Bruce Lee fans have we got a TREAT for YOU! Martial artist, journalist and author Matthew Polly has written the DEFINITIVE story on the legendary Bruce Lee’s short but hugely influential life. Featuring dozens of rarely seen photographs of the global phenomenon, who bridged the divide between Eastern and Western cultures.
Following a decade of research that included conducting more than one hundred interviews with Lee’s family, friends, business associates, and even the actress in whose bed Lee died, Polly has constructed a complex, humane portrait of the icon.
Polly explores Lee’s early years as a child star in Hong Kong cinema; his actor father’s struggles with opium addiction and how that turned Bruce into a troublemaking teenager who was kicked out of high school and eventually sent to America to shape up; his beginnings as a martial arts teacher, eventually becoming personal instructor to movie stars like James Coburn and Steve McQueen; his struggles as an Asian-American actor in Hollywood and frustration seeing role after role he auditioned for go to a white actors in eye make-up; his eventual triumph as a leading man; his challenges juggling a sky-rocketing career with his duties as a father and husband; and his shocking end that is still, to this day, shrouded in mystery.
This is an honest, revealing look at an impressive yet imperfect man whose personal story was even more entertaining and inspiring than any fictional role he played onscreen.
Matthew Polly is the national bestselling author of American Shaolin, and Tapped Out. A Princeton University graduate and Rhodes Scholar, he spent two years studying kung fu at the Shaolin Temple in Henan, China. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Esquire, Slate, Playboy, and The Nation. He is a fellow at Yale University and lives in New Haven, Connecticut. In our interview with him, he discusses his own martial arts background and how he came to write his authoritative biography on the kung fu legend that is Bruce Lee.
Bruce Lee: A Life is available worldwide from publishers Simon and Schuster and Amazon, but you can win your very own hardback copy, signed personally by Matthew in our FREE giveaway!
All you need to enter is ‘Like’ and ‘share’ the Kung Fu Kingdom Facebook page and this giveaway post with your friends and follow us on Instagram entering “Bruce Lee” in the comments on both, and that’s it, you’re in. Good luck!
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Competition rules:
- INTERNATIONAL ENTRIES ACCEPTED
- Entrants must be 18 years or over
- Entry is restricted to one entry per person
- Multiple and automated entries will be disqualified
- Winners will be chosen at random from all valid entries
- Winners will be contacted via email
- Prizes will be sent to winners via Royal Mail Recorded Delivery
- The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into
- Competition runs from: Today, Monday 11th June and closes at midnight (GMT) on Friday 22nd June 2018
I have been a fan of Bruce Lee since high school in the early 70’s. I have seen all of his movies and the Green Hornet TV series. I have his book Tao of Jeet Kune Do. It will be great to be able to own this new book about him too! Thank you.