Shannon Lee | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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李香凝 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Shannon Emery Lee April 19, 1969 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Occupation(s) | Actress, businesswoman, martial artist | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years active | 1993–present | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spouse | Ian Keasler (m. 1994) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Children | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parents |
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Relatives |
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Martial arts career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Style | Jeet Kune Do Taekwondo Wushu Kickboxing | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Teacher(s) | Richard Bustillo (Jeet Kune Do) Ted Wong (Jeet Kune Do) Tan Tao-liang (Taekwondo) Eric Chen (Wushu) Benny Urquidez (Kickboxing) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Musical career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Also known as | Shan Shan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 李香凝 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Shannon Emery Lee Keasler (born April 19, 1969) is an American actress, businesswoman, singer, and martial artist. She is the only living child of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee and retired martial arts teacher Linda Lee Cadwell, and is the younger sister of actor Brandon Lee. Through Bruce Lee she is a granddaughter of Cantonese opera singer and film actor Lee Hoi-chuen. [1]
Shannon was born on April 19, 1969, at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center in Santa Monica, California. [2] She is the youngest child and only daughter of martial arts film star Bruce Lee and Linda Emery. In her youth she studied Jeet Kune Do, the martial art created by her father, under Richard Bustillo, one of her father's students.
In 1993, Lee made a cameo appearance as a party singer performing "California Dreamin'", in her father's biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story . [3] This was followed by supporting roles in the films Cage II (1994), with Lou Ferrigno [4] and High Voltage (1998) with Antonio Sabato Jr. [5]
In 1998, Lee played her first leading role in the Hong Kong action film Enter the Eagles , directed by Corey Yuen, co-starring Michael Wong and Anita Yuen. In the film, Lee had a fight scene with Benny Urquidez, who went on to teach her kickboxing. [6] That same year, she guest-starred in an episode of the television series Martial Law alongside Sammo Hung.
In 2000, Lee sang a cover of "I'm in the Mood for Love" for the film China Strike Force directed by Stanley Tong.[ citation needed ]
Lee appeared in the sci-fi television film Epoch , which first aired on the Sci Fi Channel in 2001. In 2003, she played the leading role in the action film Lessons For An Assassin. She was also the host of the first season of the television show WMAC Masters .
Lee sang on the band Medicine's album The Mechanical Forces of Love in 2003. [7]
Lee is president of the Bruce Lee Foundation. [8] She was the executive producer of the 2008 television series The Legend of Bruce Lee , based on her father's life, and the 2009 documentary film How Bruce Lee Changed the World. [9]
In 2015, Perfect Storm Entertainment and Shannon Lee announced that the series Warrior , based on an original idea by Bruce Lee, would be produced and air on Cinemax. Filmmaker Justin Lin was chosen to direct the series, [10] [11] which debuted April 5, 2019. [11]
In 2023, Lee guest starred in Season 3, episode 6 of Warrior, which marked her return to acting after 20 years. [12]
Lee's husband is Ian Keasler. Their daughter's name is Wren Lee Keasler. [13]
Lee is the daughter of Bruce Lee, granddaughter of Lee Hoi-chuen and Grace Ho, sister of Brandon Lee, and niece of Robert Lee Jun-fai and Peter Lee Jung-sum.[ citation needed ] Lee's paternal great-grandfather was Ho Kom Tong, half-brother of Robert Hotung. [14]
In her youth, Lee studied Jeet Kune Do, with her father's disciple Richard Bustillo, but did not practice it seriously until the late 1990s. To train for parts in action movies, she studied Jeet Kune Do with Ted Wong. [6]
She studied Taekwondo under Tan Tao-liang AKA "Flash Legs" and Wushu under Eric Chen. She also studied under the tutelage of the director of Enter the Eagles, Yuen De, Jackie Chan's Chinese opera brother. Because the film Enter the Eagles (1998) required her to fight Benny Urquidez, Urquidez himself taught her kickboxing. [6]
Film | |||
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Year | Title | Role | Notes |
1993 | Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story | Party Singer | |
1994 | Cage II | Milo | |
1997 | High Voltage | Jane Logan | |
1998 | Enter the Eagles | Mandy | Alternative title: Gwan Guen See Dam |
Blade | Resident | ||
2001 | Lessons for an Assassin | Fiona | |
2002 | She, Me & Her | Paula Jemison | |
2020 | Be Water | Self | |
Television | |||
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
1995 | WMAC Masters | Host | 13 episodes |
1998 | Martial Law | Vanessa Feng | Episode: "Take Out" |
2001 | Epoch | Pamela | Television film |
2012 | I Am Bruce Lee | Executive producer, herself | Television documentary |
2023 | Warrior | Wen | Season 3, Episode 6 |
Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong-American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines. Credited with helping popularize martial arts films in the 1970s, Lee is considered by some commentators and martial artists to be the most influential martial artist of all time and a pop culture icon of the 20th century, who bridged the gap between East and West. He is credited with promoting Hong Kong action cinema and helping to change the way Chinese people were presented in American films.
Jeet Kune Do is a hybrid martial art conceived and practiced by martial artist Bruce Lee. It was formed from Lee's experiences in unarmed fighting and self-defense—as well as eclectic, Zen Buddhist and Taoist philosophies—as a new school of martial arts thought.
Brandon Bruce Lee was an American actor. Establishing himself as a rising action star in the early 1990s, he landed what was to be his breakthrough role as Eric Draven in the supernatural superhero film The Crow (1994). However, Lee's career and life were cut short by his accidental death during the film's production.
Dan Inosanto is a Filipino-American martial arts instructor and actor. Inosanto holds Instructor or black belt level ranks in several martial arts. He has studied traditional Okinawan karate, Judo, Jujutsu, Kenpo, Shoot wrestling, Systema, Filipino martial arts, and Jeet Kune Do. He was one of three people who were appointed to teach at one of the three Jun Fan Gung Fu institutes under Bruce Lee, the other two being Taky Kimura and James Yimm Lee. After Bruce Lee's death, Inosanto became the principal spokesperson and historian for Jeet Kune Do.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to martial arts:
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a 1993 American biographical drama film directed by Rob Cohen. The film stars Jason Scott Lee, with a supporting cast including Lauren Holly, Nancy Kwan, and Robert Wagner. The film follows the life of actor and martial artist Bruce Lee (Jason) from his relocation to the United States from Hong Kong to his career as a martial arts teacher, and then as a television and film actor. It also focuses on the relationship between Bruce and his wife Linda Lee Cadwell, and the racism to which Bruce was subjected.
Ted Wong was a martial arts practitioner best known for studying under Bruce Lee.
Linda Claire Emery Lee Cadwell is a retired American teacher and writer, the widow of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee (1940–1973), and the mother of actor Brandon Lee (1965–1993) and actress Shannon Lee. She is the author of the Bruce Lee biography Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew, upon which the film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) is based, as well as the founder, a former trustee of, and an unpaid advisor of the Bruce Lee Foundation.
There are at least eight distinct lineages of the martial art Wing Chun. These are mostly little-known outside of China, and each has its own history of origin. In the West, Wing Chun's history has become a mix of fact and fiction due to the impacts of early secrecy and modern marketing. Additionally, there are competing genealogies within the same branch or about the same individual teacher.
Tao of Jeet Kune Do is a book expressing Bruce Lee's martial arts philosophy and viewpoints, published posthumously. The project for this book began in 1970 when Bruce Lee suffered a back injury during one of his practice sessions. During this time he could not train in martial arts. He was ordered by his doctors to wear a back brace for 6 months in order to recover from his injury. This was a very tiring and dispiriting time for Lee who was always very physically active.
The one-inch punch is a punching exercise from Chinese martial arts performed at a range of 0–15 cm (0–6 in). The one-inch punch was popularized by actor and martial artist Bruce Lee. It is purported to improve punching power and technique.
The Long Beach International Karate Championships is an International karate and martial arts tournament in Long Beach, California that was first held in August 1964 by Kenpo Grandmaster Ed Parker. The tournament ran competition til 1999 under IKKA organization/Parker family. Many great tournament fighters earned their stripes at this tournament, including Chuck Norris, Andy Ah Po, Tony Martinez Sr., Mike Stone, Joe Lewis, Jim Kelly, Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, Billy Blanks, Jerry Piddington, and "Superfoot" Bill Wallace. The Long Beach Internationals is also where Bruce Lee was first introduced to the martial arts community in August 1964, with Lee making another appearance in 1967.
Lee Moon-shuen known professionally as Lee Hoi-chuen, was a Chinese opera singer and film actor in Hong Kong. He was the father of Bruce Lee, the father-in-law of Linda Lee Cadwell, and the paternal grandfather of Brandon Lee and Shannon Lee.
Joe Lewis was an American martial artist, professional kickboxer and actor. Originally a practitioner of Shōrin-ryū karate and champion in point sparring competitions, he became one of the fathers of full contact karate and kickboxing in the United States, and is credited with popularizing the combat sport in North America.
Tim Tackett is a martial arts instructor and author from Redlands, California who runs a non-profit group dedicated to preserving Bruce Lee's art of Jeet Kune Do.
Bruce Lee's Fighting Method is a book of volumes covering Bruce Lee's martial arts abilities of the Jeet Kune Do movement. The book is available as a single hardcover volume or a series of four paperback volumes. The text describes Bruce Lee's Kung Fu fighting techniques, philosophy and training methods. This book was originally written in 1966 by Bruce Lee. However, Lee decided not to publish this work as he feared that instructors would use the fighting knowledge in this text to promote themselves. In 1978, after Bruce Lee's death, his widow Linda Lee Cadwell decided to make available the information on her husband's work. Lee's death changed the perspective of releasing the information that Bruce Lee himself had vacillated about. The book was published with the help of Mitoshi Uyehara. Uyehara was the founder and owner of Black Belt Magazine. During the early years of the publication, Uyehara served as the publisher. Bruce Lee contributed many articles to the publication during the 1960s and a friendship ensued between the two men. Uyehara, a martial artist in his own right, was a key personage in arranging Lee's material for publication.
The Bruce Lee Library is composed of books written by or about Bruce Lee (1940-1973), famous Hongkongese and American martial artist, philosopher, author, instructor of martial arts, actor, filmmaker and screenwriter.
Jerry Poteet was an American martial arts instructor, recognized for his teachings in the art of Jeet Kune Do as an original Bruce Lee student.
Richard Bustillo was an American martial arts instructor from Hawaii who was a student of the late Bruce Lee and an authority on Jeet Kune Do Concepts and Filipino Martial Arts.
Warrior is an American martial arts crime drama television series that premiered on April 5, 2019, on Cinemax. It is based on an original concept and treatment by Bruce Lee, and is executive-produced by his daughter, Shannon Lee, and film director Justin Lin. Jonathan Tropper, known for the Cinemax original series Banshee, is the showrunner.