Taiwanese film-maker Lee Ang casts son Mason Lee as martial arts icon Bruce Lee in new biopic, Latest Movies News - The New Paper
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Taiwanese film-maker Lee Ang casts son Mason Lee as martial arts icon Bruce Lee in new biopic

LOS ANGELES – Oscar-winning film-maker Lee Ang has cast his son Mason Lee as the late Hong Kong martial arts icon Bruce Lee in an upcoming film.

Titled Bruce Lee, the biopic will be written by Dan Futterman, the Oscar-nominated scribe behind Capote (2005) and Foxcatcher (2014), and Bruce Lee’s daughter Shannon Lee will act as an executive producer.

Entertainment trade Deadline reported on Wednesday that Lee Ang, 68, has been working on the project “for a long time”.

He said: “Bruce Lee was a bridge between East and West who introduced Chinese (gongfu) to the world, a scientist of combat and an iconic performing artist who revolutionised both martial arts and action cinema.

“I feel compelled to tell the story of this brilliant, unique human being who yearned for belonging, possessed tremendous power in a 135-pound (61kg) frame, and who, through tireless hard work, made impossible dreams into reality,” added the Taiwan-born director of films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Brokeback Mountain (2005).

His 32-year-old son Mason has reportedly been training for the film in Asia for the last three years. The Taiwanese-American actor’s previous film credits The Hangover Part II (2011) and Limbo (2021).

Mason’s mother is Lee Ang’s wife, microbiologist Jane Lin. His brother Haan is an artist who worked with their father on Life Of Pi (2012).

The San Francisco-born and Hong Kong-raised Bruce Lee was recently portrayed on the big screen in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019), a film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino about the last days of Hollywood’s so-called “golden age”.

But the portrayal by Mike Moh, an American actor and martial artist of Korean descent, was slammed by many pundits, including Shannon Lee. In an interview with The Wrap, she said: “(In the film, Bruce Lee) comes across as an arrogant asshole who was full of hot air... It was really uncomfortable to sit in the theatre and listen to people laugh at my father.”

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