Bruce Lee’s last script to be produced

Once adapted posthumously into 1978’s Circle of Iron, martial arts icon Bruce Lee’s final script, The Silent Flute, co-written with James Coburn and Stirling Silliphant, is now due for a more rigid production partially financed by China’s National Film Capital. Produced by Allan Hatcher, with approval of Lee’s estate, the film is a post-apocalyptic science-fiction, whose screenplay Lee envisioned as “an introduction to Eastern philosophy.”

As he wrote in the script’s preface:

The story illustrates a great difference between Oriental and Western thinking. This average Westerner would be intrigued by someone’s ability to catch flies with chopsticks, and would probably say that has nothing to do with how good he is in combat. But the Oriental would realize that a man who has attained such complete mastery of an art reveals his presence of mind in every action…True mastery transcends any particular art.

The National Film Capital is putting up $25 million for the project, which sounds low initially, saying separately that in none of the films they’ve announced today alongside Silent Flute will they invest more than 40% of the total budget. Obviously, being a socialized funding board, they are wary of major risks.

With the small army of Bruce Lee fetishists still remaining, however, be they overweight martial arts aficionados or deceptively nerdy and obsessive fitness junkies, the film shouldn’t have much trouble gaining an audience.