Irony Surrounds Lee's Eerie Performance In `The Crow'

More than a year after his death, Brandon Lee may become the movie star he wanted to be.

Lee was accidentally killed during the making of "The Crow," which has been released this week to mostly favorable reviews.

Earlier this week, The New York Times' Caryn James commented on Lee's "great presence." Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called his performance "the best thing about the movie." Variety's Todd McCarthy wrote that "his striking looks, sinuous presence and agile moves lock one's attention."

Adding further irony is the role he plays: a ghost who comes back one year after his death to exact revenge for his own murder. Rumors abound that the scene during which he was killed is part of the film, although the producers insist that footage was destroyed.

While Natalie Wood, Robert Walker, Jean Harlow and River Phoenix all died during the making of movies that now look like blips in their careers (it appears that Phoenix's last picture will never be finished), Lee appears to be on the verge of becoming a posthumous box-office phenomenon on the scale of James Dean or his late father, Bruce Lee.

Brandon was 28 when he was fatally wounded by a gun that was supposedly firing blanks on a North Carolina movie set in March 1993. Police investigators there found that he died as a result of negligence by the movie crew rather than foul play.

Did he know he was in danger? When he visited Seattle in the summer of 1992 to promote "Rapid Fire," he was excited about starring in "The Crow," which he felt could be his breakthrough role. He was especially interested in participating in the choreography of the action scenes.

"I really enjoy fight sequences," he told me during that visit. "There's a tremendous sense of creativity about them."

He was proud that the action scenes in "Rapid Fire" were so intense.

"I don't want to be presumptuous, but I hope we got some of the quality of the Hong Kong (martial-arts) movies into those scenes," he said. "The theatricality of the Hong Kong pictures may be too much for Western audiences, who have to have a certain level of believability, but the action stuff is unparalleled in this country. They make our stuff here look like Romper Room."

What worried him was the special-effects sequences: "You're not in control if a roof is supposed to collapse on you and you have to trust that it's rigged properly. The accident on `Twilight Zone' (which killed actor Vic Morrow) is always in the back of your mind."

Now buried in the same Lake View Cemetery as his father, Brandon was just 8 when the 32-year-old Bruce died, apparently of an allergic reaction to a painkiller administered in Hong Kong.

His widow, Linda, and their two children, Brandon and Shannon, left Hong Kong after his death and came to Seattle long enough for Brandon to attend fourth grade here. A University of Washington philosophy student in the early 1960s, Bruce taught a Seattle martial-arts class where he met Linda.

During the same summer Brandon was touring the country promoting "Rapid Fire," Iain M. Parker was playing Brandon as a child on a Hollywood set in Rob Cohen's biography, "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story."

Cohen claims he never considered Brandon for the role of his father because he looked more Mediterranean than Asian - and because he was reluctant to have him go through the trauma of playing his father. But "Dragon" ended up being just as haunted as "The Crow."

In one especially eerie scene, Bruce has a dream in which he is haunted by a demon and sees his own tombstone. He tells his son, "Run, Brandon, run." The scene remains in the film, which was released a few weeks after Brandon's death.