An examination of Bruce Lee’s kung fu from the perspective of Japanese martial arts: the Chinese culture of chivalrous heroes and Western science

Abstract

Abstract This article is based primarily on existing literature and field work and on an understanding and realization of the historical formation historical of Bruce Lee’s kung fu. The body as a symbol of modern culture which embodies the value orientation of current social ideology is used as a starting point to explain that the Bruce Lee’s kung fu is a kind of culture which was created on the basis of a combination of Japanese martial arts, the Chinese culture of chivalrous (侠) heroes and Western science. There follows a deconstruction of the development of Bruce Lee’s kung fu and Chinese martial arts through the use of ideas about cultural creation and cultural nationalism in order to examine the ‘true’ face of the ideology of Chinese social history and culture.