一颗耀眼的彗星，一个东方的传奇。当全世界的武术爱好者一遍遍念及他的时候，当一部部影视作品不断向他致敬的时候，李小龙，这个名字本身就是一部传奇。
小资料：世界对李小龙的怀念
★1974年，被国际权威武术杂志《黑带》评为世界七大武术家之一，美国报刊赞誉他为“功夫之王”，日本称他为“武之圣者”。
★1979年，美国洛杉矶市政府将《死亡游戏》的开映日，即7月8日，定为“李小龙日”。
★1980年，被日本《朝日新闻》评为“七十年代代表人物”。
★1986年，被德国汉堡大学选为“最被欧洲人认识的亚洲人”。
★1993年，美国好莱坞名人大道铺上李小龙纪念星徽，并且香港电影金像奖大会和美国演艺同业公会都为李小龙颁发了“终身成就奖”。
★1998年，获中国武术协会颁发的“武术电影巨星奖”。
★1999年，被美国权威杂志《时代周刊》评为“20世纪最具影响力的100位名人”之一。
★1999年，在英国权威电影杂志TOTALFILM评选的“20世纪十大最佳功夫片”中，一人囊括三席，作品分别是《龙争虎斗》、《唐山大兄》和《精武门》。
★2000年，美国政府宣布发行一套《李小龙诞辰六十周年纪念邮票》，这是继玛丽莲·梦露和邦德之后的第三位获此殊荣的艺人，也是华人中的第一人。
★2005年，在英国举办的“十大史上最伟大的功夫电影”评选中，有三部作品入选，《龙争虎斗》荣登冠军榜。
★2005年，世界上第一尊李小龙城市纪念雕像落户波黑。作为正义、胜利和正直的象征，希望能化解当地民族积怨，促成民族和解。
Not a good century for the Chinese. After dominating much of the past two millenniums in science and philosophy, they’ve spent the past 100 years being invaded, split apart and 1)patronizingly lectured by the West.
二十世纪对于中国人来说，是一个水深火热的世纪。中国曾经在科学与哲学领域雄霸世界将近两千年，然而在过去的100年里，却饱受西方列强的侵略和割据，被迫卑躬曲膝。
But in 1959, a short, skinny, 2)bespectacled 18-year-old kid from Hong Kong traveled to America and declared himself to be 3)John Wayne, 4)James Dean, 5)Charles Atlas and the guy who kicked your butt in junior high. In an America where the Chinese were still stereotyped as 6)meek house servants and railroad workers, Bruce Lee was all steely 7)sinew, threatening stare and cocky, pointed finger—a 8)Clark Kent who didn’t need to change outfits.
然而1959年，一位矮小精瘦、戴着眼镜的18岁男孩从香港来到了美国。他声称自己是约翰·韦恩、詹姆斯·迪恩和查尔斯·阿特拉斯，虽然在读初中却一样能将你一脚踢飞。在当时的美国，华人仍被看成是谦恭的家仆和铁路工人之流，但李小龙却展现出刚健的肌肉、威严的怒目和挑战的手指——如同一位现实版的超人却连变装都用不着。
He is the 9)patron saint of the cult of the body: the almost mystical belief that we have the power to overcome adversity if only we submit to the right combinations of exercise, diet, meditation and weight training; that by force of will, we can sculpt ourselves into demigods. The century began with a crazy burst of that philosophy. In 1900 the Boxer rebels of China thought that martial-arts training made them immune to bullets. It didn’t. But a related fanaticism—on this side of 10)sanity—exists today: the belief that the body can be primed for killer perfection and immortal endurance.
他是身体崇拜者的偶像——这种近乎神秘的信仰认为只要我们能正确地将锻炼、饮食、冥想和力量训练结合在一起，就能拥有克服逆境的力量；认为依靠意志的力量，我们就能把自己塑造成超人。在20世纪初期，这种观念曾大行其道。1900年，中国的义和团拳民就认为武术训练能使他们刀枪不入。他们错了。然而，一种类似的狂热却至今仍在心智健全的人当中存在着：他们认为身体可以修炼得完美无缺，永生不朽。
Lee never looked like 11)Arnold Schwarzenegger or achieved immortality. He died at 32 under a cloud of controversy. At that point, he had starred in only three released movies, one of which was unwatchably bad, the other two of which were watchably bad. Although he was a popular movie star in Asia, his New York Times 12)obit ran only eight sentences, one of which read “Vincent Canby, the film critic of the New York Times, said that movies like Fists of Fury make ‘the worst Italian western look like the most solemn and noble achievements of the early Soviet Cinema.’”
李小龙看起来从来都不像阿诺·施瓦辛格那样壮硕，也没有获得永生。他32岁时就英年早逝了，死因众说纷纭。至此，他总共才主演了三部已公映的电影，其中一部烂得不堪入目，另外两部烂得骇人听闻。虽然在亚洲，他是大受欢迎的影星，但《纽约时报》为他刊登的讣闻却只有短短八句话，其中一句写道：“《纽约时报》的影评家文森特·坎比认为，像《精武门》这种电影‘让最烂的意大利西部片相比之下都像是早期苏联电影里最严肃而高尚的成就’。”
What Canby missed is that it’s the moments between the plot points that are worth watching. It was the ballet of precision violence that flew off the screen; every combination you can create in Mortal Kombat can be found in a Lee movie. And even with all the special-effects money that went into The Matrix, no one could make violence as beautiful as Lee’s. He had a cockiness that passed for 13)charisma. And when he whooped like a crane, jumped in the air and simultaneously kicked two bad guys into unconsciousness, all while punching out two others mostly offscreen, you knew the real Lee could do that too.
然而坎比忽略了一点：在情节转折点之间的片段才是真正值得观看的。那是用跃然于银幕的精确打斗谱写出的芭蕾舞曲；你在电子游戏《真人快打》里所能创造的每一个招式，在李小龙的电影中都能找得到。即使像《黑客帝国》那样靠重金打造出的特技效果，也无法演绎出李小龙式的打斗之美。他的张扬造就了他超凡的魅力。当他像白鹤一样叫喊，腾空跃起，同时把两个坏蛋踢得不省人事，还把另外两个坏蛋打得几乎飞出屏幕的时候，你知道真正的李小龙也确实能做到这些。
He spent his life turning his small body into a large weapon. Born sickly in a San Francisco hospital, he burdened a female name, Li Jun Fan, which his mother gave him to 14)ward off the evil spirits out to snatch valuable male children. She even pierced one of his ears. Lee quickly became obsessed with martial arts and body building and not much else. As a child actor back in Hong Kong, Lee appeared in 20 movies and rarely in school. He was part of a small gang that was big enough to cause his mother to ship him to America before his 18th birthday so he could claim his 15)dual-citizenship and avoid winding up in jail. Boarding at a family friend’s Chinese restaurant in Seattle, Lee got a job teaching the 16)Wing Chun style of martial arts that he had learned in Hong Kong. In 1964, at a 17)tournament in Long Beach, Calif. —the first major American demonstration of kung fu—Lee, an unknown, ripped through black belt 18)Dan Inosanto so quickly that Inosanto asked to be his student.
李小龙一辈子都在把自己瘦小的身体转变成一件强大的武器。他在旧金山的一所医院里降生时身体羸弱，他母亲给他取了一个女性的名字——李振藩（作者误，应该是指李小龙的乳名：细凤），以躲避专抓各家宝贝男孩的邪魔，她甚至给他的一只耳朵穿了耳洞。李小龙很快就迷上了武术和健身，除此以外别无所好。他在香港做童星时，出演了20来部电影，却很少上学。他还加入了一个小黑帮，吓得他母亲赶在他18岁成年以前将他送回到了美国，使他他既能获得双重国籍，又能避免牢狱之灾。在一位西雅图的亲友开的中餐馆住下以后，李小龙找到了一份工作，传授他在香港学习的咏春拳。1964年，在加州长滩市举办的武术锦标赛——美国首个大型功夫展示会上，李小龙虽为无名小辈，却以迅雷不及掩耳之势击败了黑带高手依鲁山度，依鲁山度深感敬佩，拜他为师。
Shortly after, Lee landed his first U.S. show-biz role: Kato in The Green Hornet, a 1966-67 TV superhero drama from the creators of Batman. With this minor celebrity, he attracted students like 19)Steve McQueen, 20)James Coburn and 21)Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to a martial art he called Jeet Kune Do, “the way of the intercepting fist.” Living in L.A., he became the 22)vanguard on all things ’70s. He was a physical-fitness freak: running, lifting weights and experimenting with 23)isometrics and 24)electrical impulses meant to stimulate his muscles while he slept. A rebel, he 25)flouted the Boxer-era tradition of not teaching kung fu to Westerners even as he hippily railed against the robotic exercises of other martial arts that prevented self-expressive violence. One of his 26)admonitions: “Research your own experiences for the truth. Absorb what is useful ... Add what is specifically your own ... The creating individual ... is more important than any style or system.”
不久以后，李小龙就接拍了他在美国演艺界的第一个角色：饰演《青蜂侠》里的“加藤”。《青蜂侠》原拍于1966至1967年，是《蝙蝠侠》的作者编写的一部超级英雄电视剧。因为此剧小有名气后，他吸引了许多人前来拜师学艺，如史蒂夫·麦奎因、詹姆斯·柯本、“天钩”贾巴尔等明星，专门传授他所称的截拳道——拦截拳头的方法。搬到洛杉矶居住以后，李小龙成为了70年代的潮流先锋。他沉迷于体能运动：跑步、举重、试验静力锻炼法以及在睡眠中刺激肌肉的电脉冲。他个性叛逆，嘲笑义和团时代“功夫不传洋人”的传统，正如他反叛地指责其他反对自我表现的武术是机械运动。他曾训诫说：“从自己的经验中寻求真理；吸收一切有用的东西；补充自己的个性特点；个人的创造力比任何招式或套路都重要。”
Despite his readiness to embrace American individuality and culture, Lee couldn’t get Hollywood to embrace him, so he returned to Hong Kong to make films. In these films, Lee chose to represent the little guy and he’d fight for the Chinese against the invading Japanese or the small-town fa-mily against the city-living drug dealers. There were, for some reason, usually about 100 of these enemies, but they mostly died as soon as he punched them in the face. The plots were uniform: Lee makes a vow not to fight; people close to Lee are exploited and killed; Lee kills lots of people in 27)retaliation; Lee turns himself in for punishment.
虽然李小龙乐意接受美国的个性主义和文化，但他却无法让好莱坞接受他，于是他重返香港拍摄电影。在这些电影里，李小龙通常选择饰演小人物，并会为中国人抵抗入侵的日本人，或者为小镇的家庭抵抗大城市的毒贩。出于某种原因，每部电影通常都有大约100个这类敌人，但只要被他一拳打在脸上，就马上一命呜呼。剧情都是千篇一律的：李小龙许下重誓，金盘洗手；他身边的亲友被暴露并死于非命；于是他愤而复仇，大开杀戒；最后投案自首，甘愿受罚。
The films set box-office records in Asia, and so Hollywood finally gave him the American action movie he longed to make. But Lee died a month before the release of his first U.S. film, Enter the Dragon. The movie would make more than $200 million, and college kids would pin Lee posters next to 28)Che Guevara’s. In the end, Lee could only exist young and in the movies. Briefly, he burst out against greater powers before giving himself over to the authorities. A star turn in a century not good for the Chinese.
李小龙的电影在亚洲票房屡创纪录，于是好莱坞最终让他出演了他期盼已久的美国动作片。可是，就在他的首部美国电影《龙争虎斗》上演前的一个月，他猝死了。这部电影后来创造了2亿美元的票房，使得崇拜他的大学生们将他的海报贴在墙上，与切·格瓦拉并列。最终，英年早逝的李小龙只能在电影中留下年轻的身影。简而言之，他在向权威屈服以前挺身而出，挑战强权。他是在中国人民处于水深火热的世纪里一闪而过的明星。
