I'm finding myself becoming an even bigger Jet Li fan after seeing how much he's doing for the earthquake victims.  He's such a good person!!  He's a genuine Buddhist.  I remember in "The Shaolin Temple" (another influential movie for me), the Abbot of the Temple said, "as Buddhists we must strive to help all people." 

Other cool statements from that movie (but perhaps they sound comical due to the creative English translators) were, "Buddhists and devils will not live together, I will kill you!," and "Kill the devils and enter Buddha!"  Jet's training sequence has always been inspiring:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_WYDc7_7AE&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=5

One of my two favorite Jet Li movies continues to be Fist of Legend (the other one is Tai Chi Master).  It's just the perfect, well rounded action movie to me, and the numerous fight scenes are some of the best I've ever seen (and continue to see).  This movie has so many great fights!!  Here's two of my favs':

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0HrTDMXkQfY&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=3

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=IPyHBJx7bSQ&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=9

This is my all time favorite sword fight:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inD1L5cOghg

Of course, how could I forget Black Mask:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vhEc0aUEYY&feature=related

I couldn't decide whether to include this Jet Li/Jerry Timble fight, or the ending one in "The Master."  They're both friggin' awesome but this one will have to do:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEfk8JTA5pw&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=10

This scene from "Dragon Fight" is one of my favorites from Jet Li's earlier work:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG6kp36QAS0&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=11

Jet Li has never looked more like a tough, bad-ass in this clip.  He's actually really convincing as a real, over-the-top, mean guy.  It's a real testament to his acting cause he seems like such a nice guy in real life.  I can't help it, I just love this clip!

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M213TbKqxlU&feature=PlayList&p=5ACBF3314F0A464E&index=0

God, so many great movies!!  He's had such an illustrious career and here's where it all began:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETkYg8v4U90&feature=related

Although I hate to admit it to my sifu, Jackie Chan's work was probably the single most important influence that made me begin my lifelong pursuit of martial arts excellence.  Living here in the Bay Area when I was a kid, I used to sneak and stay up past twelve so I could watch Kung Fu Theatre with Tat Mau Wong.  I'm sort of embarrassed to admit it, but titles like Drunken Master, Snake In Eagles Shadow, Spiritual Kung Fu, and Police Story have had a major influence on my life.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfv2o3vFQHw&feature=PlayList&p=0DF906233180C1CC&index=13

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdbc2xJR9N0&feature=PlayList&p=0DF906233180C1CC&index=15

I feel these next couple clips embody some of the best 10 minutes in action cinema history (actually, you'll have to click on the URL to watch the first one on Youtube, but, trust me, you won't regret it):

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khWcczhXgKQ

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYTvpcP2YJQ

Next I'll be pulling together a bunch of clips of another one of my all time favorite action heroes: Jet Li.

I've been going out to check out some comedians lately, and these guys are currently my favs'.

Todd Barry's got a sort of dry humor that I like:

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=cWLfVzfSUkY

 Although he's somewhat offensive and obnoxious at times, I can't help thinking Daniel Tosh is kind of a genius.  Of course, he's funny to me because he's really mean yet sarcastic; a quality that I lack, but am entertained by since, in our day and age (and especially here on the West Coast), being PC and not offending people is so strongly emphasized.   Sometimes there's a part of me that just wants to say, "Ah, come on, Fuck It!! Why is everyone so sensitive?  it's all in good fun!!"

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vl7YwwXspow

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=V61U6kT9Qbo

Led Zepellin, Black Sabbath, Metallica...this was mainly the stuff I was into when I was growing up.  My older sister and her friends were mainly into soul and some of the lighter classic rock (like in the previous entry).  I grew up around all of that stuff mainly because, early on, we lived in a predominantly black and latino area in Oakland, and my parents were friends with Pete and Sheila Escavito, the parents of Sheila E.  My sister was also best friends with Sheila E's little sister.  Of course, my sis' and all of her friends were more into Prince and all of the other soul and hip hop at the time. 

I still like all of that music, but growing up as a depressed, stoner, rocker kid, I was more into the harder stuff.  I played guitar also, so maybe that's why I was into playing challenging  hard rock and metal riffs, like these:

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=MhcVDNZO6F0

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=erJc4dzZ3IA

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=1kG_CSfZNMk

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=LcAwJ8tq9p4

I wanted to address a certain controversy surrounding my former Sifu, Wong Jack Man (for those of you who don't know, he's the kung fu Grandmaster Bruce Lee fought back in '64).  Wong Sifu retired back in 2005 and I hadn’t Googled his name for quite a while until recently.  When I did, I was astounded at how many hits I got.  There was a marked increase in the number of threads and posts in the many martial arts forums out there.  To say that much of this recent buzz is, in part, my doing might sound like the ranting and raving of some self-deluded, egomaniac.  But it might very well be true.  You see, a few years ago I began discussing this famous confrontation on Kung Fu Magazine’s on-line forum.  I also caused some waves on the Fighting Arts.com Forum.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had been more vocal about my opinions on this confrontation than any of Wong Sifu’s students ever had.  It must have been the fact that I was actually one of Wong Jack Man’s students that got me so much attention.  Both of these forums have members throughout the world.  Although this particular battle has always had its place in the Bruce Lee legend, it wasn’t discussed as much back then (2003-2004).  Most people with any passing interest in Bruce Lee were happy to accept the version of what happened in Ron Cohen’s, “Dragon, The Bruce Lee Story.”  This movie was, for the most part, pure fantasy.  It was also one of the main reasons I, being a student of this reclusive master, had to say something in his defense (ironically, it was the scene “depicting” this match in “Dragon” that had originally sparked my interest in Wong Jack Man and his fight with Bruce Lee).

I have to admit something: Wong Sifu was adamant about me not saying anything about him to the public at all.  So, naturally, I was nervous about getting into some of these heated on-line debates.  There was always the chance that it would get back to him.  “Don’t involve me with any magazines, movies, newspapers or anything,” he once told me.  I remember wanting to tell him, “But Sifu, don’t you realize, the world thinks you are a villain!  Do you have any idea what people are saying about you!?”  As an old-school Grandmaster from China, he didn’t bother with martial arts periodicals and he didn’t even surf the web.  Besides, he had already tried to stem the tide.  Back in the eighties he took Linda Lee Caldwell to court over her slanderous remarks about him in her biography.  She had painted this image of Lee as the only Chinese person ever brave enough to bring kung fu to westerners; the first non-racist kung fu master to teach the “quilo”.  She partly based this false belief around the Wong Jack Man fight.  Of course, Wong Sifu lost his battle with her.  During the court case they had ascertained that he was a “public figure” so Linda Lee and Concord Moon could say anything they wanted about him (there was a similar case involving Carol Bernett just before this where they came to the same verdict).  To him, it was as if Linda Lee and her cohorts were allowed to lie about him. 

You see, the conflict that he had had with Bruce Lee was NOT about racism at all.  Wong Sifu has always been glad to teach anyone of any race.  Among the noteworthy non-Chinese people he has taught there’s Peter Ralston (the only westerner to win at the International Chinese Games in 1976) and Brent Hamby (the 1999 USAWKF National Champion).  If that's not enough proof that Wong Jack Man is not a racist, then I offer myself as proof.  I'm as white as they come and I was learning kung fu under his watchful eye for several years.  Linda Lee herself of course, perpetuated this myth.  Now, to say that Linda Lee Caldwell did this because she is a shameless materialist who has helped to build a cottage industry around Bruce Lee for own profit, might not be completely fair.  The arguments and conversations that were taking place between Wong Sifu, Bruce Lee, and their associates would have been unintelligible to her, since, she couldn’t speak Cantonese.  Also, the people who showed up at Lee’s studio on Broadway Ave. in Oakland were not part of any “committee” or the like.  They were just a bunch of guys who were familiar with Wong Sifu and David Chin at the time.

As for the fight itself, it is clear to me (and many others, since there is so much buzz about this conflict) that it was not just an easy three-minute victory for Lee.  I could probably write a book about the evidence and reasons why I don’t think so.  The fact that that this particular conflict marked the genesis of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, proves to me that Bruce Lee himself didn’t just consider this bout an easy win.  To say that it was because of a relatively easy victory over a renowned Chinese Grandmaster that Bruce Lee would denounce Wing Chun and call it "ineffective", is absurd to me.  It’s worth noting that, while Bruce Lee was alive, he never actually said that he "beat Wong Jack Man”.  He had a big ego and he liked to talk trash, but he couldn't bring himself to mention Wong by name.  Why wouldn’t he if he had beat him?  And why didn’t he answer the challenge to have a public match after Sifu Wong had his side of the story printed in the Chinese Pacific Weekly, a San Francisco publication at the time?  Why did martial arts promoter Ming Lum, after seeing Wong Sifu the next day at his work, state that he saw no injuries on Wong except for a scratch above his left eye?   Why, my friends?  It’s because Bruce Lee didn’t “win” this fight.  Officially, Wong and the other eyewitnesses who were around at the time (excluding Linda Lee), have maintained that the fight was a draw.  David Chin recently came out in Kung Magazine saying this and one other witness, a man by the name of Bill Chen, has also said as much.  I have my own opinions on the fight that I won’t share here.  In part, because one of my Si-Hings scared the crap out of me by telling me not to get in the way of the Bruce Lee money machine or start talking too much smack, or else I’d end up being murdered like Bruce and his son, Brandon. 

If I were to entertain the thought that such conspiracy theories were real, I would announce to whatever unseen mafia forces there might be behind all of this, that the truth behind this fight shouldn’t be seen as making Bruce Lee look bad.  Why would it?  I’ve been a fan of Bruce Lee movies since I was a wee lad.  So was every kid in my Karate class back when I was 12 years old.  I have come to the realization that, if it weren’t for this particular conflict, Bruce would never have become famous.  He would never have developed his own, more unique way of fighting.  He would have remained just another Wing Chun fighter and he never would have delved into other arts like Western Boxing, Fencing or Tae Kwon Do.  Along with other Chinese styles, such as Choy Lay Fut, it’s been said (and there is evidence that I've seen) that he learned some of Wong Sifu’s own style, Buck Pai Siu Lum kung fu.  He felt like he needed higher kicks for the movies, and this style  would have delivered.  It was only after he absorbed what he liked from all of these other styles that he began kicking his way to stardom.  Hell, if you follow its development, it can even be argued that kickboxing wouldn’t have fully developed into what it is without Lee and his quest for a new and better martial art.  

Arguing about all of this stuff with JKD practitioners and Bruce Lee worshippers on any of the many forums out there no longer interests me.  I’ve come to realize that, as long as Linda Lee is willing to maintain her official statement on the fight that took place between these two men back in 1964, there’s always going to be a lot of confusion and mystery for a lot of people when it comes to this fight.  Sifu Wong has always been a very reclusive and private man.  So any more specific information on the event will probably never come to light.  At this point I would just be happy if everyone was clear that the reasons for the incident were not because Wong Jack Man is a racist.  As far as the outcome they can think whatever they want.  That being said, I would also just like it to be known that I’m not trying to say Bruce Lee sucked or anything like that.  The great Wong Jack Man himself never said that.  Wong Sifu always maintained that Bruce Lee was very good.  He didn’t beat him, but he was very good.
http://kungfu.net/brucelee.html