KUNG FU KING STILL BEWITCHING VISITORS

Bruce Lee, the Hollywood star and Chinese martial arts master who was deemed an icon of Hong Kong and remembered for building a strong-man image for Chinese in Western eyes, is still bewitching thousands of people 30 years after his death.

A memorial dedicated to the Hong Kong martial arts legend in his ancestral hometown in the southern province of Guangdong has been teeming with visitors since it opened late last month.

The memorial, featuring more than 500 items on Lee, including letters, film posters, photographs and other memorabilia, is housed in a tea shop in Shunde, some 60 kilometers (37 miles) northwest of Hong Kong, where Lee's father and grandfather were born.

The venue was financed by Huang Dechao, a retired civil servant and fan, who spent about a decade collecting items featuring Lee.

"Not only people in Lee's hometown take pride in him, he makes all Chinese feel proud," said Huang.

Lee, who was born in San Francisco but grew up in Hong Kong, died in Hong Kong suddenly on July 20, 1973 at the age of 32 of cerebral edema, but the cause of the brain swelling remains a mystery.

Bruce Lee visited Shunde only once, when he was five.

He was already a young actor and a student of martial arts when he was sent back to the United States at age 17 by his Chinese opera singer father for getting involved in too many fights.

In the U.S., he created his own genre of martial arts, Jeet Kun Do, a combination of Chinese Kung Fu and boxing popular in Western countries, and set up a Kung Fu school.

Lee came back to Hong Kong in the early 1970s to restart his film career, and made four movies, including the unfinished "Game of Death" . His martial arts movie classics include The Way of the Dragon and Fists of Fury.

Lee's most celebrated film Enter the Dragon was the first martial arts film to receive backing from a large Hollywood studio, Warner Brothers.

© Xinhua News Agency, 04-26-2002