The Bruce Lee scene you didn’t know existed
It is no secret that some mainstream film stars have appeared adult films, perhaps most notably Sylvester Stallone, who as a 24-year-old living in a bus station, starred in ‘Party at Kitty and Stud’s.’
“It was either do that movie or rob someone because I was at the end – at the very end – of my rope,” he explained in a 1978 Playboy interview. “Instead of doing something desperate, I worked two days for $200 and got myself out of the bus station.”
Many people assume this image comes from some similar desperate time on Lee’s career. Others are certain it’s a photoshop.
The stills are in fact real, and coms from a scene in The Big Boss, that was cut from the final release by Hong Kong censors, due to its prurient content.
Cheng Chao-an has thrown all his possessions into the river, and is preparing for a fight to the death, so, owning only the clothes on his back, some cash, and a bag of prawn crackers, he determines to get lucky one last time.
“Bruce and a prostitute make love in bed,” explained the Censor’s Office. “The noise produced is so great that another couple in the adjacent room are disturbed. The girl peeps through a hole into Bruce’s room. The man also wants to see, but the girl will not give way until he pays her some money. The man cannot held himself, he pays.”
Bruce Lee explained the scene in a Hong Kong radio interview with journalist Ted Thomas, shortly after the release of The Big Boss, as archived by Little Dragon.
“The way I look at that is that it was a suggestion of the director, and I accept it in such a way and that is, him being a very simple man, when all of a sudden he made up his mind that he is going to go and either die or kill or be killed, right?” said Lee. “So he walks past and it’s kind of a sudden thing, of human beings, that a thought just occurs – well, doggone it, man… such is the basic need of a human being… I might as well enjoy it, man, before I kick the bucket!”
The full scene is lost to history, except for an NSFW section that appears in a rare Mandarin trailer.
The role of the courtesan Wu Mang was played by Thai actress Malarin Boonnak, also known as Miss Malarin, Malalene, Marilyn, Marilyn Bautista, and Ma La Lene, who was only 19 at the time. She reportedly shot the three scenes (one at dinner and two with Lee) in just five hours.
She said later that every time she unveiled, Bruce Lee blushed.
