Story of Bruce Li

Bruce Li (1940-1973), Foshan native, originally named Li Jun Fan, was the son of Li Haiquan, a famous clown of Guangdong opera. When he was still very young, he started to practise martial arts with his father, and then he formally acknowledge a famous master as his teacher to teach him wing chun style of gung-fu.

Later he was brought to Hong Kong, where he finished the elementrary school eduction and middle school education, Later he went to the United States and was enrolled into Seattle Washington University in Philosophy, where he worked while studying.

In the university, Bruce Li organized “Chinese Kungfu Team” consisted of more than 10 students, who always gave performance in the campus. After graduation, he rented a corner in a parking lot in Seattle for running a Chinese martial arts center named “Jun Fan Chinese Martial Arts”, where he painstakingly taught apprentices and practiced himself, which resulted in great progress in his Wushu skills, especially his leg skills.

In 1971, Bruce Li was invited by Hong Kong Golden Harvest Production Company to star in an kung fu film The Big Boss, then the Return of Dragon, which created a splendid record of box office earnings over 5 million Hong Kong dollars. Bruce Li, the famous martial arts master, suddenly became a kung fu film star famous in Southeast Asia and the U.S. and Japan. The kung fu films hence became very popular. The press in US praised Bruce Li as “King of Kungfu”, and the Japanese called him as “Saint of Wushu”.

In the films, Bruce Li not only carried forward the Chinese Wushu, but also the national spirit. On July 20, 1973, Bruce Li abruptly died in Hong Kong, when he was only 33 years old. He left 7 Wushu notebooks and 4 works, “Jiequan Art”, “Kungfu Record”, “Two Jointed Pike Art” and “Research of Jiequan Art”.

The “Jiequan Art” was based on the leg skills of the north school of Chinese Wushu, assimilating the strong points of Japanese karate, Thailand Thai Boxing, and South Korean Taekwondo, which was of great practical value, published in several languages.

It is the treasure of the wold Wushu. In the world there are many "Bruce Li Institute " remembering and discussing his Wushu and Kungfu.