Fans of Bruce Lee will be happy to learn that there will be new content featuring the Dragon that will be coming out in the form of an anime. Shannon Lee, Bruce’s daughter and the head of his estate, has released a new teaser trailer for an anime to be called House of Lee. The trailer is a true teaser as it only runs for half a minute and showcases quick snippets of animation where Lee is doing his warm-up exercises reminiscent of his preparing to fight Chuck Norris in The Way of the Dragon, as well as small clips of what’s to come in the series.
Deadline reports that the trailer for House of Lee is attached to the special 50th anniversary 4K screenings of Enter the Dragon, which are set to play in over 650 theaters on Sunday, August 13 and Wednesday, August 16. The creative IP branch of the Bruce Lee Family Companies, Bruce Lee Entertainment, has been looking to make an animated project of some sort for years now. Shannon Lee has said that her recent experiences has inspired her to create House of Lee. Lee stated, “Anime is an amazing medium for telling a truly creative story where Bruce Lee can be Bruce Lee. I’m so excited for the possibilities for action, fantasy, history, culture, and creativity within this medium.”
According to Deadline, “House of Lee is an action/fantasy series that sees Bruce Lee fighting to assemble his Dragon Warriors before the world plunges too far into darkness and shadow. It takes inspiration from the famous Bruce Lee quote, ‘Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.’”
Lee handpicked artist Emily Yang and her content company, Shibuya, to do the animation for the series after viewing her short film, White Rabbit. “I love Emily and Shibuya’s perspective. They are such creative, hard working, skilled artists with an amazing brand, I just knew that they would be perfect collaborators. The organic way it all came together spoke volumes of our potential collaboration, and it’s been great!”
Yang professes that she connected with the Chinese superstar, who is also known for his philosophy, “I found myself immediately resonating with the narrative as it touches on themes of spirituality, the battle against your inner demons, and so many aspects of the AAPI experience. It being such a personal story, Shannon wanted to really retain creative control and ownership. At Shibuya, our mission is to help creators do just that and so I knew this was something we had to be a part of.”