50 years later, how have places associated with Bruce Lee changed in Hong Kong?
As a city that means so much to Bruce Lee, the international movie star and martial arts master, Hong Kong owns many sites associated with him.
Though he was born in the United States, Lee spent his childhood in Hong Kong from 1941 to 1959 and received his pre-university education and martial arts training.
In 1971, Bruce Lee returned to Hong Kong again and acted in five hugely popular martial arts films, The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon and Game of Death, which is a movie he completed halfway due to his sudden death. These movies made him reach the pinnacle of his career and become a star of international fame.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of his death, the Bruce Lee Club collaborated with the Hong Kong government in 2013 to set up a Bruce Lee Way at a number of related sites.
It has been 50 years since Bruce Lee's death, and in the half-century since then, Hong Kong, an international hub, has seen many changes.
What has happened to the places where Bruce Lee left his mark?
Bruce Lee's former residence - 41 Cumberland Road
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Bruce Lee moved into his villa in Kowloon Tong with his family in 1972, where he remained until his death in Hong Kong a year later.
After his death, mainland Chinese businessman Yu Pang-lin bought this property and operate the place as a love hotel.
Yu and the Bruce Lee Club wanted to preserve the mansion and change it into a memorial museum since 2008, yet the plan failed due to lack of support from the government.
In 2019, the building was torn down because the government said the maintenance of the building is unfeasible.
So far, this area has been redeveloped into a clubhouse for the use of the neighbourhood.
The Bruce Lee Club recorded the statistics of the mansion and restore it with VR technology, its president said it will open to guests all over the world this year.
Ocean Terminal Rooftop Car Park- Harbour City, Canton Road
In March 1972, Bruce Lee and other actors from Golden Harvest, which was the film company Lee cooperated with after he returned to Hong Kong, visited the cruise ship and then took many promotional photographs in this open-air car park adjacent to Victoria Harbour.
In the left photo, behind Bruce Lee is the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel, which opened in 1969 and is still in business today.
Behind Bruce Lee in the right photo is the Star House, a commercial building built in 1967 with funding from four large Hong Kong consortia, to his left, and the Tsim Sha Tsui Railway Station, which was still in operation at the time, to his right.
The station has now been demolished, although the iconic clock tower still stands. If we look crosses Victoria Harbour, we can see today’s Hong Kong Island has more exquisite tall buildings than at that time.
This is an attraction on the Bruce Lee Way.
Shamrock Hotel - 223 Nathan Road
The hotel in Jordan was known to local residents as 'Bruce Lee's Canteen', as he often came here to meet his family.
It was opened in the 1950s when Bruce Lee lived across the street in what is now the Prudential Centre, a commercial building and hotel.
In 2020, the hotel was closed down and transferred due to lack of customers during the pandemic, and today it is still a hotel, but with a new name, Synloc Tower.
Tak Sun School - 103 Austin Road
Bruce Lee attended Tak Sun School, a Catholic boys' primary school and nursery located in Jordan, from 1947 to 1951.
The appearance of Tak Sun School is not much different from that of 50 years ago, the only difference may be the construction of an extra floor and the installation of air-conditioning.
Today, it is one of the ten remaining boys' primary schools in the city and has many distinguished alumni.
This is a site on the Bruce Lee Way.
St. Francis Xavier's College - 45 Sycamore Street
This Catholic boys' secondary school was established in 1955 in Tai Kok Tsui.
Bruce Lee studied here from 1956 to 1959, before he went to the United States for Bachelor’s degree, and won the 1958 secondary school boxing championship.
After Lee returned to Hong Kong and made a name for himself, he returned to the college he once went to in March 1973 to present an award.
Looking in from the school entrance, the school is nothing much different from the one Bruce Lee attended in 1956.
This is a site on the Bruce Lee Way. Yet, the sign at the gate of the school indicating the place belongs to Bruce Lee Way was stolen in 2013 and has not been recovered or reinstalled.
St. Francis Xavier's College - 45 Sycamore Street
Located in Tuen Mun, Tsing Shan Monastery, is one of the three oldest monasteries in Hong Kong and is believed to be the birthplace of Buddhism in Hong Kong, according to the official website of the temple.
Bruce Lee's last fully completed film, Enter the Dragon, was filmed here in part. This movie was produced together by Golden Harvest and Warner Bros., an American famous entertainment company, and was selected as the best martial arts movie of all time by the Guardian in 2013.
Today, at the location where Bruce Lee was filmed, several human-shaped cardboard panels were erected. Behind them are the high-rise buildings of Tuen Mun town centre.
However, some of the buildings that appeared in the movie are no longer accessible due to age.
This is an attraction on Bruce Lee Way, but it is a bit further away from the rest places.