One of eleven posters featuring stills from the film "Fist of Fury”

Martial artist Bruce Lee was the first Chinese American male to break through racial barriers and become a pop culture hero during the Civil Rights movement. He was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1940 to Cantonese opera star Lee Hoi-chuen. He grew up in Hong Kong, watching and eventually acting in films at a young age. When he was sixteen, he began seriously training in kung fu under famed Wing Chun master Ip Man. Two years later, he returned to the U.S. to attend university in Seattle and began teaching his own style of kung fu. After being scouted at a martial arts exhibition in 1964, Lee began acting in Hollywood films. However, he was met by disappointment in Hollywood, where he only found offers for supporting roles and pushback against his ideas. It wasn’t until Lee returned to Hong Kong and its film industry that he was catapulted into international stardom. After leading three successful films, he starred in Enter the Dragon (1973), the first film co-produced by a Chinese and American studio. Tragically, Lee died, under mysterious circumstances, six days before the release of Enter the Dragon. The film cemented his status as a martial arts legend. His pop culture persona helped counter prevailing stereotypes of the emasculated Asian male, and his films both popularized and radically changed martial arts and martial arts films in the U.S., Hong Kong, and beyond.