Shannon Lee On Preserving Her Father Bruce Lee's Legacy On Warrior And His Two 'New' Movies

“Really, there would be no Warrior without Justin. Justin, first of all, he’s the one who reached out to me. Not only does he have the skills and expertise to help make the vision come to life, he’s also a wonderful collaborator and human being. He and I just worked together very well. He’s always wanted to do what’s best for my father’s legacy which I really appreciate because many people wanted to work with me but they really just wanted to get me out of the way. They didn’t actually want to work with me. They just wanted to get their hands on whatever they could on Bruce Lee and write a check to me. That’s not how I operate because I want to make sure that the projects stay within what I believe to be the framework of my father’s legacy. Justin is really a wonderful collaborator and a lovely man and a human being. I hope to work with him more in the future.”

He is definitely his own man, says Shannon of the 32-year-old Japanese British actor who plays Ah Sahm, the fresh-off-the-boat hero on Warrior. “We were definitely looking for somebody who could do the martial arts, act, and has charisma. We were definitely not looking for a Bruce Lee copycat or lookalike. A lot of people came in and auditioned and kinda be like Bruce Lee. We didn’t really want that. We wanted somebody to come in and own the role, somebody who could take directions… and we felt fortunate to find Andrew. We looked all over the place for actors to play this part. Andrew didn’t have a ton of acting experience and martial arts experience although he had some of both. He came in and wanted to create the character of Ah Sahm. He has this soulful quality about him, and this charisma which we thought is wonderful. [That's why he's] the best choice for the part.”

“My father purposefully set the show in the late 1880s because he wanted to touch on the experience of the Chinese immigrants, like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 [which outlaws Chinese migrant workers], and the Tong Wars [a series of gangland feuds in San Francisco’s Chinatown]. They certainly served as an important backdrop for the show that creates a lot of conflicts [for the characters]. The show definitely deals with racism, xenophobia, and immigration — topics that have become front and centre in the US as of late. We started working on the show and putting it together before the current presidency, so it’s just a coincidence that [these topics] are in the headlines right now.”

4. It isn’t easy being Bruce Lee’s daughter.

“It’s something that I had [struggled with] throughout my life. I think, overwhelmingly, it is an honour to be his daughter. He was a remarkable human being and, of course, there’s pressure. I have been challenged in finding my own identity by having people relate to me for who I am rather than who I am related to. There are a lot of assumptions people make about my life — how should I lead it and how I should run my business? The thing that really guides me the most in all of this is my father’s own philosophy. He said that my job as a human being is to maximise my own potential and live my own life to the best of my ability. So whenever I feel a little bit of pressure, I just remember the most important thing for me to do is to live the best possible life and be the best possible person I can be. If I do that, I would have honoured my father’s legacy.”

As the CEO of Bruce Lee Enterprises, Shannon has strict control over the use of her father’s name, image, and likeness. When asked about her thoughts on her father’s ‘appearances’ in the upcoming Ip Man 4: The Finale; and Quentin Tarantino’s 1969-set drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, she says, with an awkward chuckle, “I do not have anything to do with either those projects and I really don’t know how they are portraying my father and if they will be respectful or not [in his portrayal]. I’ll just have to wait and see.” In 2015, the BLE tried to stop the producers of Ip Man 3 from using a digital double of Bruce Lee, a real-life student of Wing Chun master Ip Man (Donnie Yen). The producers had permission from Shannon’s estranged uncle, Robert, Bruce’s brother, who served as a consultant on the film. In the final version, Bruce is played by Hongkong actor Chan Kwok-Kwan, who’ll be reprising the role in Ip Man 4.