Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits (box set)

“You know what? I’m sorry, but I’m going to go for Bruce Lee because Bruce Lee is somebody that had started Hollywood, in a way, for Asian Americans, and he is somebody that became so iconic because of his talent, and he was able to commercialize it. And he had such a sad demise, so quickly, and I’m so glad that his family is carrying on his tradition and his skills and talent. Yes to Bruce Lee.”

“So everybody knows that the RZA is from the Wu-Tang Clan. So that means that the first thing I got to put in my bag is the Bruce Lee collection. I have this already, but you never can have too many of these. The thing about Bruce Lee was that he was one of the first ones, I think, to integrate the cultures. When you look at John Saxon, Jim Kelly, and Bruce Lee and Bolo Yeung in Enter the Dragon, Hollywood has never seen that kind of a diverse cast come together and make a blockbuster. So Bruce Lee pioneered that. So that’s number one in my bag.”

“The Bruce Lee collection. This is also going back to my childhood. I have an older brother who’s 12 years older than me. So when he was like 18, I was six. Yes, that’s good maths. And... I would sneak into his room and watch his VHSs, and he had a lot of the Bruce Lee movies, Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury. I don’t know, I’m just excited to watch these again. So they’re going in the bag.”

“Let's see here. Well, you know, I know there's something I'm going to take before the bag gets full. It's the Bruce Lee collection. I think about Bruce Lee a lot because when I was a child, Bruce Lee was known by every kid on my block to be the coolest man alive, right? We were just kids, you know, you didn't think about what that meant in terms of representation, and Bruce Lee was an incredibly important figure in this. And my children are Asian American and my younger son, when he when he first saw Bruce Lee, was like extraordinarily excited to see this guy. He was so—it was so clear and obvious that we—we've watched these movies and you can give these readings to Bruce Lee movies, or you can just watch one of the greatest martial arts artists of all time wailing on dudes, and that's what I like. So I'm taking the Bruce Lee collection.”

“Bruce Lee, kung-fu movies. Yes. Those were my jams, man. I think that’s probably, like, influenced… Anything that I wanted to learn about how you do cinematic movement, framing for action and things about shot sizes, etc. This box set will really kind of give you a whole lot of details. There’s a lot of things on, you know, the features. Don’t be snoozing on the features, folks. You come to the Criterion Collection, you not just getting DVDs, you getting features. That’s what you really need to be paying attention to.”

“And boy, was it cool to, like, watch Bruce Lee movies with my dad. No! The greatest hits, too? I mean, my dad loves me, but I think maybe more now, you know? Cool. Thank you.”

“Bruce Lee, what a great action actor. In one of the great fight scenes in Enter the Dragon, where he’s fighting Oharra, the guy who killed his sister at the beginning of the film, he fights the guy, the guy crosses the line and he takes him down and he stomps him out. Now, here’s what you see in that film that you’ve never seen in other movies like this. There’s a close-up on his face in slow motion where you see him go through this whole range of emotion. It’s: “I did it, I executed my technique. I got revenge on this guy who I’ve been driven to kill.” And then the regret and sorrow of: “I just killed a man.” That’s the brilliance of Bruce Lee amongst everything else he was.”

“[Translated] I'll take this too. Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits. I loved Bruce Lee since elementary school and he was a big influence on me. But I forgot about him in middle school. Then, in my mid-20s, there was a resurgence for Bruce Lee, for example, the Beastie Boys referenced him. That drew me back to him. I thought "They like Bruce too? He was my hero!" When I rediscovered his work, I found his philosophy really interesting and I was deeply inspired by it. In Cowboy Bebop, there is an episode that quotes one of his famous sayings.”

“I’ve never seen Bruce Lee films. Never seen one ever in my life. So I’m taking these.”