merela
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C-Drama:KSCI Noon 《李小龍傳奇》 The Legend of Bruce Lee (5/6/09-7/7/09)
A 50-episode TV drama produced in China and broadcasted in April 2008. Bruce Lee is a great story, but this is a poorly acted, and poorly manufactured production.
The sound quality is terrible. All the actors in the drama looked like they are mouthing the words because the sound tracks can't follow the mouth movements. The Lead actor, Danny Chan, is from Hong Kong. The story has it that he was discovered by another HK actor because he looked so much like Bruce Lee.
There are some incredible faux pas in the drama that we can overlook if the story and the acting were good. For example, Bruce Lee's Chinese name is Lee Xiao-Long 李小龍 (little dragon), but I believe that's more a stage name. His birth name is 李振藩 Lee Zhèn fān. In the first episode, Lee's mother calls him Xiao-Long which is just not realistic. His mother would likely call him by his birth name, not his "stage" name.
Although I didn't see the first 2 episodes in great details (I had the TV on while I cooked), there are several things about this drama that bothered me.
1. Stilted dialogue. It's the typical mainland Chinese dialogue (very autocratic and monotone). It's nothing like what a typical Cantonese family who lives in HK would say.
2. The production team hired looser actors to do the non-Asian roles. With all the great actors in the Western world, they have to hire the worst actors to do those roles. I guess they figure as long as they speak English and looked the part, they must know how to act. It's like "white people can do no wrong" kind of attitude. Casting call must be opened to all Caucasians, whether they acted before or not.
3. Everyone looked the same. I'm Chinese, so I should be able to tell these people apart. But I can't tell them apart. All the men in their 50s looked the same!
I had more fun reading up on Bruce Lee on the World Wide Web than watching this drama on TV. It really reminded me of the legends and myths surrounding Bruce Lee's life and death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee
http://www.brucelee.com/
http://ent.sina.com.cn/f/v/lxlcq/index.shtml (in Chinese, with all the episode summaries).
Have fun reading up on this great legend.
Last edited by merela, 7/9/2009, 9:37 pm
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5/12/2009, 10:50 pm
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merela
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Re: C-Drama:KSCI Noon 《李小龍傳奇》 The Legend of Bruce Lee (5/6/09- )
Still a terrible show with terrible acting and terrible script. I can't think of another word besides "terrible" to describe the show.
What I can't stand is the dubbing over the actor's voices. When Linda (wife of Bruce Lee) spoke in English, they dubbed it over in Chinese. But with ever-present Chinese subtitles in all C-dramas, they could have left her voice in English. I guess they are trying to mask the fact that the actor who plays Bruce Lee couldn't speak English, so it would be odd for the actress who plays Linda to say her lines in English and the actor who plays Bruce Lee to say his lines in Chinese.
I can see that Bruce Lee's daughter (the executive producer) spent a lot of time and energy trying to make the series as realistic as possible, but everything just feels like an amateurish production. It's worse than HK dramas of the 70s. (maybe she's trying to convey the feel of the time! maybe not!)
Can't wait until it's over.
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6/28/2009, 10:04 am
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merela
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Re: C-Drama:KSCI Noon 《李小龍傳奇》 The Legend of Bruce Lee (5/6/09- )
I can't stand inaccuracies in a pseudo documentary. This Bruce Lee pseudo biographical drama is produced by Bruce Lee's own daughter. She should at least make sure the name of the man who made her father famous is accurate on the show.
In the drama, everyone keeps calling the boss of the Jia Her Movie Company as Mr. Hsu (許文懷)。 He is actually Raymond Chow 鄒文懐 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chow). Every time someone calls out Mr. Hsu in the episode, I want to shout "his name is not Hsu, it's Chow!!!) . Also, in the drama, Golden Harvest (Jia Her) is mentioned often because Bruce Lee's first movie in HK established Golden Harvest's in movie history, especially in HK. In Chinese, Golden Harvest is written as 嘉禾娛樂有限公司 (Jia Her).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Harvest
Anyone who knows anything about HK movies wouldn't make the mistake of writing down "嘉禾" as "嘉阖". But in the drama, the name Jia Her (嘉禾) is mentioned often and the subtitle kept showing (嘉阖). It was so annoying to see the name mis-spelt on the TV screen.
Last edited by merela, 7/1/2009, 2:55 am
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7/1/2009, 2:52 am
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merela
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Re: C-Drama:KSCI Noon 《李小龍傳奇》 The Legend of Bruce Lee (5/6/09-7/7/09)
This show is bad (I didn't want to use bad language here) even until the very end. I feel bad for Bruce Lee's daughter, who till this day, is telling the story from an outsider's perspective. At least that's the sense I get from watching this docu-drama.
If memory serves me correctly, even at the time of Bruce Lee's death, the fact that he was married to an American woman and has 2 children, was not a well-known fact. The media at the time played up the fact that he is the pride of Chinese culture where a China-man, against all odds, can fight off the evil forces (the white men). The iconic image wouldn't sit well if people knew he was married to a white woman, who is from the "enemy" camp. It was really odd, reverse racism. I think it was shocking for a lot of people to find out that Bruce Lee's widow was a white woman.
The story ended with Lee resting on the sofa of his childhood friend (and co-star) Xiao Man's house. But in reality, the story has it that he was found in her bedroom (on her bed), not breathing. That actress' name is Betty Ting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Ting), not Xiao Man.
So if this show is factually inaccurate, then it's not even a docu-drama. It's at best a badly-made fictional drama based on a famous person. Then my question is, why would a daughter produce a factually inaccurate drama about her father?!
I'm just disappointed that a great story is ruined by bad acting, bad script-writing, and bad intentions. And I am even sadder that Bruce Lee's daughter didn't do a good job understanding her father because I'm sure he wouldn't want his legend told this way.
Last edited by merela, 7/9/2009, 9:54 pm
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7/9/2009, 9:50 pm
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