Bruce Li
Bruce Li is a Chinese martial artist and actor who starred in martial arts films from the Bruceploitation movement.
Career
Ho Chung-Tao went to play a stuntman in Taiwan and Hong Kong under the name of James Ho.After the death of Bruce Lee, Ho's acting career began. Hong Kong studios believed that Ho had the ability to pick up where Lee left off and cast him in similar types of martial arts films. They first cast him in Conspiracy. Afterwards, the producers of Game of Death asked Ho to finish their movie in Lee's role, but he declined.
Afterward, he was employed by producer/actor Jimmy Shaw, who gave him the name of Bruce Li.
While Ho was finishing his military service, he appeared in Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death. He starred in other Bruceploitation pictures in 1976 with The Young Bruce Lee and Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth.
Using the name Bruce Li, some Taiwanese and Hong Kong producers decided to directly credit him as Bruce Lee, even going so far as to use the real Bruce Lee's picture on posters. Ho even appeared in Bruce Lee Against Supermen, where he stars as Kato, a role loosely based on the Green Hornet's Kato played by Lee.
In 1975, Dragon Dies Hard became a hit in Japan, where it earned at the box office.
The producers really wanted to show Li as the "official" successor to Bruce Lee. In the 1976 movie Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger, Li meets Lee, who says Li should replace him. The film's title relates to Lee being dubbed the Dragon and Li the Tiger. Li appeared in Return of the Tiger starring Angela Mao. In it, Li fights Paul L. Smith.
Li appeared in two unofficial sequels to Lee's classic Fist of Fury.
In 1976, Li reprised his role as Lee in the biopic Bruce Lee: The True Story. Li choreographed the combat sequences. This movie was quite successful, with fans dubbing it one of the best biopics of Lee.
Li kept shooting martial arts movies until the 1980s. He also directed a few including The Chinese Stuntman.
Li eventually ran into trouble separating himself from playing Lee, along with standing out from other impersonators in Bruceploitation. In the mid-1980s, he become a physical education instructor at Taipei's Ping Chung University and taught martial arts to comedian apprentices. He later appeared only briefly in martial arts cinema or Bruce Lee documentaries.
In 1990, Li retired from acting at age 40 after his wife's sudden death to raise his children.
Bruce Li's career was the focus of a segment of the 1995 documentary Top Fighter. In the segment, Li said he was unhappy that the studios wanted to turn him into a Bruce Lee marketing gimmick, saying, "I could act like him but I could never be him", though at the time, Li did willingly accept the roles. He elaborated on this further with his appearance in the 2023 documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce, in which he elaborated more on his roles and why he left the business.