Actors - Bruce Li

Home > Listing Index > Actors > Bruce Li

	Actors - Bruce Li

Bruce Li, from his real name Ho Chung Tao, is a Taiwanese martial artist and Bruce Lee imitator, who starred in martial arts movies from the Bruceploitation movement.

Life and movie career

Born in 1950, Ho Chung Tao has spent his youth studying martial arts. He went to play stuntmen in Taiwan and Hong Kong under the name of "James Ho".

At the death of Bruce Lee, his real career began. Hong Kong studios noticed that Ho looked a lot like the kung-fu star. They first employed him in Conspiracy before the producers of Game of Death
asked him to finish this latter movie instead of Lee. Ho declined the offer.

After this, Ho got employed by producer-actor Jimmy Shaw who gave him the name of Bruce Li.

While Ho was finishing his military service, he appeared in Good Bye Bruce Lee. He would star in other documentaries in 1976 with The Young Bruce Lee and Bruce Lee The Man the Myth.

The two films being successful, Ho/Li started his career. Some Taiwanese and Hong-Kongese producers decided to directly credit him as "Bruce Lee", with even the real Bruce Lee's picture on posters.

Li even appeared in Bruce Lee vs Supermen where he stars as Kato, assistant of the Green Hornet, just like the real Bruce.

The producers really wanted to show Ho as the official successor of Bruce Lee. In the 1976 movie Exit the Dragon Enter the Tiger, Li meets Lee who points him as the one who shall replace him. This movie is considered to be one of his best.

Being more or less unofficially known as "The Tiger", he returns in Return of the Tiger, starring Angela Mao. In it, Bruce Li fights Paul Smith.

Bruce carried on by playing in two Fist of Fury II and Fist of Fury III, non-official sequels to the Bruce Lee classic.

In this same year of 1978, he played as Bruce Lee again in Bruce Lee the True Story (a.k.a. Bruce Lee The Man & Myth), a biography film where the combats are set and reproduced by Li himself. Being very successful, the amateurs recognize it as one of the best biopics of the star.

He kept shooting martial arts movies until the 80's. He also directed movies himself, such as The Chinese Stuntman (1981).

Bruceploitation was jumping the shark and Li knew it. He had trouble to quit his Bruce-like role and had many rivals in the genre. In 1985, Ho ended his career after his wife's death and he returned to Taiwan to become a PE instructor (his first dream) in Taipei's Ping Chung university, also teaching martial arts for comedian apprentices. He only appeared very briefly in martial art cinema or Bruce Lee documentaries.

Nowadays, Bruce Li is still considered today one of the best imitator of Bruce Lee to have come on the silver screen since 1973, along with Bruce Le of Hong Kong and Dragon Lee of South Korea.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Bruce Li ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Bruce Li; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Actors - Bruce Li

Life and movie career

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay