Film

Be Water

Name: Be Water
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2020
Cast: Bruce Lee, Linda Lee Cadwell, Shannon Lee, Diana Lee Inosanto, Sam Ho

Biopic

A tender, clipped-together portrait of Bruce Lee built almost entirely from home movies, talk-show clips and his own diary entries, tracing his bounce between Hong Kong and Hollywood rejection. It's less martial-arts hagiography than a study of a man performing confidence while quietly furious at doors closed on him. Moving, brisk, and surprisingly intimate for a film about someone so mythologised.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a close, affectionate look at how a martial arts icon wrestled with being seen as an outsider, and you enjoy documentaries built from family memories and his own writings.

Skip it if you came for kung fu spectacle, since the film leans on talking heads and reflection more than action, and its pace stays contemplative throughout.

What it asks of you: Long, unhurried stretches of family recollection and quiet archival footage, unfolding at a gentle pace over roughly 105 minutes, with little urgency and a reflective tone throughout.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

O.J.: Made in America2016

The same idea of a Black icon built and consumed by an America that never quite let him just be a man, told with the same forensic archival craft and unhurried patience.

But It's nearly eight hours and goes to far darker, uglier places than Be Water ever does.

The Last Dance2020

Another myth-in-motion documentary about a singular, controlling talent using archival footage and present-day testimony to ask what greatness actually cost him.

But Michael Jordan is a producer, and it shows in how flattering the framing sometimes gets.

Muhammad Ali2021

Ken Burns doing exactly what this film does for Bruce Lee—an athlete of colour turned into a symbol, fighting industries and countries that wanted to own his image.

But Four hour-long episodes is a much bigger commitment than a single sitting.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Be Water

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kung Fu1972

This isn't inspired by his story, it IS the historical wound at the centre of it—the role that went to David Carradine instead of him.

The actual TV series Bruce Lee pitched and was passed over for, with a white actor cast in the lead—watch the very rejection Be Water describes, dramatized in real time.

But It's dated, slow 1970s television, and uncomfortable now precisely because of what it represents.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story1993

The dramatized, sentimental Hollywood version of the same life—useful to watch right after the documentary just to see how thoroughly it gets softened and mythologised.

But It's a glossy, fictionalised biopic that plays fast and loose with the facts you just learned.

Enter the Dragon1973

The film that made him a global star days after his death—watch the actual on-screen charisma the documentary spends so long describing secondhand.

But It's a straightforward martial-arts thriller, thin on plot, heavy on fight choreography.

Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men2019

A group biography that treats hip-hop mythology with the same seriousness Be Water gives martial arts, tracing how outsiders build an identity nobody else would grant them.

But You need at least a passing interest in Wu-Tang's music and history to get the most out of it.

Icarus2017

A completely different subject but the same pleasure of a documentary that starts small and personal and widens into something much bigger about systems and deception.

But It's about Russian doping, not martial arts—the connection is craft, not content.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?2018

Another gentle, archival-driven portrait of a beloved public figure that quietly interrogates what got flattened in the process of turning him into a legend.

But Fred Rogers and Bruce Lee occupy wildly different emotional registers—don't expect the same intensity.

Free Solo2018

If what you loved was watching someone pursue total physical mastery as a form of self-definition, this documentary captures that obsession from the inside.

But There's no cultural or racial dimension here—it's pure, apolitical, vertigo-inducing spectacle.

Chungking Express1994

Same Hong Kong, same in-between identity Bruce Lee lived inside, but told through pure atmosphere rather than archival fact.

Wong Kar-wai's dreamy, neon-lit Hong Kong—the same city, the same ache of belonging nowhere fully—but rendered as romantic, wandering fiction instead of biography.

But Nothing happens in the way you'd expect a plot to happen; it's mood and longing, not narrative momentum.

Kill Bill: Vol. 12003

Shows the flip side of Be Water's argument—how thoroughly his image got absorbed, flattened, and repurposed by the very industry that once rejected him.

Tarantino borrows Bruce Lee's yellow tracksuit outright and turns his legacy into pure, gleeful, blood-soaked pastiche—the mirror image of the documentary's reverence.

But It's cartoonishly violent and treats him as costume and reference rather than person.