The Legend of Bruce Lee [Mass Market Paperback]

Alex Ben Block (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Dell; First Thus edition (1974)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000OP8HP6
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,370,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Should be brought back to print, July 28, 1998

By 

Consuma "Consuma" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Legend of Bruce Lee (Paperback)

If you'd like to know more about the world's first Chinese American superstar, this book is the place to begin. Published not long after Bruce Lee's tragic death, it benefits from the author's in-depth interviews with many figures now lost to us, including the master screenwriter Stirling Silliphant. Great photos and great background on Angela Mao also. Worth checking out!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It Was Mass Marketed, Hurried, but Nostalgic, November 18, 2007

By 

K.H. - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Alex Ben Block, somewhat known the time, produces a hurried bio on Lee soon after his death, as Dell capitalizes on the death of Bruce and the Kung Fu craze. Block makes several terminology mistakes, which was much more common in the 70s when non-martial artists were largely ignorant of terms and definitions. This is an irritant, but nothing more.

Block tries to get a "feeling" about Bruce Lee's pressures, the events surrounding him, and the Hong Kong movie business - here he largely succeeds. He succeeds in the Hollywood - Hong Kong connection, but largely fails in his martial arts knowledge and those circles where Bruce walked, taught, and associated in.

My biggest disagreement? Block finds Return of the Dragon (Way of the Dragon)to be Lee's worse movie - it is my personal favorite.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good biography, May 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Legend of Bruce Lee (Paperback)

Not your typical biography. Block gets very deeply into the history of China, religious beliefs, etc. Some of that can be boring, but it's stil ok. His in depth description of the life of the 'busy ninja' is especially interesting to read. Because this book was written far more closely to Bruce's death than many books on the life of BL, it has the most in depth review of all the autopsy's I have seen.
I didn't find his review of Bruce's films on the mark all the time. There are a few interesting photos here that I haven't seen anywhere else, which was a nice bonus. When Alex Ben Block was interviewed in one of those documentaries, he really explained the BL films and the effect they had on people very well, but he didn't show too much of that attitude in the book. Still a good read.