Bruce Lee became an international star with the release of Enter the Dragon. As the film celebrates a new milestone, the company managing his namesake, specifically Bruce Lee Entertainment, has announced a new anime series, House of Lee.
Enter the Dragon was released 50 years ago today. In celebration of one of the most influential action films of all time, the movie received a special 4K UHD screening across 650 theaters last week. A new trailer for the upcoming animated series was revealed during the special screening.
The new teaser for the project sees the iconic martial arts star in an anime avatar that effortlessly captures his moves, rhythm, and action effortlessly. A symbolic dragon that moves in sync with Lee’s actions is also featured in the trailer.
Bruce Lee Entertainment, the production and creative arm of Bruce Lee Family Companies, has been looking for opportunities to do an animated series for years. According to a report by Deadline, Shannon Lee was inspired by a personal experience to create a story for House of Lee. The studio worked with the content platform Shibuya on the project.
“Anime is an amazing medium for telling a truly creative story where Bruce Lee can be Bruce Lee,” Lee said. “I’m so excited for the possibilities for action, fantasy, history, culture, and creativity within this medium.”
House of Lee is an action/fantasy series that sees Lee assemble his Dragon Warriors team to prevent the world from plunging too far into darkness and shadow. The animated series takes inspiration from the famous Bruce Lee quote, “Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.”
Bruce Lee Entertainment will be producing the project independently and is working with Shibuya on the community campaign for the project. Lee partnered with the content platform after seeing its White Rabbit anime short, which was co-created by Emily Yang, one of the founders of Shibuya.
“I love Emily and Shibuya’s perspective,” Lee explained. “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!”
Dennis Chang, Managing Partner of Bruce Lee, LLC introduced Shannon Lee to the White Rabbit anime. Yang shared that her company wanted to be part of the project.
“He connected us and she told me about her House of Lee project which is an anime about the Lee family legacy,” Yang said. “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.”
House of Lee is set to premiere in 2024.
