• David Carradine, American actor, played the characters written for Lee in the 1978 version of The Silent Flute.
• Lee from Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2 was named after Bruce Lee and has a similar fighting styles as Bruce Lee.
• In the Quentin Tarantino movie Kill Bill, Uma Thurman yellow jumpsuit is a tribute to Bruce Lee from the movie Game of Death.