Did A Family Curse Cause The Untimely Death Of Bruce Lee And His Son Brandon?

In 1973, famed martial artist Bruce Lee was killed by a brain aneurysm after taking a medication given to him by a friend. His sudden death was surrounded by questions, many of which were never answered. Two decades later, Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son, was shot and killed while filming a movie. A prop gun had somehow jammed and fired a dummy bullet into his abdomen, causing him to bleed out.

The deaths of Bruce and Brandon Lee have given rise to many conspiracy theories, some absolutely absurd, some pretty fascinating - including the theory of the Lee family curse. This curse has supposedly killed off numerous people in the Lee family, not just Bruce and Brandon. It's known as "the Bruce Lee curse," but the misfortune seems to extend back longer than even Bruce's life.

Is Bruce Lee's family cursed? There's no way of knowing whether or not the Lee curse exists for sure. But whether these tragedies were supernatural in origin or all too human, they're still heartbreaking.

The Lee family was very spiritual and superstitious, especially after the death of Bruce's brother. Although Bruce was born in the year and hour of the dragon, a very fortuitous sign, his parents insisted on calling him "Little Phoenix" for much of his youth - a girl's name.

Why? According to tradition, avoiding calling the boy by a male name would prevent evil spirits from stealing his soul.

Bruce Lee wasn't the first victim of the rumored curse. His parents Lee Hoi-chuen and Grace Ho had three other children, including a son. That son died before Bruce was born. The cause of his death is unknown.

Both Bruce and Brandon Lee's deaths raised questions. For Bruce, it was a question of how a simple muscle relaxant could kill a man in such good shape. Why was he alone at the time of death? Why didn't they take him to the hospital right away?

Brandon's death was mystifying as well. How was the prop gun incorrectly loaded? Who handled it when? Why did the doctor in charge of the autopsy sign off on it if he didn't perform it? Where is the footage of the shooting? That last question, at least, seems to have an answer. The police may have confiscated the footage to investigate the incident. Other reports say the film was destroyed out of respect to Brandon's family, or due to the settlement with them.

Nevertheless, the lingering confusion over both tragedies has convinced plenty of fans that dark supernatural forces were at play.

A film called Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was released in 1993. In the movie, Bruce is hunted by a demon that has haunted him since birth. At the end of the movie, Bruce braces himself to face the demon - but it sets its sights on Bruce's son instead.

Brandon Lee was still alive when the scene was filmed. But his on-set accident occurred before the movie was released, leading many to believe the fictional story somehow predicted his fate.

Brandon Lee shared some chilling similarities to Eric, the character he played in The Crow. First and foremost, Eric was shot and killed. He was also engaged, just like Brandon; he was set to marry his girlfriend Eliza later that year.

Some believe that Brandon Lee's final movie, The Crow, was cursed itself. On the very first day of shooting, a worker was electrocuted by a high-voltage wire. Later, a film employee crashed his car through the studio's plaster shop. Construction workers suffered injuries, and bad weather damaged many of the set pieces. One of the movie's publicists was injured in a minor car accident. And then there was Brandon's horrific death - a grim cap to a dramatic production process.

If Bruce Lee's family is cursed, why is his daughter Shannon still alive? Supposedly, the dark forces only target the men in the family.

One of the creepiest things about this curse is that Bruce Lee himself believed in it. He supposedly had many premonitions of his own death. He said that he did not believe he would live to be even half as old as his father, who died at the age of 64. At the time of his own death, Bruce was 32.

Bruce even said he believed his own son Brandon Lee would die young. Brandon died at age 28; he was even younger than his father when he passed away.

Maybe Bruce and Brandon Lee were being hunted, but by the Chinese Mafia, known as the Triads, rather than evil spirits. Bruce was known for sharing his knowledge of Chinese martial arts, a tendency that upset some people; they felt he was using his cultural heritage and spirituality in order to make money and gain fame. Supposedly, the Triads had had enough with Bruce's grandstanding and refusals to pay them protection money, and decided to take him out. 

According to some accounts, a Triad member used the Dim Mak on him, a delayed death strike that could take days or even years to kill a person. Those same assassins are rumored to be the ones who tampered with the prop gun that killed Brandon Lee.

Although Bruce Lee didn't die on set, his final film was in production when he passed away. The movie was Game of Death, and originally, the plot shared no similarities to the shooting of his son. But after Bruce's death, the script had to be modified. The movie became about an international martial artist and movie star. He takes on an international crime syndicate, and a disguised assassin comes onto his movie set and shoots him with what everyone believes is a prop gun.

It's an eerie parallel to Brandon Lee's real-life death.