My Review of "Be Water"

Be Water is one of the many biographies of Bruce Lee. It's obvious that he's been a huge cultural icon to the world but what makes this biography different from all of the others? Well this one speaks upon Bruce Lee's life as told by those that were closest to him. Many of the other biographies or biopics you've seen have a perspective that kind of take from a variety of sources but you don't really have people like his wife Linda Lee Cadwell give personal testimonies to confirm specific claims.

There's a lot of mystery surrounding Bruce Lee although a lot of his life has been revealed to the world. Since he was larger than life and such a profound figure people refuse to believe that he was simply a man with huge ambition. Stories are made up and we believe them because it kind of builds upon a larger legend than he really was.

In this biography I found that the filmmakers just stuck to the facts and explained what they could. They had testimony from those closest to Bruce such as his daughter, his wife and close friends that he had. The story doesn't really deviate to explain some of the tall tales that we hear about Bruce. That's kind of what I wanted them to address but they weren't able to talk about some of those legends. Instead they just focused on the man that he was.

He does seem to be a very ambitious man with a grandiose vision for himself and his art. Bao Nguyen does a good job in describing how much more difficult it was for Bruce to fulfill his goals because of the social climate at the time. Today we complain about racism but racism still isn't bad as it was back in the day and this is reminded to us in this biopic.

It's an interesting take on racial tensions that had happened in the 1960's compared to how they are today. Some things haven't changed too much but certainly equality fighters of the 60s had to endure so much more than we do today. The way everyone dealt with racial discrimination wasn't that different from what it is today. It also talks a little about how Asians were seen as model immigrants and the detriment of this model had on the cultural group. I'm sure that could have been a whole film by itself.

One of the issues that Bao had to deal with in this biopic was how to focus on so many things that Bruce had influenced without going too far off track. With this in mind he used a lot of flashbacks and time changes throughout the biopic. It could get a little dizzying at times. I recognize what he's trying to do and it is a daunting task because Bruce had dived into so many different aspects of culture. He had worked in acting, dancing, martial arts, teaching, philosophy, film making and the list goes on.

I honestly don't know how this guy had time to do anything in his life being so busy with so many projects. The guy was pretty much busy every moment of his life. Still this was quite a long time ago and a lot of the people that were important during those periods of Bruce's life have passed away. So we don't really get details on every aspect of his life. This would probably be a huge mini series if that was the case though.

Still this was an enjoyable biopic but at times a little scattered. There seemed to be a little confusion as to what the biopic was trying to focus at certain points. Again I understand this probably happened because the director wanted to touch upon every aspect that Bruce had touched. It was very ambitious and sometimes it's better to just focus a little more on one thing than put everything into the pot so that the audience can just focus and not get lost on something that you're barely going to talk about.

Overall, I liked the biopic but I didn't think it was an absolutely great biopic. It was adequate for what it was trying to convey. I think if you're going to do a biopic of someone like this you might want to focus a little more on an aspect of their life than touch this and that and not explain too much about it. Yes there might be some sacrifices but at least you have a more focused film. I have to give this documentary a 7 out of 10. Hardcore Bruce Lee fans need not watch this film because you'll know everything that they're talking about already.