[actors scuffling and screaming]
- [Larence] Tonight,
the sudden death of an invincible icon.
- [Matthew] He was on the verge of becoming
the world's biggest superstar
and the person who would change martial arts
for the rest of time.
- [John] He's the closest thing there is
to a real life superhero
and then suddenly he's gone.
- Is it a freak accident,
a medical episode,
or something more sinister?
- [Kavitha] The autopsy shows that his death was due to
swelling of the brain from unknown causes,
but nobody is satisfied with that answer.
- [Rebecca] They've been told something different
from his manager
and of course, the first thing everyone comes to
is a conclusion that this must be foul play.
- [Laurence] Now, we explore the top theories
surrounding the death of this martial arts legend.
- [Daryl] Bruce was in a place where he shouldn't have been.
He was at the apartment of his mistress.
- [Zachary] Bruce Lee is someone who loves to push boundaries,
but the Chinese mafia is ruthless
and those two things come into conflict.
- [John] As Bruce Lee's star power grows,
so does the target on his back.
- What or who really killed Bruce Lee?
[tense dramatic music]
- [Laurence] July 20th, 1973, 10:30 PM.
An ambulance speeds through Hong Kong
on its way to Queen Elizabeth General Hospital,
but this is no ordinary emergency.
Inside the vehicle is one of the biggest stars of the day.
Bruce Lee.
- Bruce Lee has already become
the biggest martial arts star.
In fact, the biggest movie star in all of Hong Kong.
He's really on the steps of becoming a worldwide phenomenon.
- [Laurence] His movie "Enter the Dragon"
is about to be released,
the first to combine martial arts with spy elements
and expectations are high.
- [John] He had to be at the absolute top of his game
for the filming of "Enter the Dragon."
He insisted that the fight scenes
be as authentic as possible,
which meant that essentially the fighting was real
and incredibly physically taxing.
- [Katie] His next film "Game of Death"
is an even more ambitious film.
Bruce Lee is not only starring
and choreographing the fights in this film,
but he's also moving into the director's chair.
- [Daryl] He's bringing new techniques to film.
He's doing things that are creative.
He's doing things that haven't been seen before.
He's really charting new territory.
[Bruce screams]
- [Kavitha] No matter the movie,
Bruce Lee is this larger than life character.
He seems completely indestructible
and here he is on this day lying in an ambulance
without a pulse.
- [Rebecca] Upon arrival, they initiate resuscitation
procedures, they're injecting chemicals into his heart.
They're using defibrillator pads to try to bring him back,
but nothing's working.
- [Daryl] Bruce's wife Linda, she arrives at the hospital
to see them doing resuscitation on Bruce.
They're trying desperately to restart his heart.
No matter what they do, he remains flatlined.
[monitor beeping]
- [Laurence] It's just after 11:30 PM when the news leaks.
Hong Kong's favorite son, Bruce Lee,
is dead at the age of 32.
- [John] There is no official announcement,
although journalists have a sense that something is up,
so they started to gather and they're demanding answers.
So, his business partner, Raymond Chow,
puts together a brief statement.
He says that Bruce Lee was out
walking in his garden with his wife
when he suddenly collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.
- [Laurence] But Lee's fans find this story hard to believe.
- [Kavitha] Around 15,000 of his devastated fans
take to the street and its utter pandemonium.
Police are forced to restrain the crowd.
- [Laurence] Everyone's asking how a man
so fit and powerful could die so suddenly.
- [Daryl] The hospital states that Bruce Lee died
from cerebral edema, which is swelling of the brain
in which the pressure becomes too great
and then physical functions begin to shut down.
- [Rebecca] When the brain fills up with too much fluid,
what will happen is it will first start to expand
and then it gets stuck against the skull,
which is very firm.
If you have this situation where the brain
is starting to crush downwards onto the brainstem,
that's the part that controls all of your bodily functions
like your heartbeat, your breathing,
and if it is caught in time,
there are things you can do to reverse it.
But if it's not caught in time, it is lethal.
- [Katie] The initial autopsy suggests
that his brain swelled past the capacity of his body.
It was actually 13% larger than
what a normal brain is supposed to be,
which is incredibly dangerous.
- [Daryl] Swelling of the brain is known as the cause
for Bruce Lee's death.
But the real question is
what caused that swelling of the brain?
- [Laurence] With doctors unable to explain
what triggered Lee's lethal condition?
Speculation abounds until the next morning.
- [Kavitha] Hong Kong's leading newspaper.
The morning post runs a front page headline
and the article states that Bruce Lee had been ill
for two months prior to his death.
- [John] In that article, Raymond Chow reveals
that two months earlier, in May,
Bruce Lee suffered a seizure
caused by cerebral edema the same thing
that would cause his death two months later.
- [Kavitha] Chow goes on to say that prior to his seizure,
Bruce Lee had suffered several hard blows to the head
while filming "Enter the Dragon."
These blows could have been far more severe and dangerous
than anyone at the time might have known.
[tense dramatic music]
- [John] During the filming of "Enter the Dragon,"
Bruce Lee is going full throttle.
He is pushing himself to whole new levels.
His training has been ramped up.
He is insisting that every fighting scene
has to be absolutely authentic.
He does report having headaches, but he just powers through.
- [Daryl] July 20th was not the first time that Bruce had
collapsed. In fact, in remarkably similar conditions,
he had collapsed on May 10th.
At that time he had been finished with the filming
of "Enter the Dragon"
and he began to feel dizzy
to complain about feeling nauseous.
He goes to the bathroom where he collapses.
- [John] Bruce Lee suffers a seizure,
he's rushed to the hospital
and on that occasion, doctors managed
to reduce the swelling,
but one doctor reports
that if he had not been brought there immediately,
he surely would have died.
- [Laurence] Doctors can't specify
what caused Lee's brain to swell,
but many people believe
his years of intense combat are to blame.
- [Rebecca] One of the reasons Bruce Lee is so remarkable
is because he really pushed himself to the limit.
Psychologically, physiologically
he was so good at demonstrating the outer limits
of what the human body was capable of.
- [Kavitha] It's also well-known that he's willing to fight
against anyone that's willing to face off against him
and that includes strikes to the head,
which are a crucial part of kung fu.
- [Rebecca] With repeated cerebral trauma,
over time this can build
and if it doesn't get time to repair itself
because you're working as hard as he was every day
to do over the top things,
he might end up with permanent damage
and it could very easily lead
to swelling of the brain or cerebral edema.
- [Kavitha] Most of the time Lee would train with protective
headgear which would dampen the blows,
but we know of at least one time in his earlier years
when he was training without any protection at all.
- [Laurence] It's a fight that would define his career
but may have also shortened his life.
- [Katie] In 1964, Bruce Lee's a 23-year-old in Oakland.
He's co-running a kung fu studio there
and developing his chops as a teacher,
but also figuring out his style as a martial artist
and word gets out about him.
He has this bravado, a bit of arrogance.
He has an ego so people start to learn about him
and not everyone is a fan.
- [Daryl] He had given a demonstration in San Francisco's
Chinatown where he had lost his temper
when he was challenged by other martial artists
and he had declared that he was the best martial artist
and challenged anyone to prove him wrong.
- [Rebecca] One of the well-known martial artists at
the time named Wong Jack-man decides to take him up on the
challenge. So he goes to Lee's place in Oakland to have a fight
just to see who really is the best martial artist.
- [Kavitha] Adding fuel to the fire, in addition to Lee's
arrogance, Wong is also incensed
that Bruce Lee is revealing
the secrets of kung fu to Westerners,
which he considers to be deeply disrespectful
of their heritage.
- [John] The two men meet up at Bruce Lee's studio
and it's an extremely intense fight from the very beginning.
Neither one clearly gets the advantage,
but at one point when it looks like Wong Jack-man
is retreating under a series of blows from Lee,
he suddenly fires off a series of windmill kicks
to Bruce Lee's head.
- [Rebecca] He ends up taking the full force of this kick
even though it ended up being sort of unclear
who really won that fight.
There was no question that at least
with that sort of vicious spin kick,
Bruce Lee was injured with no protective gear.
- [Laurence] This could have been the first
of many brain injuries
that would ultimately lead to Lee's death nine years later.
But not everyone's convinced.
- [Kavitha] Skeptics do say that
while Lee wasn't wearing protective headgear
during this sparring session with Wong,
he constantly did wear protective head gear
during his training sessions.
- [Katie] The reason many believed that Bruce Lee
didn't have a traumatic brain injury
is because he wasn't experiencing forgetfulness.
He didn't have lapses in his memory.
He wasn't acting erratically.
So clearly he was competent and capable
and able to deal with these really intense situations.
- [Kavitha] People are also having a hard time believing the
story of Lee just suddenly collapsing
during a nighttime stroll in his garden with his wife,
especially since he was rushed to a hospital
that's pretty far from his residence.
- [Daryl] The story that Bruce had collapsed while taking a
walk falls apart and it opened up the floodgates
to people wanting to know the truth.
- July 22nd, 1973.
It's been two days since Bruce Lee's shocking death
and a local journalist has grown suspicious
of the official story
and begins calling his sources at the hospital
to dig up more information.
- [Matthew] At that time, every Hong Kong hospital
kept an ambulance record
of where a patient was picked up from.
And so, he tracked down the ambulance log
and found out that the address that Bruce Lee's body
had been picked up from wasn't the same as his home address.
- [John] He is shocked to notice
that the ambulance was actually dispatched
to 67 Beacon Hill Road.
67 Beacon Hill Road was where Betty Ting Pei lived.
- Betty Ting Pei is a beautiful, young Taiwanese actress
who's been making a name for herself in Chinese cinema.
She first meets Bruce Lee in 1972
while he's filming "Way of the Dragon."
And while he is married at the time,
the two become close and rumors start circulating
about an affair between them.
Those rumors become even louder when news circulates
that Betty will be cast as a lead role
in Bruce Lee's upcoming film "Game of Death."
- [Katie] When people find out the truth
about where Bruce Lee was when he died,
they're pretty mad
and they're also completely suspicious
of the entire situation.
If Raymond Chow has concocted this other story,
what else is he leaving out?
- [Daryl] Their willingness to lie about the circumstances
under which Bruce died only opened up speculation
about what they might be lying about
regarding the cause of his death.
- [John] The press picks up the story
and Betty Ting Pei comes under all kinds of scrutiny.
Now, at first she says, "I wasn't even home that night."
That immediately gets shot down.
Her neighbor's mention having seen her.
Moreover, her neighbors mention
that Bruce Lee has been a regular visitor
to her place for months now.
- [Laurence] Soon more information is revealed
casting Bruce Lee's final hours in a more troubling light.
- [Kavitha] After a few days the findings of the autopsy confirm
that the cause of death was this cerebral edema,
but there's a new piece of information.
It says that the cause of that edema
could have been some kind of drug intoxication.
[tense dramatic music]
- [Matthew] The coroner found two foreign substances
in Bruce's stomach.
One was hashish
and the other was this pill called Equagesic,
which was a kind of common pain reliever,
mostly prescribed to women for menstrual cramps.
It had aspirin and meprobamate,
which was a kind of muscle relaxant.
- [Laurence] Authorities need to figure out
if these substances, alone or in combination,
contributed to Bruce Lee's death.
- [Kavitha] In an effort to determine the cause of
Bruce Lee's death,
the Hong Kong courts launch a formal investigation.
- [John] The coroner's inquest takes place over several days
where witnesses are called and evidence brought forward.
- [Matthew] Betty Ting Pei testified, Linda Lee testified,
Raymond Chow testified.
All the experts and all the doctors involved
with Bruce Lee's death were brought in
to be interviewed by the various lawyers.
- [John] It's a media circus.
Bruce Lee's fans are out in force.
They're pushing up against the barricades.
More than anything else
they wanna try to catch a glimpse of Betty Ting Pei.
- [Katie] In her testimony, Betty finally admits
that she was there the evening that Bruce died.
They had been there at the apartment
with Raymond Chow earlier
discussing plans for "Game of Death"
and afterwards when Raymond left,
Bruce was complaining of a headache,
so she gave him Equagesic
and then he went to lay down and take a nap.
- [John] Betty admits that he then ate a couple of hash
brownies and then she came to wake him up
to go for their dinner plan, but he's non-responsive.
- [Kavitha] Initially, during the inquest,
investigators are focused on the hash
found in Lee's stomach.
At that time, hash is thought by the Hong Kong government
to be a particularly dangerous drug
and people speculate about whether or not
Lee had an allergic reaction to it.
The deadly hash theory, however, is quickly put to rest
when medical experts testify
that there has never been a substantiated case
of death caused by cannabis.
- [Laurence] The focus of the inquest then turns
to that painkiller Lee took not long before his death.
- [John] Dr. Robert Donald Teare, a British pathologist,
looks into this case
and says that he believes that death could be caused
by a reaction to something in the Equagesic,
either to the aspirin or to the meprobamate
or to some combination of the two.
- [Matthew] Aspirin can cause anaphylactic shock,
which can result in cerebral edema
in people who die from it.
And so, Professor Teare decided
that the most likely explanation
was that Bruce Lee had a hyperallergic reaction
and that's what caused Bruce Lee's cerebral edema,
which caused his death.
- [Laurence] Five days after Bruce Lee dies,
on July 25th, 1973, an open casket funeral is held.
A photo taken inside the funeral parlor raises new concerns.
- [John] A news photographer captures an image
of Bruce Lee in his casket
and it shows that his face is horribly bloated.
- [Katie] People are so mistrusting at this point of
everything that has been said about Bruce's death
that when they see this photograph
and he looks different than he did in life,
it calls into question a lot of other things.
Why does he look this way?
Could there possibly be foul play?
- [Laurence] On September 24th, 1973,
after seven tense days,
the jury comes back with their verdict.
Death by misadventure.
- [Katie] Death by misadventure is a confusing way to say
that he essentially died by accident.
- [Kavitha] Many of Lee's fans just don't accept
the death by misadventure verdict.
They refuse to accept that their hero
could have died from a painkiller
that contains aspirin and meprobamate.
Attention turns back to Lee's mistress,
the last person to see him alive
and people start to believe
that she might know more about his final hours
than she initially revealed.
- [Laurence] As rumors continue to swirl
around Lee's cause of death,
the spotlight turns on the woman Bruce Lee was with
on the night he died,
Lee's mistress, Betty Ting Pei.
- [John] The press is fascinated by the relationship
between Bruce Lee and Betty Ting Pei.
When they meet on the set of "Way of the Dragon" in 1972,
they quickly become romantically linked.
- [Zachary] He certainly wasn't trying to be discreet
about their relationship.
People observed them out in public together
and that led a lot of people to believe
that he was having an extramarital affair.
- [Katie] Bruce Lee's connection with Betty Ting Pei
is definitely scandalous
because he's married to Linda Lee
and he has two small children.
Of course that puts Linda in a very uncomfortable position.
- [Kavitha] In December 1972, Bruce Lee supposedly tries
to cut off ties with Betty.
She's so distraught that she swallows
a handful of sleeping pills
and is rushed to Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
- [John] Betty recovers
but from that point on, her relationship with Bruce
becomes increasingly strained.
She is upset that he won't leave his wife.
She is reportedly consumed by jealousy
and maybe she thinks if she can't have him,
nobody else can either.
[tense dramatic music]
- [Katie] So there are some theories that start to circulate
that perhaps someone has purposely killed him.
And of course the obvious person becomes Betty Ting Pei.
She's the other woman.
She's taking him away from his family and his wife.
So they start to run with this theory
that perhaps she was the jealous lover
and that potentially she might have poisoned him.
- [Laurence] And they say there's reason to believe
she tried it before.
- [John] There are rumors that Betty has been laying the
groundwork for this for months.
- [Kavitha] There's no actual proof of this.
There's no sign of anything toxic in Bruce's bloodstream,
but people still believe
that she may have used some substance
that wouldn't have shown up on a toxicology report
because she comes from a family of doctors.
- [Zachary] The other strange thing is the timeline of all
this. When she realizes that he's unconscious, he's
unresponsive. Why doesn't she call emergency services?
Instead, she calls Raymond Chow.
- [John] By calling the manager
instead of immediately calling an ambulance,
she's losing precious time.
He needs immediate medical attention.
- [Kavitha] Even though she repeatedly denies any
wrongdoing, the news media continues to publish
story after story implicating her.
- [John] The public response to this is highly negative.
Students in Malaysia are marching around with signs
saying "Betty killed Bruce."
In August 1973, Hong Kong police receive a bomb threat.
They go to investigate but they don't find a bomb,
they find a suspicious package.
Inside is a note saying,
"Betty knows the cause of Bruce's death."
- [Zachary] There's no evidence of foul play,
but that doesn't prevent the greater public from continuing
to find different stories that they want to believe in
in terms of Bruce Lee's demise.
And so, this hastens the speculation
that someone is involved in some kind of conspiracy
to kill Bruce Lee.
The most obvious person would have been Betty Ting Pei.
- [Laurence] There's also speculation
that Betty might not have acted alone.
- [Kavitha] Going back to those chaotic hours
following Bruce Lee's death,
one has to wonder why his business partner
and confidant Raymond Chow put out a statement
about where he died that was so easily disproven.
- [Katie] Part of the story that Raymond leaves out
when he creates that false narrative
is the fact that he was also there
when Bruce was at Betty's apartment.
- [Kavitha] After Bruce Lee first stops breathing,
Betty summons Raymond Chow to her apartment.
When he gets there, Raymond Chow inexplicably tells Betty
not to call an ambulance.
He tells her to call instead her personal physician.
- [Katie] Raymond had seen Bruce suffer a similar episode
just two months prior,
so he knew he would have to get medical treatment right away
in order to reverse the condition.
So it's very strange that he would wait so long
to get urgent care for him.
- [John] It's not until 10:30 at night
that the ambulance arrives to take him away.
By that time it's already too late.
- [Laurence] For many the question remains,
was the delay a willful decision?
- [Kavitha] Around the time of his death,
Bruce Lee's relationship with business partner Raymond Chow
reportedly started to fracture
when they formed their production company,
Concord Productions in 1972,
they initially had a 50/50 split between the two of them.
But by summer of 1973,
Bruce Lee is working on an independent film
and he is reportedly threatening
to walk away from Chow altogether.
- [Zachary] Given the level of money that Bruce Lee
is generating at the box office,
with Bruce Lee out of the picture,
Raymond Chow has a lot to gain.
- [Katie] If you add together Raymond Chow's financial
interests and Bruce Lee's work
and the fact that they might be disagreeing
on the future of how they collaborate,
this starts to look really fishy.
Like was this intentional?
- [Kavitha] Betty and Raymond Chow are both cleared,
but people still believe in a murder conspiracy
this time with just a different set of suspects.
- A month after Bruce Lee's death,
his final film "Enter the Dragon"
premieres in Los Angeles to rave reviews.
Lee plays a spy set on taking down the narcotics kingpin
who killed his sister.
The story may be fictional,
but fans are left wondering if, like his character,
Lee became entangled with powerful gang members
and has paid with his life.
Attention turns to a dark encounter from his early days.
- [Daryl] Although Bruce was born in San Francisco,
Hong Kong really is the place where Bruce grows up.
He enters the movie industry
because his father is a Cantonese opera performer.
So by the time he's 18 years old,
Bruce has appeared in films not as a star,
but certainly as a known actor.
- [Katie] As Bruce is getting older in Hong Kong,
he's actually getting into a lot of trouble
and sometimes he's mixing with the wrong people.
- [Matthew] Bruce Lee was a little street fighter
and he ran across a kid named William Chung
who was better than him.
So, he asked William Cheung, how are you this good?
And William Cheung said, "I study under the master Ip Man."
- [John] Ip Man is a master of a particular style of kung fu
called Wing Chun.
Wing Chun emphasizes close quarters fighting
involving a blitz of lightning fast kicks and fast punches,
ideal for street fighting.
- [Matthew] Ip Man was impressed by how intense
Bruce's obsession with the martial arts was.
And so, he would say to Bruce, "Don't believe me.
Try it out yourself.
If you don't think I'm telling you the truth,
go out in the streets and test what I've taught you."
- [John] So Lee organized a group of his friends into a gang
that calls itself the Junction Street Eight Tigers.
- [Laurence] On one of these outings,
Bruce Lee picks a fight with the wrong guy.
- [Kavitha] He roughs up this teenager pretty badly
and it turns out that the guy's parents
have connections to the Chinese mob, the Triad.
- [John] The Triad came from all over Mainland China
when the Communist Revolution of the late 1940s takes place
and a lot of them end up in Hong Kong
where they're taking over just about
every avenue that organized crime might control.
- [Katie] The Triad are very astute.
They know how to adapt with the market
and in Hong Kong, one of the major industries
is the film industry.
So they wanna have a piece of the action too.
- [Kavitha] They're putting up the money for films
and controlling production
and they, of course, target actors
that they think have crossed them,
which is Lee's first of several reported run-ins
with the Chinese mafia.
- [John] Like most mobsters, the Triad makes its money
from extortion and kickbacks,
and as Bruce Lee's star power grows,
so does the target on his back.
[tense dramatic music]
- [Daryl] Bruce's life was actually in danger
because he had harmed the son of a Triad member.
- [Kavitha] His father becomes really worried about his safety
that the mob would try and retaliate.
So he sends Bruce to go live with relatives in Seattle,
but many people believe
that the threat from the Triad doesn't actually go away.
When Bruce is living in Seattle,
the Triad is operating in America,
but they're kinda operating underground.
So when he decides he's gonna open
a martial arts school in Seattle,
the Triads pay him a visit demanding money
to allow him to open a school in their turf.
- [Daryl] He was not off anybody's radar,
but Bruce wasn't the type to do as he was told.
- [John] In 1964, Lee has dropped out of college
and has married his longtime sweetheart, Linda,
and a year later their son Brandon is born.
A couple years after that,
his career really takes off when he gets cast
in the role of Kato,
the sidekick in the ABC series, "The Green Hornet."
- [Laurence] In 1971, Bruce Lee returns to Hong Kong
and once again reportedly crosses paths with the Triad.
- [Kavitha] He's just released the film, "The Big Boss,"
which makes him a huge star back in Hong Kong.
He gets a visit from a stranger
who's offering him 200,000 Hong Kong dollars.
And when he asks what it's for, he says, "Just a gift."
Now this is right out of the Triad playbook
of giving money to curry favor
and hold some leverage over you.
- [John] Lee angrily rebuffs him, but he knows what this
means. The Triad likes to control people by giving them
cash and it's dangerous to turn down
an offer of cash from the Triad.
So from that point on, Lee starts wearing a knife,
carrying a gun with him
thinking that he can come under attack at any time.
- [Laurence] Just days before his death,
Lee gets into an altercation
with a Triad-linked director.
- [Matthew] Lo Wei had been the director of Bruce Lee's
first two movies that had become such a huge success
and they ended up fighting over who
got to take credit for the success.
One day Bruce Lee heard that Lo Wei
was in the screening room
and he went down to give Lo Wei a piece of his mind.
- [John] He gets in his face, they start a shouting match,
and soon afterward, Lee pulls a knife on him
and aims it right at his chest
and Lee has to be dragged out of the room
to keep this from turning violent.
- [Laurence] But the Chinese director is rumored
to have connections that Lee may not be taking into account.
- [John] When Lee threatens Lo like that,
this is a direct affront to the Triad
who are assumed to be connected to him.
- [Katie] Maybe the Triads wanted Bruce Lee dead
and his altercation with Lo Wei in the screening room
was kind of the last straw.
- [John] Hong Kong police understand the danger of the
Triad, so they look into this aspect of Lee's death,
but they have no active leads.
There are no outward signs of a physical attack,
so, the potential connection to the Triad goes cold.
- [Laurence] In the weeks after Bruce Lee's death,
rumors abound, but there's still no clear new lead
that challenges the idea that he died accidentally.
Then in 1974, one year after Lee's death,
a new theory emerges
with a plot straight out of a kung fu film.
- [Kavitha] There's a journalist who's investigating Bruce Lee's
death and he starts developing this theory
that Bruce Lee could have been assassinated
by a cabal of kung fu masters
using a technique known as Dim Mak.
- [Matthew] Dim Mak is this idea that you can hit somebody
on their acupuncture lines
or pushing a kind of chi power,
and after you touch them, you can control when they die.
So it's a delayed death touch.
- [John] It's rumored that some martial arts masters
have this ability to strike at just the right pressure point
to bring about death if not immediately,
days, weeks, or even months later.
[tense dramatic music]
- [Daryl] Bruce certainly was at odds
with many of the martial arts practitioners of Hong Kong.
Some people think it's because he had taught
what was supposed to be a Chinese secret
art to Westerners.
- [Kavitha] Bruce Lee is this arrogant, burgeoning
international film star and he really doesn't jive
with this old school mentality.
- [Katie] Bruce had created his own form of martial arts.
He called it Jeet Kune Do
or the way of the intercepting fist,
and it incorporated elements
from a lot of different martial arts styles,
combining his street fighting with fencing and boxing.
What he was after was trying to become
a more efficient fighter
and finding moves that were practical versus theoretical
that didn't actually have any power in them.
- [Kavitha] So the journalist theorizes
that in order to stop him from continuing
to change these ancient traditions,
the group of kung fu masters sends out an assassin
to kill Bruce Lee with the death touch.
- [Matthew] Dim Mak, like everything in kung fu,
is linked back to the Shaolin temple,
the location of where kung fu originated,
and there are various theories
that link to the Shaolin monks,
the idea that they could use special acupuncture
or acupressure points to affect the human body.
- [Kavitha] They say that Bruce might have died
from a touch on his pressure point
that blocked his energy
and led to his death days or weeks later.
- [Laurence] While this is speculative,
certain types of punches and kicks are known to be lethal.
- [John] A blow to the chest delivered just right
at a certain point in the cardiac process
can cause an immediate cardiac arrest.
But it's exceptionally rare
for a blow to cause a delayed death.
While this theory is intriguing to many,
there's no real evidence that supports it
and it's pretty much relegated to martial arts mythology.
- [Laurence] The death of Bruce Lee remains
shrouded in mystery for the next 45 years.
Then in 2018, a new theory emerges.
- [Katie] Matthew Polly writes a biography of Bruce Lee
and he posits a new theory around his death
because he looks very closely at the two instances
of cerebral edema.
- [Kavitha] Polly postulates that he could have died from an
inability to regulate his own body temperature.
He examines the May 10th collapse
when Lee was rushed to the hospital with a cerebral edema
and was able to be revived.
- [Matthew] On May 10th, he was re dubbing lines in a room
that was super hot
because they turned off the air conditioning
to make sure that it didn't interfere with the sound.
During that process, he started to feel dizzy and faint
and he ended up collapsing and going into seizures.
They rushed him to the hospital
and the doctors diagnosed him with cerebral edema
and they gave him mannitol to cause the swelling to go down.
- [Katie] The doctors do note that Bruce was covered in sweat
and he had a high fever.
And according to Polly, those are classic symptoms
of heat stroke and perhaps this went undiagnosed.
[tense dramatic music]
- [Laurence] If it is heatstroke,
why is it happening to Bruce Lee,
one of the fittest men alive?
- [Matthew] He had complained many times
about how sweaty his armpits were.
This affected his work
because on screen they kept having to switch his shirts out.
Six months prior to his initial collapse,
he had cosmetic surgery removing the sweat glands
from underneath his armpits.
At that time, people were offering that.
It has since been discontinued
because it's considered extremely dangerous
because it affects your ability to process heat.
And so, having those removed would've made him
more susceptible to heat stroke.
- [John] On July 20th, 1973,
that's the hottest day of the month in Hong Kong.
He is in Betty Ting Pei's apartment running over lines.
What happens there is eerily similar
to what happened back in May.
He starts complaining about headaches and feeling faint.
He falls into Betty's bed and he never wakes up.
- [Matthew] He collapses in a situation
in which he's in a sauna-like room,
and then 10 weeks after that he dies on a very hot day.
To me, that suggests that he potentially died
from heat stroke.
- [John] But sweat is produced all over the body
and the attending doctors back in May
reported that he has sweat pouring out of him all over.
So, you'd think that would regulate body temperature.
- [Kavitha] Despite those minor flaws and the logic,
it still does provide a plausible theory
as to the cause of Bruce Lee's death.
- [Laurence] 50 years after Bruce Lee's death,
researchers are still looking for clues
to explain what killed him.
- [Daryl] In 2022, a group of Spanish kidney specialists
come out with a novel theory
for what happened to Bruce Lee.
Their theory was that he was suffering from retaining
an excess of fluid which can lead to swelling of the brain.
- [Kavitha] It's a little ironic because Bruce Lee's famous quote
was, "Be water, my friend,"
kinda speaking to the fluidity
of the body during martial arts.
But it turns out that it might have been too much water
that could have killed him.
[tense dramatic music]
- [Katie] The scientists also go back
and look at the autopsy results
and one of the things that strikes them
is the fact that his brain had swollen to the point
where it was 3.5 pounds,
which is a half pound heavier than the average human brain.
And what caused the swelling was water.
- [Rebecca] The kidneys actually are filters for the body
and also regulate water.
If you get enough of a buildup of toxins,
the kidneys can actually not function properly.
- [Katie] On May 10th when he collapsed for the first time
and was examined by the doctor,
there were some unexplained high levels
of waste in his kidneys,
and so, that also signals that he had kidney disease.
- [Kavitha] The levels were so high
that the doctors actually thought it was a typo.
- [Laurence] At the time, doctors were more worried
about Lee's brain than his kidneys.
The researchers from Spain believe
that may have been a grave mistake.
- [Kavitha] If the kidneys aren't working
then they can't get rid of excess water in the body.
And if there's a buildup of water
that creates a somewhat catastrophic situation.
- [John] The water dilutes the sodium in the human body
and it creates a situation called hyponatremia.
And if it is not immediately addressed, it leads to death.
- [Laurence] But why is Bruce consuming so much water on July
20th, the day of his death?
- [John] Earlier in the day,
even before he goes to Betty's apartment,
he has consumed some hashish brownies.
In fact, he writes to a friend that day
that he's stoned as hell.
- [Kavitha] It would make sense if Lee's water intake
were high that day.
We already know that he was eating a hash brownie,
so that would cause some thirst
and he would be drinking more water.
He was also running lines for his upcoming film,
so the physical exertion and the exercise
would've caused him to drink more water as well.
- [Rebecca] He's a martial artist.
He's getting body blows all the time.
So it's also possible that he might have actually sustained
some physical trauma to some areas of the kidneys
such that maybe they're not working at top capacity.
One of the things of note is that he had very low sodium,
which is something that happens
when you've had too much water.
- [Daryl] During this period,
he certainly had been on a very extreme diet
of only eating or drinking apple and carrot juice.
So, he may not have been taking in the nutrients
that he needed to maintain healthy levels of sodium.
- [Rebecca] When you're over hydrated, you allow a shift of
fluids such that you can get a fluid buildup
in a place that normally wouldn't have
one like the brain. But water is also what makes up 60% or more
of our bodies. It's the giver of life.
Ironically, in his situation,
taking in too much water can result in something fatal.
- [Laurence] No matter how Bruce Lee died,
his mystique and the mystery of his final hours lives on.
- [Kavitha] It makes a lot of sense that there would be
so many theories surrounding the death of Bruce Lee,
ranging from the mundane to the mythological.
- [Matthew] Bruce Lee's death really ties
into who he was as a megastar
because he was able to kinda elevate
the kung fu hero to international status.
And in dying, he became the athlete who dies young.
He died in his perfect form, in perfect shape,
so that we could project our own hopes and dreams
and mysteries onto him.
- [Daryl] With a figure like Bruce who was larger than life,
it makes so much sense that people would want
a dramatic answer as to how
his life could have ended.
- Some believe that regardless of how Bruce Lee died,
he was destined to live a short life
in a tragic twist of fate that some define as a curse.
Males in Bruce's family have died young.
Bruce's older brother died as a toddler
and Bruce's son Brandon Lee was shot by accident
on a movie set in 1993.
Tragedies that have helped the legend of Bruce Lee live on.
I'm Laurence Fishburne.
Thank you for watching "History's Greatest Mysteries."
[dark music]