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Bruce Lee Clone

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You can practically hear the Funny Bruce Lee Noises coming from this picture.

The figure stepped forward into view, trodding carelessly on top of the downed Dragons as he went. He looked a lot like Bruce Lee, but with large aviator shades, and tattoos of dragons covering his arms and chest.

When you want a badass for your series, who better to use than the Dragon himself? Members of this trope love flashy, unrealistic moves and may have a penchant for high-pitched screams like "WATAAAAA!" and other sounds while fighting. One-inch punches, bowl-cuts, yellow jumpsuits and nunchaku are also common, despite Lee himself devoting his life to stripping away such extravagances, mysticism, and inefficient techniques in martial arts.

Members of this trope may have honed their bodies to superhuman levels through relentless training, Charles Atlas style. May have a penchant for not wearing a shirt and stretching out their ribs to flaunt their well-deserved muscles. They'll also have a similar name, either with Lee, Li, and/or a reference to the word for dragon, Long.

Character is often a Badass Normal, while providing the same kind of humor as an Elvis Impersonator.

In film, the use of Bruce Lee lookalikes was common after the man's untimely death when, naturally, the real Lee was no longer available, and films with Bruce Lee lookalikes are often bundled under the subgenre of "Bruceploitation."

Lesser seen but a still common sub-trope is the Jackie Chan clone; a mop-haired, laid-back fighter who tends to incorporate either drunken boxing or the environment in his fighting style. These are almost always based on Chan's performance in Drunken Master.

In a Japanese work, this trope may occur because All Chinese People Know Kung-Fu. A Sub-Trope of Fountain of Expies.


Examples

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    Advertising 

    Anime & Manga 
  • From Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, we have Bruce, a boy from Hong Kong who had ambitions of joining the Bái HÇ” Zú, but had to let that go. He knows Kung-Fu, has a Shirtless Scene, wears his hair in a minor adjustment of a bowl-cut, and has nunchaku as his custom shooter.
  • Power Joe from Brave Police J-Decker qualifies, with his stances, cries and preference towards using nunchaku (his toy even included one!). From a Japanese syllabic standpoint, his name is even based on Bruce's.
  • Spike from Cowboy Bebop has a love for the 20th century icon, and bases his style on Jeet Kune Do. He states that he is a follower of Bruce's brand of philosophy. He apparently has a knowledge of nunchaku, but never used them in actual fights.
  • One appears very early in Dragon Ball during the 21st Strongest Under The Heavens Tournament, facing off against Krillin. After the latter no-sold a flurry of kicks from him, he promptly quits. Amusingly, this was also the tournament where Master Roshi first enters under his "Jackie Chun" persona. Goku faces another one in a street fight. He takes a beating, but refuses to give up until one of Goku's missed kicks breaks a brick wall, which then scares him into surrendering.
  • Shin of Eyeshield 21 is a football player version of Bruce Lee, though he doesn't make any high pitched noises. None the less, his signature "Trident Tackle" looks more like a martial arts move than anything legal in a real football game.
  • The Trope Codifier (in anime, anyways) would be Kenshiro of Fist of the North Star, although his fighting style is very different from Lee's. However, his high pitched shrieks are spot on. Those are an invention of the anime, and almost certainly a deliberate invocation of this trope. He also has a lot more "ATATATATATATA!!" moments in the anime than the manga. He also looks a lot more like Lee in the original anime.
  • Kirby: Right Back at Ya! has the Martial Arts All-Stars, a group of five different Monsters of the Week that Kirby takes on in the second part of the two-part Snack Attack episode, with each one specializing in a different class of martial arts. His first opponent out of all five is Kung Fu Lee, a figurine monster armed with a pair of nunchuks who, just like his name suggests, specializes in kung fu. Guess who he's based on?
  • A nunchaku-wielding martial artist malcontent from Medabots, rather transparently. He had cropped black hair and the tracksuit and everything.
  • Might Gai and Rock Lee (who shares Bruce Lee's birthday) of Naruto come complete with bowl-cuts and ugly jumpsuits. Both even use nunchaku, and both do the "ACHOOOOO" sound at least once. Also, in the English dub at least, Gai sounds a little like Elvis Presley sometimes, being one of a couple characters to take influences from both. Both Bruce Lee and Rock Lee also suffered a major injury, which they were expected to never recover from, but managed to do so.
  • In One Piece, Bepo the talking, kickboxing Polar Bear has the kicks and the shouts, moreso in the Anime, but of course being a Bear, he doesn't look too much like Lee. The jumpsuit is also shared between him and the other members of Trafalgar Law's crew. There's also Sanji, whose kick-based fighting style incorporates Savate and Taekwondo much like Lee's Jeet Kune Do and the Chapter 710 color spread even depicts Sanji wielding nunchaku and wearing Lee's yellow jumpsuit from Game of Death.
  • Pokémon: The Series has "Hitmonlee", a humanoid Pokemon known for it's kicking abilities. There's also "Hitmonchan" named after Jackie Chan.
  • Lee Pai-Long from Shaman King is what would happen if Bruce Lee was killed by a Triad society, chopped up into little pieces, and brought back to life as a jiangshi.
  • Inosanto Dan from Tenjho Tenge is an incredibly blatant Bruce Lee copy: he looks like him, he screams like him, he dresses in "Game Of Death"-style jumpsuits, he uses nunchaku, he's the president of the "Jun Fan Kung Fu Club", and so forth. His name is taken from Dan Inosanto, one of Bruce Lee's top students.
  • Tiger & Bunny has Pao-lin Huang/Dragon Kid, a pint-sized Chinese martial artist superhero that even goes around wearing the "Game Of Death" jumpsuit in her spare time.
  • Ryu Harumaki from the gag manga Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku. He is the main characters' school teacher, obsessed with martial arts fighting even wearing the iconic jumpsuit, and speaks with a verbal tic using "-cho" in each sentence. But he's a dimwit unable to teach class, very weak that you can compare him to Mr. Burns, and living in Perpetual Poverty. He's pretty much one the series many Butt Monkeys.
  • Lord Petora from Wedding Peach, who loves his "Achoo!" screams. He also gets beaten in a fight by Hinagiku. Without transforming.
  • One appeared in the manga and "Season Zero" of Yu-Gi-Oh!, an extremely Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy and bully who idolized Bruce Lee, and claimed to be able to perform the one inch punch. He angrily beat up Yugi for beating him in a video game, but was taken down by Jounouchi.

    Comic Books 
  • Disney Italy being Disney Italy, they put a Bruce Lee clone in Double Duck as The Agency's self-defense instructor. One that warns you he's going to attack with a punch, give you a flying kick, and then warn you to "Never trust your opponent". Hey, at least this one is a Combat Pragmatist as the original.
  • Kefong from The Intimates, who even wears a Game of Death style jumpsuit in his first year (and one with the colors reversed in the second). He's also immune to psychic assault because he is that zen. He's also a bit of a subversion in that he's literally always relaxed and calm - and identifies his role model as Dean Martin.
  • Prime-8s features Chimp Chan Z, an intelligent chimpanzee who was altered to roughly human size. He's an expert martial artist who wields nunchaku and has a black stripe down the sides of his yellow uniform. He becomes a movie star when the Prime-8s disband, and he even has the hair.
  • Dashiell "Dash" Bad Horse from Scalped trained in Jeet Kune Do and even uses nunchaku to beat up criminals. His childhood room has a Bruce Lee poster.
  • Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu is a Bruce Lee Clone at the initiative of Paul Gulacy, with some artists even giving him Lee's facial features. The homage was furthered during Warren Ellis' Secret Avengers stint, where Shang-Chi even wore a black and red variant of Lee's iconic Game of Death tracksuit. (Ultimate Shang-Chi, by contrast, is a Jackie Chan Clone — his Ultimate Marvel Team-Up version. In the film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, many scenes were inspired by Jackie Chan, Brad Allan (1973-2021) and Andy Cheng, choreographers who worked with Jackie Chan, also collaborated on the film.
  • One issue of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars comics had Jedi Master Bruu Jun Fan. On top of his Asian appearance and distinctive fighting style, "Jun Fan" is also Lee's chinese name (like many Hong Kong natives, he had both a Western and a Chinese first name).
  • Strange as it may seem, Michelangelo of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started out as this: Kevin Eastman thought, "If Bruce Lee were an anthropomorphic animal, what's the most ridiculous animal he could be?", concluded that it was a turtle, and drew a picture of a turtle in a Bruce Lee pose, wielding a nunchaku. He and Peter Laird then began drawing pictures of turtles wielding other martial arts weapons, and the rest is history.
  • Judge Dredd antagonist Stan Lee, also known as Deathfist, a bare-handed martial artist turned assassin. One of the few humans to defeat Ol' Stoneface one-on-one.
  • The above examples aside, comic books have pretty much averted this trope... by putting Bruce in comics years after he died. A Malibu's six-issue miniseries titled, appropriately, Bruce Lee. Her daughter, Shannon Lee and Jeff Kline wrote a series for Magnetic Press, Shannon also wrote the one-shot Bruce Lee: The Walk Of The Dragon. Bruce Lee also had a newspaper strip in the 1980s, it would initially be illustrated by veterans Milton Caniff and Noel Sickles, however it was eventually written by Sharman DiVono and illustrated by Fran Matera and Dick Kulpa. In the 1970s, Jack Kirby proposed a Bruce Lee comic book, but it was not approved, he took advantage of some pages in Phantom Force (1993).

    Film — Animation 

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Especially in the wake of Lee's death, exploitation kung fu filmmakers would market any martial artist who vaguely resembled him as a "Bruce Lee clone" (e.g. Dragon Lee, Bruce Li, and Bruce Le). Lampshaded in the B-Movie The Clones of Bruce Lee, which starred three of the "clones" as literal clones. And there was also another figurative clone who didn't play a clone in the film.
    • The Dragon Lives Again is another notable Bruceploitation film starring Bruce Leong, which has Bruce going to the Chinese Underworld, where he teams up with Popeye and Kwai Chang Caine to fight off Clint Eastwood, Dracula, James Bond, and other popular 70s characters who wants to overthrow the King of the Underworld.
    • It was also lampshaded in the mockumentary Finishing the Game about producers trying to get a replacement for Bruce in Game of Death. One of the actors going for the role is named Breeze Loo and he stars in some familiar-sounding kung fu movies like Fists of Fuhrer.
    • Sometimes people would become Bruce Lee Clones without their knowledge, as their films would be repackaged in non-asian markets to cash in on Bruce. The most notable example is the South Korean martial arts film The Stranger, which was repackaged as Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave, and its star, Taekwondo grandmaster Jun Chong, was rechristened "Bruce K.L. Lea".
  • Bruce Li (real name: Ho Chung-tao) was marketed by the Shaw Brothers themselves as Bruce Lee's true successor, benefiting from the fact he debuted before the others and was already a highly respected martial artist in his own right. His films such as Fist of Fury II and III served as unoffical sequels to Bruce Lee classics, were of much higher production values, and were the most widely distributed and most successful of the bunch. Growing frustrated with his marketing gimmick and being unable to find roles outside of it, he quit acting in 1990. In his own words from a 1995 interview, "I could act like him but I could never be him."
  • Jet Li is generally considered to be the true successor to Bruce Lee, being renowned for his film presence and fighting ability rather than merely trying to imitate him. While Bruce's influence created the chop socky style of kung fu movies in the 70's, Jet Li helped to build the classical Wuxia genre in the 80's and 90's. Jet Li played Chen Zhen in Fist of Legend, the remake of Fist of Fury starring Bruce Lee. In 1996, he starred in Black Mask, adaptation of the Manhua of the same name by Li Chi-Tak, who also pays tribute to Kato The Green Hornet and in Fearless (2006) played Huo Yuanjia, a real character and master of the fictional Chen Zhen.
  • Jackie Chan was initially marketed as a Bruce Lee clone, and in fact worked as a stunt man on several of his films before getting his big break in the sequel New Fist of Fury. He recalled many were dismissive of Bruce's style at first, as his action scenes were much slower and raw compared to the faster paced flurries common at the time "They all attack him one at a time." But he did recognize Bruce's style placed more emphasis on the talent of the performer. Chan's Chinese stage name Cheng Long means "becoming the dragon", and Chan had to fight tooth and nail to introduce his style of slapstick action comedy, based on his upbringing in the Peking Opera. Around the same time Jet Li entered the scene, but it took over 20 years for them to make a movie together (abandoning Chan's slapstick for more straight combat style) called The Forbidden Kingdom (also starting a white guy who learned all the wrong lessons from Lee-type films).
    • While working on one of Lee's films, Lee accidentally hit him square in the face with a staff. As soon as the director called "cut", Lee ran back to check on Chan, and was very apologetic whenever he ran into Chan for the rest of the shoot. According to Chan, he felt fine cause he was young and invincible. But when Lee apologized, he played it up cause he was getting attention from his idol.
    • Chan actually gets his neck snapped on-camera by Lee in Enter the Dragon. It happens during the underground fight scene: Lee wraps up Chan's arm, kicks a random mook in the face, then the camera zooms in on Lee's face as he delivers the coup de grace.
    • In Jackie's early career he was instructed to be a Bruce Lee clone while filming during his youth. Chan wasn't comfortable with the hyper-serious mannerisms and didn't think them credible when performed by a teen, so he began doing the exact opposite to differentiate himself: "Bruce Lee kick high, I kick low. When he not smiling, always smiling. He can one-punch break the wall; after I break the wall, I hurt. I do the funny face." Chan credits his early rise in popularity to breaking away from the Bruceploitation that plagued the martial arts movie market.
  • Donnie Yen played Lee's character in Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, and he himself resembles Lee more than a bit: he brings a mad amount of aggression to his characters, knows how to be goofy as well, and uses grappling and mixed martial arts, a side of Lee none of his clones retained.
  • In a similar vein to Chan, Sonny Chiba was at first considered just a tasteless clone of the recently deceased Lee before he came into his own.
  • Alexander Fu Sheng was probably more a successor to Bruce Lee than Jackie Chan. Fu Sheng possessed Lee's leading man good looks, charisma, and was Hong Kong's biggest star after Lee's death and before the rise of Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. Unfortunately, his life seemed to mirror Lee's. Like Lee, he died young and in the prime of his career, being killed in a car accident at age 28. Ironically, after Bruce's death, Fu Sheng had moved into his old house in Hong Kong, which some say was cursed.
  • Mark Dacascos might actually be a Brandon Lee clone.
  • Enter the Fat Dragon stars Sammo Hung as a Bruce Lee fan who, in one scene, is cast as a mook in one of Lee's films. Unfortunately, "Bruce Lee" is really just a lookalike cashing in on Lee's name, and when Hung points that out, "Bruce" strikes him, then jokes about how slow Sammo is. Sammo then proceeds to deliberately mess up the fight scene by kicking the fake's ass, along with everyone else in the room, proving that he's a far superior Bruce Lee clone than that guy will ever be. The film itself is a parody of Way of the Dragon, so Sammo Hung is himself a clone in that respect too.
  • Leroy Green a.k.a. Bruce Leroy from The Last Dragon. It should be noted that only the fighting style and name was taken from Bruce Lee. The character was an African American.
  • Empty Hand from Shaolin Soccer, right down to the bowl cut and black-striped yellow jumpsuit. In fact, his actor, Danny Chan Kwok-kwan, would go on to star as Bruce Lee himself in The Legend of Bruce Lee and the Ip Man Film Series.

    Literature 
  • Trong Tchen from Phaic Tăn, a kickboxing champion who starred in a number of action films, including a movie adaptation of Hamlet.
  • In Men, Yolo is an actual clone of Bruce Lee, which is ironic since his name is an abbreviation for "You only live once."
  • A Downplayed Trope example is in the Red Room urban fantasy series by C.T. Phipps. Derek Hawthorne is a rules-breaking half-dragon martial artist and agent for an Illuminati-esque conspiracy. Notably, Derek isn't that similar but invoked this trope as he lives by the philosophy of Jeet Kune Do and openly states his admiration for the man on multiple occasions.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Three episodes of Family Matters had Steve Urkel becoming Bruce Lee Urkel.
  • Kamen Rider Meteor from Kamen Rider Fourze mimics Bruce Lee's cries, stances, occasional moves and even the "thumb across the nose" taunt. He's even capable of using the one-inch punch which he used both for the regular Zodiarts, and to also kill Kamen Rider Fourze to get his friend back.
  • Warrior (2019) is based on Lee's writings, and so has two. There's Ah Sahm and Li Yong, who both tend to mimick Lee's body language and fighting style.
  • Wonder Woman: In "Going, Going, Gone", Wonder Woman faces off against a real Dragon clone from The '70s. His moves were very showy breaking of boxes, screams of "Hiyahh!", high and wide kicks, and two very clear and very ineffective punches that bounced harmlessly off her amazonian abs. Oh, Crap!
    Wonder Woman: (Standing over the defeated man) This really hasn't developed into a very good day, has it?

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Tatsumi Fujinami only resembled Bruce Lee superficially, but was compared to Lee in his foreign tenures, and according to him, people actually asked him often if he was Lee's relative and were afraid of working with him in case he felt like beating them up. Ironically, while many Japanese wrestlers do hail from martial backgrounds, Fujinami doesn't, and he once confessed he has never been in a real fight in his entire life.
  • Satoru Sayama, an avid martial artist aside from a wrestler, used to play a Bruce Lee clone, Sammy Lee, officially billed as Bruce's cousin. He came out wearing the famous yellow suit, wrestled with a lot of kicks, and carried a kendo stick as a weapon (ironically, a weapon the real Lee never used). Akira Maeda later joined him as another cousin called Quick-Kick Lee.
  • Último Dragón, when he was first starting out in Mexico, was billed as the last student trained by Bruce Lee before he died (hence the name Último Dragón, which translates as "Last Dragon"). Basically, he was a luchador Bruce clone, though he has broadened his style since then.

    Tabletop Games 

    Toys 
  • Quick Kick from G.I. Joe qualified with his shirtlessness, baggy kung fu pants and nunchaku (although this was largely ignored by the cartoon, and slightly less so by the comic), but more recent Joe media and toys really pushed it even further, with more recent comics having him ape Bruce's moves and stances, and his newest action figure sporting the Onitsuka Tigers and yellow nunchaku from Game of Death and the claw wounds on the chest from Enter the Dragon.

    Video Games 
  • Ai Rin from Anarchy Reigns is another rare female example. Her default color scheme looks exactly like Bruce Lee's tracksuit, and she fights with laser nun-chucks called Huanglong. Which actually translates to "Yellow Dragon."
  • Bayonetta is a rare female example once you give her the Gun-chucks, Sai-Fung. When doing the five punch combo, she even does the high-pitched shrieks and "ACHOOOO!" for extra measure. The point is driven home when you realize that Sai-Fung is actually one of Bruce Lee's old nicknames and buy Sai-Fung's costume set.
  • Daigo from the doujin game Big Bang Beat: 1st Impression. He wears a (blue and white) tracksuit and has nearly the same hair (barring the two devil-horn style cowlicks, and the fact that his hair's red). One of his alternate color schemes has more... appropriate colors for both. And his fighting style, down to the yelling, is a 1:1 match, as well.
  • Ryu from Burning Fight wears an orange jumpsuit, has a fighting style based on roundhouse kicks, flying kicks and Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, and is named after the Japanese word for "dragon."
  • Darkstalkers: Jon Talbain busts out nunchaku and similar Lee-ish poses for his taunt and win poses, shares a few flying kicks with Lee, and has howls that sound an awful lot like Lee's famous yells, although he bears no physical resemblance to him in either form. Although in human form, Talbain rocks a Kung Fu outfit complete with pajamas and slippers, and in both forms has a relatively lean-but-skinny body. He's definitely one of the less obvious Bruce Lee references and perhaps the most unique.
  • Dead or Alive has Jann Lee, a shouting Jeet Kune Do practitioner who wields a pair of nunchaku and can even wear Bruce's Game of Death tracksuit as an alternate costume. His backstory says he invoked this trope: tired of growing up weak and being pushed around, he idolized Bruce Lee and decided to model himself after him in order to become stronger.
  • Dante of Devil May Cry fame exhibits these quirks in the third game when wielding the tripartite ice nunchaku Cerberus. One of his attacks (Satellite) even has Dante produce a high-pitched "WOOOOO-AAAAAAAA!" kiai. The Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs, however, were included as part of his moveset with Beowulf. Devil May Cry 5 sees Dante receive a new Cerberus Devil Arm to replace the original (which was broken in the game's prequel novel Before the Nightmare), this time formed from the king of the Cerberus tribe, possessing three different elemental affinities, and with the ability to assume the form of a three-section staff and a more "standard fare" bo staff in addition to the default nunchaku. The very first thing Dante does when showing off with King Cerberus? Flail around his nunchaku and belt out the Funny Bruce Lee Noises, which feature much more prominently in-game when players get to use the weapon for themselves.
  • Double Dragon :
    • Billy and Jimmy Lee are a more subtle example. They don't look much Bruce at first, but they share his surname and their fighting style is called "Sou-Setsu-Ken" or the Fist of Twin Interception, a nod to Bruce's style, the "Way of the Intercepting Fist". Also, Billy's name comes from Billy Lo, Bruce Lee's character in Game of Death and on the cover artwork of Double Dragon Advance, Billy and Jimmy mimic Bruce Lee's promotional still with Chuck Norris from Return of the Dragon.
    • The arcade version of Double Dragon 3 has a more blatant clone named "Li Cheng-Long", whose name is a reference to both, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
    • Billy and Jimmy's fighting stance in the SNES and GBA versions is actually the JKD stance.
    • Super/Return of Double Dragon has the Dual Boss Chen Long-Fu & Chen Long-Biao, named after Jackie Chan's Cantonese screen name.
  • The Amstrad CPC version of Dragon Ninja had a Bruce Lee clone posing in front of a Chinese dragon on the title screen, for no better reason than the title.
  • Chin Wo from Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Dark Side is one in appearance, but not in playstyle, making use of monkey kung fu, acupuncture needles and elemental special moves.
  • Jet Chan from Evil Genius is clearly Bruce Lee by appearance, though obviously his name is a reference to Jet Li and Jackie Chan. He is also That One Boss.
  • Kim Kaphwan from Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters performs a Bruce Lee-esque Kiai when performing any variation of his Hou'ou Kyaku ("Hou'ou Kyaku! ATATATATATATA!! WATAAAAA!!!"). His snarky, friendly rival Jhun Hoon and disciples May Lee and Chae Lim belt out a similar war cry as well. The subversion here is that all of the aforementioned characters are Korean Taekwondokas who are arbiters of JUSTICE!
  • Hon Fu from the Fatal Fury series is partially based on Lee (with the nunchaku and all), but mostly on Jackie Chan, to whom he bears an uncanny likeness for a reason (also due to him being more of a Lethal Joke Character). Cheng Sinzan might be partially based on Sammo Hung.
  • The Fire Pro Wrestling game series is rather notorious for using very blatant Captain Ersatzes of existing professional wrestlers and mixed martial artists, however the second Game Boy Advance game, Final Fire Pro Wrestling (aka "Fire Pro Wrestling 2") went one step further and included more famous martial artists and film characters including Rocky, Chuck Norris and of course Bruce Lee himself, under the name "Kung-Fu Liu".
  • For some inexplicable reason, one of the bosses of Pilot Kids (a Horizontal Scrolling Shooter where the players are Living Toys in RC planes) is a Bruce Lee-esque action figure who makes plenty of Funny Bruce Lee Noises and attack the players by kicking and punching.
  • In Frank Bruno's Boxing for the ZX Spectrum, there is a clearly Bruce-Lee-inspired character named Fling Long Chop. And, since the game was a rip-off of Super Punch-Out!! (see above), that made Fling Long Chop a rip-off of a rip-off.
  • Li in Front Mission 3.
  • Heroes Evolved used to have the literal Bruce Lee himself as a playable hero. However, it doesn't fly well with the copyrights, so he's replaced by Dragon Warrior. While Dragon Warrior lacks the funny noises, he carries Bruce's philosophies in combat.
  • Long, the player 1 character from Hong Kong Ninja is directly modelled after Bruce Lee, wearing a yellow jacket in all his fight scenes (a reference to the iconic yellow tracksuit) which exposes his abs, making Bruce's iconic "whaaa-cha" shouts in between fights and striking a pose by rubbing his nose after defeating each boss.
  • Killer Instinct (2013) gives us Kim Wu, a San Franciscan Jeet Kune Do practitioner who wields nunchucks, has a dragon motif going, and makes some high-pitched shouts in the middle of her attacks.
  • In Kung Fu Chivalry, a Wuxia-themed beat-em-up for Macintosh, the first player character is obviously modeled after Bruce Lee, with hints of The Ahnold, while the second resembles Jackie Chan in his younger years.
  • Thomas in Kung Fu Master is supposed to be Jackie Chan's character from Wheels on Meals, but plays more like a Bruce Lee clone. The game's story is practically lifted from Game of Death.
  • Dragon Wang, a Kung Fu Master-like game for the Sega SG-1000, had no shirt on its protagonist. The Taiwanese distributors gave the game the same title as the Bruce Lee movie Fist of Fury.
  • China Warrior, a Kung Fu Master clone for the TurboGrafx-16, starred another shirtless Bruce Lee clone named Wang, and had a recurring boss clearly modeled on Jackie Chan.
  • Lee Sin from League of Legends, especially his Dragon Fist skin. But if he's not wearing the skin, he's actually an aversion, since his martial arts aren't heavily based on Bruce. And his Kiai ("Hi-kuu!") is different.
  • Chou from Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, who already exhibits Bruce Lee-style kiai right from his original form. His fighting style is inspired by Bruce's Jeet Kune Do and the martial arts name is also the name of one of his skills. His opening animation involves him swinging around a nunchaku (that he never gets to use in his actual gameplay). And before he got his current look, he was designed to look a lot like Bruce with the yellow jumpsuit, but then Moonton decided to revamp him to try to get away from their stigma of "copycatting others too much".
  • Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat was a fighter of this type until midway through the first continuity, when he was killed by Shang Tsung in Deadly Alliance and then brought back as a zombie. He still uses Jun Fan (basically JKD with Bruce Lee's baptism name, as JKD had already been taken by Johnny Cage) and nunchaku, though. The physical resemblance also decreased later in the series.
    • Said fighting style and weapon had both been used by Johnny Cage before in Deadly Alliance, despite him being a Jean-Claude Van Damme clone instead.
    • The comparisons to Bruce Lee ratchet right back up with the release of Mortal Kombat X, most notably with his Brutalities, which are pose-for-pose references to famous moves performed by Bruce Lee in real life.
    • This was toned down considerably in the movie, which made him a shaggy-haired snarker and reluctant hero, more of a Jackie Chan that the universe was pushing into a Bruce Lee role.
  • Chie Satonaka from Persona 4 has the haircut, fights using kicks, and says things like "Don't think, feel." and "WAAAAHTAAAH!". Her persona, Tomoe, wears the famous yellow tracksuit from Game of Death. Being an outspoken fan of kung-fu flicks, it makes sense in-story and in-universe. In the Updated Re-release, Persona 4 Golden, you can acquire a costume that is a direct shout-out to Lee, it's the previously-mentioned tracksuit, sneakers and all. It even changes her victory pose to a stereotypical Kung-Fu kickflip.
  • Pray for Death: Jan Fun - bowl cut, kung fu expertise, lack of shirt, and mysterious death in 1973 all included!
  • Super Punch-Out!! has Dragon Chan, who, as his name suggests, is a mix of the Dragon and Jackie Chan. His signature move is a jump kick, something you definitely can't do in real-life boxing.
  • Ready 2 Rumble Boxing's Jet "Iron" Chin has the look, physique, and mannerisms down pat. His even has a Bruce Lee-esque rapid-fire punch barrage for his Rumble Flurry, although it was toned down a lot in the sequel.
  • "Bruce Meow" in Shadow Hearts: From The New World is a blatant parody; then again, they also include Cat Morita, among others...
  • Soul Series:
    • Maxi in Soulcalibur combines Bruce Lee's yells, fighting style... and an Elvis haircut. Now if only we could hear him sing. He's also a student/substitute to Li Long, who has a more obvious name shout-out.
    • Soulcalibur V allows you to edit and create costumes for playable characters. Some creative sticker editing and placement, as well as the right outfit and hair selections, can actually make him look like a dead ringer for Lee's Game of Death appearance.
  • Ryu and Ken back in Street Fighter are based on Bruce Lee. They were redesigned in Street Fighter II into the beefy square jawed karate masters that we know now. Then, enter Fei Long...
  • Tekken has two of these, Marshall Law and his son Forrest, though Forrest strangely resembles another well-known Bruce Lee imitator Dragon Lee of South Korea.
    • Lee Chaolan, who started as a palette swap of Law, derives his name from Li Xiaolong, Bruce Lee's Chinese screen name.
    • Also has a Jackie Chan clone, Lei Wulong.
      • And to top it off, what's Lei's nickname? Super Cop.
      • It's actually safe to say any drunken master style fighter, including but not limited to Brad Wong from Dead or Alive, is based wholesale off Chan's performance in the movie Drunken Master.
    • Tekken seems to have a Wesley Snipes clone too: Raven. Really, Tekken often bases its characters on existing culture. And who can blame 'em?
  • Virtua Fighter subverted the trend while it was still young; rather than a Bruce Lee clone who imitates Lee's moves from the movies, there's Jacky, a blond American who practices actual Jeet Kune Do with Wing Chun influence, or at least as close an approximation as it can get in a fighting game. He still has some flashy moves, such as a somersault kick, but the flair Jacky adds is all his own.
  • Kim Dragon from World Heroes is a transparent rip-off of Lee complete without a shirt, as per the game's No Celebrities Were Harmed casting rules. Oddly enough, despite the rest of the game stealing heavily from Street Fighter and Fatal Fury, he predated the aforementioned Fei Long. He's also one of the few ones to not be ethnically Chinese; he is instead South Korean.

    Web Animation 
  • DBX has the episode "Bruce Lee vs The World" which has the original fighting against different expies of himself: Fei Long, Liu Kang, Marshall Law, Rock Lee and Hitmonlee for good measure. The original wins.
  • Abyo from Pucca is fairly obviously based on Bruce Lee. In the original Flash shorts he even does the Bruce Lee sound effects.

    Web Videos 
  • The "Bruceploitation" subgenre that followed Bruce Lee's death is discussed in Episode 6, "Hong Kong Action," of Missing Reel.
  • Patrick Gill discusses both the "Bruceploitation" trope and this as the inspiration for fighting games and their structure, in this video essay for Polygon.

    Western Animation 
  • The Gorillaz G-Bite "Game of Death" shows ten-year-old Noodle and Russel having a mock fight, with Noodle wearing a yellow jumpsuit and yelling out her punches and kicks (she also yells "ACHOOOO!" at one point). Noodle, being Noodle, mops the floor with Russel pretty quickly. Then, it's revealed that 2D and Murdoc are pretending to play a fighting game, and Murdoc (who's "playing" Russel) starts loudly complaining that his controller's broken.
  • Hun from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) bears a striking resemblance to Bruce Lee, including physical appearance, fighting style and high-pitched shrieks. Hun emerged as a blond brute in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003); his 2012 version resembles Bruce Lee in appearance and his name sounds like the Chinese surname Han.

    Real Life 
  • Afghan martial artist and actor Abbas Alizada gained international fame for his striking resemblance to Bruce Lee, though the resurgence of the Taliban in his native country forced Alizada to flee the country with his family.


 
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Alternative Title(s): Jackie Chan Clone

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Essence of Improvisation

Making weapons out of things that aren't weapons is part and parcel for Like a Dragon, but the Action Star job takes this concept to new heights -- literally!

How well does it match the trope?

5 (3 votes)

Example of:

Main / ImprovisedWeapon

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