BRANDON LEE REMEMBERED

by Valerie Lee

When Brandon Lee was killed on the set of the film The Crow on March 31, 1993, speculation about the cause of his death ran rampant with everything from curses to various conspiracy theories being served up as possible explanations for what had happened. With all the focus on the tragedy, Brandon Lee, the man and human being, took a second seat to the sensationalistic aspects of the case. And when magazines like Life and Rolling Stone dedicated their year-end issues to remembering those celebrities who had died in 1993, Brandon Lee was nowhere to be found among the tributes.

Now, over a year after his death, Yolk pays homage to Lee by allowing his friends and colleagues to share their memories of a man who in his brief life and career, entertained, inspired and touched countless people around the world.

Jeffrey Imada
(Stunt Coordinator, The Crow)

As an artist, he was very gifted. He was a pleasure to work with because he was such a talent, not only with his acting - he was coming into his own as an actor - but his physical ability was just unmatchable. He was able to do almost anything; anything we wanted him to do with ease and without thought.

Dustin Nguyen
(Actor, Rapid Fire)

I found him to be a very gentle being, very vulnerable. I think those are the two words that come to mind when I think of Brandon - very gentle, very vulnerable ... and very driven - that's a quality I saw in him and related to.

James Katsuyuki Taenaka
(Actor, Showdown in Little Tokyo)

After meeting Brandon, my first impression was that he was a gentleman, pure gentleman. I saw Brandon as somebody who had a lot of fire in him, but it was contained. He liked to take risks. He liked speed, not the drug, just the feeling of speed. When he did Showdown in Little Tokyo, he got a new car, an NSX Acura. I heared him mention that one thing he tried to avoid was getting tickets on Mulholland Drive...driving that NSX at over 100 mph.

Kate Hodge
(Actor, Rapid Fire)

I met him in the make-up trailer. I walked in and he just turned and smiled and just lit up the entire trailer. It was the warmest thing. He put everyone at ease.

Jeffrey Imada

There was an incident when we were working on Rapid Fire. We were watching dailies and he looked at me after watching one of his scenes and he says, "Did you see that?" And I go, "Huh?" "Who'd that remind you of?" I go, "Your dad?" He goes, "Yeah..." And I say, "Yeah, it sure did, looks just like your dad." And he goes, "Man, I'll be damned. There's something about genetics, isn't there?"

Darryl Chan
(Brandon's Personal Trainer)

We all went up to his cabin on Thanksgiving. I was a little late and he had called a couple of times on my answering machine, just checking to make sure I was OK. He just wanted to know what was going on. I was very touched when I heard his messages because he was so concerned. Things like that just really make you realize that he was really a very genuine person.

from Yolk, 1994

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FOR BRANDON

by David J. Schow

As this is being written (March 2, 1994), it was a year ago today that we, the intrepid cast and crew of THE CROW, were freezing our tits off, night-shooting in Wilmington, N.C. - one month into principal photography on a 54-day schedule and counting.
About two weeks later, we came under siege by a legion of journalists and documentarians ... everybody from Entertainment Tonight to MTV to Fangoria's own Randy Palmer. In the wake of The Crow's release this May 13, you're bound to read a lot of what was said a year ago, and here's hoping it doesn't sound too stupid on this late date. It's futile to expect anything but pocket compassion and yellow journalism from the sensationalistic press (especially the coprophagic vampires at Entertainment Weekly), who routinely twist quotations to fit questions they've already answered in their own tiny minds.

More important questions trouble me. Such as: In a world where robust powerhouses such as Brandon Lee and Steve James can get clipped, what chance do we groundlings have? Last year, on location at Ideal Cement, we all thought we had learned a new definition for stress. Long commutes, longer hours, pyro and gunfire on a set which was chilly, dank, wet, cold, and suffused with concrete dust that caused several nose-bleeds and respiratory casualties among the crew. You had to trudge 96 steps to reach the Top Dollar set on the fifth floor, then walk back down those steps to get to a functioning restroom. A lot of it was not what you would call smile-making.

Blissfully ignorant, we were then, of real stress.
But what emerged from the dailies was brilliant, from the cold, aggressive set-design by Alex McDowell, to the calculated absence of blues and greens from the lighting scheme (courtesy of cinematographer Dariusz Wolski), to the fight choreography by Lee and Jeff Imada - all realized according to the visionary ringmastery of director Alex Proyas. The first day of principal photography was February 1, 1993, which just happened to be Brandon's 28th birthday.
He got a beautiful, painted CROW cake and a shitload of Hagen Dasz, none of which he partook of since he was fighting to keep his weight down to the barest, leanest muscular minimum. He asked me to work out with him on the day I got food-poisoning from one of Wilmington's finer eateries-a karmic joke that hailed back to the time Brandon vomited shaving cream all over my shoes as a gag, during a story-conference months earlier at Alex's house in West Hollywood.
To get him back, I showed him the X-rated video for Trent Reznor's "Happiness in Slavery." He sat through it agape, then he exclaimed with glee, "That's really fucked up!"
By the time I'd moved to the Wilmington Hilton, Brandon was ensconced at a castellated bed-and-breakfast manse called the Greystone Inn, where Jennifer Jason Leigh sicced the manager on us one night because we were making too much noise shooting pool. We burned a lot of midnight oil in Brandon's weird suite on the top floor, once staying up until Dawn to watch Spartacus on cable. Brandon thought Peter Ustinov would be great to play Gideon.

One night in January, I got a call from a watering hole on the main drag in Wilmington. It was Brandon, requiring immediate fiscal rescue for his pinball and beer tab. When I ponied up, the barkeep waved my money away because Eliza Hutton had mentioned she and Brandon were to be married in April. "Free for the newlyweds," the barkeep said, wishing them well.

That one still hurts to remember.
After shooting was underway, the hardcore Crow team was summoned for a meeting in Alex's office. Outside, it was pissing down buckets of rain. Inside, it was equally gray and bleak; Brandon spent most of the meeting hunkered down in a corner of the office, thoroughly depressed from living inside the skin of Eric Draven. He rang me up at the hotel later, insisting on diversion, which usually meant pool. A guy at the adjacent table sniffed that we were "film-people" of some stripe, and asked what we did. Brandon said he was a grip; I claimed a propmaster.

Then Brandon asked the question he'd been asking a lot of total strangers lately:
"If you died, and had the chance to come back for two days, would you tell the people you loved? Or would you spare them the pain?"
Our new pal, who had already comped us a couple of beers, seemed utterly swoggled. Maybe the question was too-too cosmic for him. I'd never thought about it, really. Considering the friends of mine who have died, I said, ultimately, that I thought I'd tell them. When friends die, you always punish yourself with this lingering need for just a moment or two extra, to unburden yourself, or square accounts, or simply make sure they know you loved them. There are a couple of scenes in The Crow that reflect this emotion. If friends or loved-ones are yanked in an untimely way from your grasp, it's always better to have a chance to say goodbye. Or farewell.
Brandon and I stayed up past sunrise that night, because neither of us could sleep. We camped out in a candle-lit room at Brandon's rented house, playing Tom Waits CD's and drinking Southern Comfort. Brandon told me a story about his frequent visits to his father's grave in Seattle. He'd go there to sit quietly and commune with the stone. Tourists seeking Bruce Lee's final resting place would inevitably traipse along and ask Brandon to move, so they could shoot photographs.

Another, earlier time, Brandon and I went poking around the suite and discovered, inside a closet, a second closet hidden away behind the racks ... a secret panel. "This is what Eric needs," he said, "A secret room." This was the genesis of a scene in which Eric tricks Shelly, his fiancee, into climbing up into their bathroom attic, where he has laid an ambush consisting of many glowing candles and her new engagement ring. Only a piece of that scene remains in the finished film, but at the time, the "secret room" insight helped us localize the emotional core of the movie we were making. It was a breakthrough, the kind nobody would ever know about; just part of the scripting process.

If there is a secret room for The Crow, it is my hope that the story we're telling amidst all our fast-cutting, rock n' roll fury is one with a genuine heart, something that can make Brandon's legacy resonate more strongly than just another martial-arts or action flick. Brandon felt strongly about designing the fight-scenes to be very different from the usual kung-fu showcase; in fact, there are only two martial arts-style blows thrown in the entire movie. He lobbied just as passionately to secure the role of Eric Draven for himself, and his dedication to it seethes through every scene.
Brandon sensed the part was a breakthrough role for him - a chance to stretch as an actor. You can see it in his face, his eyes, his expressions.
We can't bring Brandon back, but we can bring him to life on the screen, and in doing so, perhaps keep him alive in the hearts of those who did not have the honour and pleasure of knowing him.
I still miss him ... every day.

Is The Crow a good movie? A successful film? I think so, but I've been so close to the project that I haven't felt equipped to judge for a long time now.

That's YOUR job.

From Fangoria Magazine (issue #133), 1994

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HOW CROW FLEW WEEKS AFTER BRANDON LEE'S DEATH, HIS COLLEAGUES REUNITED TO EASE THEIR GRIEF AND FINISH THEIR WORK

"As an actor, Brandon wanted to be Mel Gibson." -Edward R. Pressman, coproducer of The Crow.

The night Brandon Lee was rushed hemorrhaging to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, N.C., The Crow's stunned cast and crew gathered at the hospital to wait. They waited for Brandon's fiancee, Eliza Hutton, and his mother, Linda Lee Cadwell, who were flying in from Los Angeles. They waited for news about Brandon. They waited to hear what to do next.

The Crow had been shooting mainly at Carolco Studios in North Carolina for three months, usually at night, and frequently in a downpour jetted by rain machines. The surreal thriller, based on James O'Barr's comic book about a rock musician who comes back from the dead to avenge his and his fiancee's murders, offered Lee the starring role he had dreamed of-a part that would finally make him a leading man and distinguish him from his late father, martial-arts legend Bruce Lee.

In the early afternoon of March 31, 1993, about 12 hours after being hit by a bullet from an improperly loaded stunt gun, Lee died. The producers, who had scheduled three more days of filming with him, temporarily halted production and within hours began to face an agonizing choice: Should they finish the film or shelve it?

While they were coming to a decision, a traumatized Sofia Shinas, who played Brandon's fiancee, Shelly, fled to her L.A. home. "I was on the soundstage when it happened, and my agent wanted me out," she says. "I was an emotional wreck." The rest of the cast and crew-with the exception of costar Ernie Hudson, who had returned to California days earlier when his brother-in- law died unexpectedly-stayed in Wilmington, dodging journalists and replaying Lee's death in their minds. Two days later, coproducer Ed Pressman called them together on an empty soundstage at Carolco.

Pressman told the group that the filmmakers intended to continue the movie- a decision that would add $8 million to the $15 million budget. "It was never technically (questioned) if we could complete it-it was always evident that Brandon's role was basically done," he says. "The issue was psychological." Recalls co-producer Jeff Most, "It was only through Eliza's great dedication to Brandon that we pushed on.... She knew how important this was to him, and that it would have been his wish to complete it." ("All she did was agree to have them complete the film," says a source close to Hutton, who has declined to speak to the press. "Instinctively, she would have preferred not to deal with it at all.")

Alex Proyas, 33, an Australian music-video director making his U.S. feature debut with The Crow, was perhaps the hardest to persuade. "He was extremely close to Brandon," Most says, "and the nightmare was weighing on him. (He wanted) a psychological rest of however long he needed." Within a day, Proyas agreed to Pressman's proposal of an indefinite period of bereavement. And despite the crew's mixed feelings, "they said, 'You tell us a date and a time, and we'll be here,'" Most recalls.

"Before we went to Wilmington, Brandon was so pleased. I remember him saying, 'You know, whatever happens with this project, nothing is as important to me as the fact that I am playing Eric Draven. This is my finest character.'" -Jeff Most

One month later, Proyas flew from Australia, where he'd gone just after Lee's death, to L.A., where with Pressman's help he began rewriting David Schow and John Shirley's script. (Of the decision not to bring in the original writers, Most says, "We sought to bring another viewpoint to the project.") In the revised script, Proyas would have to make up for Lee's unshot scenes, most of which were intended to show Eric and Shelly's passion for each other and more fully explain the motive for Eric's back-from-the-dead revenge.

Six weeks after Lee's death, Pressman placed calls to the cast and crew members, telling them to meet in Wilmington on May 26 to begin the work of completing the film.

The Crow's cast and crew had spent their time off bracing themselves for the return to North Carolina. "I didn't want to go back and finish it," says Hudson, who plays a policeman who comes to the ghostly Eric's aid. "There was a part of me that said, 'Yeah, right, this is for Brandon.' No, it's because you've got so much money put into this thing, and you need to make some money out of it.

But then I got a call from Lance (Anderson, who did Lee's makeup), and he felt we should do it for Brandon, because Brandon had worked very hard."

"I was very close to Brandon, and I felt completing the film would be closing the loop," Anderson, 55, says. "I have a son exactly his age (Lee was 28 when he died), and I related to him like a father. So the time at home made me feel even stronger about going back to finish." Shinas returned only because she was contractually obliged. "What happened on that stage truly gives new meaning to the word tragedy. I really didn't want to go back," she says, her voice shaking.

"(While doing Brandon's makeup) I had to keep low-key, because if I started talking, it would set Brandon off on a story, and we would be in for an extra half hour of makeup. He loved Game Boy-he was addicted to it. I'd be painting these delicate lines on his face, and he'd hit a point on the game, and it would be time for a cleanup job." -Lance Anderson

When the cast and crew reconvened in Wilmington, Proyas presented them with an emotionally softened, reworked script. Many of Lee's half-completed scenes were re-conceived as silent montages. The relationship between Hudson's character and Sarah, Draven's young
friend, played by Rochelle Davis, was deepened by adding exchanges between the two. Finally, the Skull Cowboy, a dark character who taunts Draven with the rules of the dead, was replaced by Sarah's tender narration. Her words at the start of the film echo the filmmakers' emotions about finishing the project: "Sometimes, something so bad happens," she says of the creature that guides the dead through the land of the living, "that the Crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right."

But rewrites alone couldn't put the movie on track. For several unfilmed scenes in which Lee's character was essential, stunt coordinator Jeff Imada, 38, brought in stuntman Chad Stahelski as Lee's body double. Stahelski had trained with Lee at L.A.'s Inosanto Academy, a martial-arts school run by Dan Inosanto, who once worked as Bruce Lee's sparring partner. "Chad knew how Brandon moved," Imada says. Stahelski shared duties with Jeff Cadiente, who had been Lee's stunt double throughout the film, and replaced him for scenes that required someone who looked more like Lee.

Originally, Stahelski and Cadiente were to have worn foam-rubber life masks cast from Lee's face before the film started production, but "no one felt good about it," says Anderson. Instead, almost all the scenes using doubles were designed as long shots: "You can't see stuntmen's faces from a distance, anyway." For example, one sequence early in the completed film shows Draven having flashbacks as he walks through his apartment; Stahelski was actually used for some of these shots.

"He had a boyish enthusiasm, but he was very focussed. He would always go the extra mile. We could be at the end of a long day, with a lot of rain machines going, and everyone would be happy with the shot. He could have gone (home) and chilled out, but Brandon would cock his head and call out to Alex, 'What if we did it this way?'" -Robert Zuckerman, The Crow's still photographer

"In a way, the film became about something different," says a source close to the production. "It became about how you deal with grief. What happens when someone you love is taken from you? How do you incorporate that into your life?"

The cast and crew pondered the same questions during the two-week final shoot. "There was no rushing or hurrying," Anderson recalls. "There was a calmness on the set that hadn't been there before (and) plenty of time to get everything done correctly." Pressman agrees: "There was a feeling after the accident that became heightened-a sense of purpose, a common feeling of shared grief, a responsibility."

While a grief counsellor was made available to cast and crew, it took fierce determination to get them through the most difficult task: returning to the sound stage where the accident had occurred, to film Draven and Shelly's murder scene. "It was strange," says Anderson. "After we finished the scene, we all got kind of drunk. We had tried to pretend it didn't matter, and it didn't affect us. Then we let our hair down and hugged each other." Hudson, who was battling rage over the fact that "it just should never have happened," says, "The funny thing is, sometimes out of tragedy, you get an appreciation of each other."

"He was one of the nicest people. The only thing I didn't like about him was he didn't like dogs. He hated them because he said they always bit him. Me and my mom told him we were going to get him a dog for his wedding, and he said he'd wok it." -Rochelle Davis, 13, who plays Sarah.

The Crow finished production June 28 and found itself without a distributor after Paramount decided not to pick it up. "Viacom and QVC had announced that they were seeking control of Paramount," says Most, "and Paramount felt that at a time when the stock price moving up or down a point could be damaging, it was touchy to be dealing with a film so mired in difficult press coverage." When the filmmakers told Paramount The Crow would be two months late, says Most, "that opened the door for them to walk away." After shopping the film to different studios, they found a distributor in Miramax, who bought U.S. rights in March. It opens in New York and L.A. on May 11; two days later it will open on 1,000 screens, the company's widest release ever. While the studio is wholeheartedly promoting the film, those involved with its making are more ambivalent. There have been no cast screenings; Shinas, for one, has no plans to see the film. "It would be too difficult," she says.

As The Crow's opening approaches, the involvement of Lee's survivors with its release is somewhat in dispute. (Last October, Lee's mother agreed to an out-of-court settlement of a negligence suit she filed against Edward R. Pressman Film Corp. and 13 other defendants.) While Pressman claims Hutton is "very proud" of the film, a source close to her says she "never said she was pleased. Basically, she (told Pressman) she was unable to look at the film objectively." And although Pressman submitted much of the film's advertising and marketing material to her, "she was never consulted in the sense of collaboration," says the source.
And while both parties want part of the film's revenues to go to a charity in Lee's name, the recipient is undecided: The producers favour a fund for inner-city children, while Hutton would prefer a safety-related cause. Donations will also come from a catalogue designed to sell more than 35 items of Crow memorabilia. The catalogue can be ordered through a 900 number, which will automatically enroll callers in The Crow Club, guaranteeing them future Crow- related mailings. (The filmmakers are already discussing a sequel, based on O'Barr's next Crow installment, which he will begin in the fall.)

"When he filmed the sequence coming out of the grave, (it) was 5 degrees. They had to put alcohol in the rain machines to keep the liquid from freezing, and ( all Brandon had on were his pants. But he did the scene over and over until he got it exactly as he wanted it. He was a hell of a trouper." -James O'Barr, creator of The Crow comic book.

So far, cast and crew members who have seen the film believe that completing it was the right decision. With the movie's release, a soundtrack featuring Nine Inch Nails and the Cure, and a book containing unit photographer Zuckerman's work and essays by Proyas and O'Barr, they are focused on the result of their-and Lee's-efforts. "I think Brandon would have been very, very proud of the movie. He is so good in this," says Hudson. "All of the (qualities) he had as a person come through."

Ironically, The Crow may be a better movie for the suffering those who completed it endured. In fact, many of them feel that the movie being released is more balanced and gentler than the one they set out to make (despite no fewer than 30 bloody murders in the film). Before Brandon's death, says Hudson, "I thought the movie was sort of dark. It turned out to be a really nice, beautiful love story."

It is also a haunting memorial to its star. Pressman hopes that ultimately Lee's death will become "less interesting than the movie itself. The point is not to remind people of the tragedy." That seems unlikely: Any audience will have trouble separating Lee's fate from that of his character. But lest anyone forget what was lost, there is a final, unmistakable reminder in the simple dedication at the movie's end: "For Brandon and Eliza."

"The night prior to the accident I asked him what he was working
on next. He said, 'Getting married.'" -Sofia Shinas

From Entertainment Weekly, May 13, 1994.

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BRANDON LEE'S LAST INTERVIEW

DURING LEE'S FINAL DAYS, HE THOUGHT ABOUT HIS OWN DEATH AND COMING BACK TO LIFE

On March 19, 1993, a week and a half before his death, The Crow's Brandon Lee met with
interviewer Ira Teller on the film's Wilmington, N.C., abandoned- warehouse set, where his character, Eric, wages his first open confrontation against those responsible for his murder and that of the woman he loved. The actor's videotaped comments were originally intended as part of the electronic publicity material that would go out to television stations to promote the film. Here, for the first time, are excerpts from that interview, which begins with Lee talking about his attraction to the role.

LEE: When I first met with Alex Proyas, the director, one of the things that he talked about was
wanting to see the film through Eric Draven's eyes. You're dealing with...a man who has come back from the dead, and I think the thing that I enjoy most about this is the questions that raises. If you died, and a year had passed since you died, you have to assume that the people you loved and the people who loved you would have had to come to terms with having lost you. And now suddenly you are given the chance to come back for two days.... Wouldn't you feel a responsibility not to trammel in the lives of the people who have had a year to deal with that loss? And you would see the world from a perspective no one has.... That's one of the wonderful things about playing this character-there are no rules about how a person who has come back from the dead is going to behave. There's this wonderful quote from (Paul Bowles' 1949 novel) The Sheltering Sky (paraphrasing):

"Because we do not know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well, and yet everything happens only a certain number of times . How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood that is so deeply a part of your being you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more? Perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps, twenty. And yet it all seems
limitless."

I know that's kind of a roundabout way of talking about it. But you tend to take a great deal for
granted, because you feel like you're going to live forever. It's only if you lose a friend, or maybe have a near-death experience, (that) many events and people in your life suddenly attain real significance.
When you take into account the fact that this could have been the last time I would ever see that person (or) do something so mundane as go out to dinner.... This is (where) this character is coming from. (He realizes) how precious each moment of his life is.

And I thought to myself, if I were given the opportunity after a year of having been dead to come
back, who would I want to see? The person would be my fiancee, Eliza, because I'm getting married after the film. And the thing about Eric is, the one person he would wantto share this with isn't there anymore. And that's the tragic element of this character.

TELLER: (While playing the character of Eric, who is murdered and then after being resurrected
survives repeated attempts on his life)you've been subjected to extremes-shot, stabbed at, shot again. Would you elaborate on the unusual physical nature of the role?

LEE: It's extreme. The character comes back from the dead, and, at first he doesn't know where he is, how he got there.... How does that tie in with the physicality? I just didn't think he should be too healthy-looking, so I lost some weight for the role.

I've been colder on this film than I've been in years; I can never remember deliberately going outside when it was about 5 degrees, in the rain, with no shoes on. I think it adds to the character's experience-I mean, he's torn up emotionally, physically, and psychically, and the fact that there have been some stringent physical demands placed on me (has) only been helpful in creating that environment.

TELLER: There's a great deal of action in the film. How did you approach the fights in this picture?

LEE: I must say I've never done anything where I felt that the violence was as justified as it is in this (movie). The man I'm playing was murdered; the woman he loved was raped and then murdered. And he has come back to settle the score. I truly feel that if I were in the same situation, I would do the same thing.

TELLER: There's a unique look to Eric-his dress, his makeup, his conversational style. Could you talk about that?

LEE: If you've ever found yourself pushed to the limits of your tolerance... you find yourself doing some things that, from the outside, can be seen as quite insane.... The makeup Eric ends up putting on when he assumes this persona of the Crow is his reaction to being pushed to those limits. He cannot deal with what is going on, and by assuming this persona he creates someone who can.

TELLER: What is his reward?

LEE: His reward is that he is promised that he will be with Shelly, the woman he loved, in a better place. That's interesting because that falls into (the) realm of what is your conception of a better place, you know, is it a Christian heaven, or, uh, some kind of reincarnation? That's something the film never really tries to answer. We just leave it that he is given the opportunity to be with Shelly again, in a better place.

TELLER: There's a wicked, dark sense of humour in this film.

LEE: You're dealing with a character who is, at some points, quite insane. And I hope that any wicked, dark sense of humour Eric exhibits comes out of the fact that he'd been pushed to the point where it seems quite sensible to say some of the ridiculous things he says. God knows the times I have found myself in absurd situations.... (I) had this guy break into my house about four years ago, and I caught him in the middle of robbing me. I jumped in through the window...and put him on the ground. When the cops came, the fight had progressed out the window, onto the sidewalk. He had a knife I had taken away from him, and (I) pressed (it) up against the corner of his eye. The cops came down the street in the car. And I was together enough to realize that the cops wouldn't know what was going on at first glance, because all they know is people are yelling, "Call the cops! Call the cops!" So I stand up and take a couple steps away from the guy, and I toss the knife out in the street and put my hands up, and yell, "I'm the good guy! I'm the good guy!" It was a response that seemed to make sense to me at the time, and when I look at it later it's pretty absurd. I completely hope that moments in the film that echo that feeling come from the same place.

One of my favorite bits that I wanted in the film (is) a line in the comic book (James O'Barr's The Crow), where Eric kills someone, shoots him several times, and then says, "So much for the single-bullet theory." I always wanted that line where I was just about to take somebody down and I look at them and say, "Do you have any theories about the Kennedy assassination? Boom-boom- boom-boom! So much for the single- bullet theory." But I'm not sure we're gonna get that in.

TELLER: Destiny plays a very important role in the film. Characters are linked by events past. What about the destiny of Brandon Lee?

LEE: Oh, now we're gonna talk about me, huh? Well, I'm freezing to death; it's cold in here! Was I destined to play this role? I don't know if I was destined to play this role, but I feel very fortunate to be doing so.

From Entertainment Weekly, May 13, 1994.

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THE SON ALSO ROSE

After following in his father's lethal footsteps in a spate of junky action flicks, Brandon Lee was struck down just as his career began to soar with ‘The Crow'.

Whenever a young star dies in his or her prime, the stage is set for all manner of morbid speculation, which in turn becomes the lowest form of hype.

In the case of Brandon Lee, the circumstances of his death-killed by a bullet from a stunt gun while filming a death scene in The Crow (1994, Miramax, R, priced for rental)-plus the untimely (and mysterious) death of his famous father, Bruce Lee, gave the vultures in both fandom and the tabloids plenty to feed on. So, in exploring Lee's legacy of movies on video, it's important to take a reality check first: His death was not a portent or the continuation of some curse; it was a human tragedy, and an awful, stupid accident. The loss that Lee's death represents to movie fans would not seem so substantial had The Crow not been completed after his passing.

Of the five movies he made for American release (Legacy of Rage, a 1986 Chinese-language actioner he filmed in Hong Kong is unavailable on video), only this very stylish, very hip horror movie taps into Lee's unique charisma, native intelligence, and real talent. It's entirely fitting, I suppose, that Lee made his debut in Kung Fu: The Movie (1986, Warner, unrated, $19.98), since his dad had conceived the popular '70s TV series. Within the confines of standard made-for-TV adventure fare, Brandon, playing a bald Manchu assassin, gets to show off his handsome features and proficient martial-arts moves, but not much else.

His next film, Laser Mission (1989, Turner, unrated, $9.98), besides being an exercise in questionable karma (it was coproduced by South Africans while the U.N.'s boycott of that country was still in effect), casts Ernest Borgnine as a brilliant scientist. The rest of the movie's components are just as credible. As the very young secret agent sent to rescue the kidnapped expert, Lee is moderately dashing, but it's clear that this isn't the role he was born to play.

The crassly enjoyable buddy-cop pic Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991, Warner, R, $19.98) teams Lee up with big (but well-spoken) lug Dolph Lundgren. The irony here is that Lee plays a half-Japanese L.A. police officer with no clue about his Asian heritage, while Lundgren's raised-in-Japan Aryan has a severe Samurai fixation. Lee portrays the callow, yuppified Johnny with grace and good humor, not even wincing when called upon to compliment Lundgren's Chris Kenner on his penis size. Directed by Mark L. Lester (Class of 1984, Commando) with his customary vulgar brio, the film wallows shamelessly in such distasteful nonsense when not laying on the better-than-average action pyrotechnics.

Lee's first big-studio starring vehicle, Rapid Fire (1992, FoxVideo, R, $19.98), is a tame shoot-'em-up that's competent and not much else. Lee plays Jake Lo, a student who witnesses the shooting of a Thai drug dealer by a cranky Mob boss (Nick Mancuso). After a series of double crosses, he teams up with a maverick police lieutenant (Powers Boothe) to bring down a drug cartel. / Lee seems underused here: When not fighting, he's called on to smolder in his black muscle T. The movie is most enlivened by Mancuso's bullying Gotti-esque performance as the out-of-control mafioso. Once his character gets killed off, however, all that's left is conventionally staged mayhem.

If neither Showdown in Little Tokyo nor Rapid Fire helped catapult Lee to the level of a Van Damme or Schwarzenegger, it's because his appeal was always essentially different from theirs. With his smooth Eurasian features and slim body, he carried himself with a lightness that verged on delicacy. He had an androgynous quality-if there is such a thing as an action hero for aesthetes, he was it.

The Crow, based on a comic-book series by James O'Barr, takes full advantage of Lee's distinctly antimacho allure. He plays rock musician Eric Draven, who returns from the dead to avenge his and his fiancee's murders. Donning mime makeup before going on his mission, Draven fashions a striking look-Les Enfants du Paradis Go to Hell. Lee's physical acting is terrific: He moves with pantherlike grace as he stalks the unnamed city's rooftops, aided by the titular bird, who gives him a second pair of eyes. The grimness of Draven's task doesn't stop Lee from displaying some wry humor, and his final scenes, in which Draven finally finds peace, would have remained strangely moving even if Lee had survived the making of the film.

The movie itself is one of the most ambitious horror-action flicks in recent years, although its ambitions are of the stylistic rather than the intellectual variety. It helps that director Alex Proyas has seen some movies outside the genre -the scenes of Draven returning to the trashed site of his demise, shaking and shivering all the way, don't recall anything from the trashy Hellraiser movies so much as they remind one of Andrei Tarkovsky's detritus-strewn masterwork Stalker. Still, returning from the dead for vengeance is a pretty flimsy premise on which to hang a whole movie, and this one has plenty of padding (the villain and his girlfriend indulge in some fatal menage a trois games that are pretty creepy but don't exactly serve the story line). Proyas tries hard to make it not feel like padding; helping out are emotionally convincing performances by Ernie Hudson as a skeptical cop who becomes Draven's ally and Rochelle Davis as the skateboarding preteen who had been a friend of the murdered couple.

The movie relentlessly trucks in postadolescent romantic cliches about death (underscored by a soundtrack of minor-key songs by a bevy of high-grade mope-rockers), which might have seemed less pronounced had Lee been able to walk away from the set. It's a crushing irony and a shame that his career was cut short just when he found such a fitting role. But it's not as much of a shame as his death.

The Crow: B+ Kung Fu: C Laser Mission: C- Showdown in Little Tokyo: C+ Rapid Fire: C

From Entertainement Weekly, Sept. 9, 1994.

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