Mort is the French word for dead. Bruce Lee’s death was particularly mortifying. The screenshots in this article come from a film called Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth (1976). The scene is one of several dramatizations as to how Bruce died since the reports were mixed. One report was that he was murdered. In a 2012 documentary titled I Am Bruce Lee, Dana White said: “There's absolutely, positively, something a little shady about the way that it all went down.”
On the 2003 Region 2 DVD of The Chinese Stuntman (1981), there is a text interview with John Ladalski where he talked about his instructor - Dan Inosanto: “There were people in town from Golden Harvest. They had been sent by Raymond Chow who was looking for people who had worked with Bruce on the Game of Death project, especially Guru Dan Inosanto, but they didn't know where he lived or how to contact him. Once they got in touch with Mr. Inosanto, he didn't want to do the movie because he'd had a letter from Bruce before his death saying not to trust those guys in Hong Kong. Over time they won Dan over, saying that this would be a great tribute to his friend.”
A film historian named Fredric Dannen said: “The movie industry in Hong Kong is a mafia enterprise from bow to stern. There’s been a lot of naive stuff written about the Triads because you saw Jackie Chan and all these other performing artists marching supposedly against the Triads. That was a farce; they were all in business with them. They were protesting against people like Chan Chi-Ming, who they saw as violent interlopers.”
There are people in Bruce Lee’s life who either believe he was murdered or simply heard he was murdered. In his 2020 book titled Bruce Lee: Sifu, Friend and Big Brother, Doug Palmer wrote: “The first thing that entered my mind was the story he told when I was in Hong Kong nine months before, about his encounter with the master of internal Qi on the Hong Kong TV show in front of an audience of millions. The master had no doubt lost a lot of face. I wondered if Bruce had been poisoned.”
In a 1993 documentary called The Curse of the Dragon, an acquaintance named Ed Parker said: “I really feel he was assassinated. It's always been my viewpoint.”
In a Fiaz Rafiq book titled Bruce Lee Conversations (2009), a fellow Wing Chun student named Hawkins Cheung made the following statement when asked about when he heard about Bruce’s death: “At that time, they were showing it all over the television. He wanted to be the best, he was in the movies. The Mafia and the mental pressure was mounting up.”
Another such student, William Cheung, referred to the Sun Yee On Triad when he told Fiaz: “People don't know half of the people involved. Betty and Raymond Chow's wife knew when Bruce died. After Bruce died, the gang had a contract to have Betty Ting Pei killed. So Betty had to marry the Grand Dragon's brother. She knew too much. People still don't know how Bruce died, but I have a fair idea.”
In the same book, a film studio colleague named Ted Thomas said: “I believe threats were being made to him by the Triads who had enormous influence on the movie industry in Hong Kong. They said he better align himself with them, and they would dictate what sort of films he made and how they were made. The movie industry in Hong Kong was not run by guys who made movies - Run Run Shaw and Raymond Chow - but the Triads, a bit like the Mafia. They had a lot more of an influence and were prepared to emphasize to people what sort of movies were to be made.”
One of Bruce’s castmates in The Way of the Dragon (1972), Malisa Longo, told the author: “His death is still a mystery. The media have written many things about him. The one which I think is true is that he was killed.”
In an online interview for an Italian site, she said: “I was in Rome, a Chinese friend Yeo Ban-Yee told me by phone. When I heard of his death, I had a feeling of unease, especially when my friend told me the facts with his disturbing version.”
Another person from that movie, Whang Ing-Sik, told Mr. Rafiq: “There were a lot of rumors, one such rumor was that somebody beat him to death. Since we worked with the same company, I was very uncomfortable about these.”