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Hailed as the godfather of martial arts cinema, Bruce Lee was the one who set the standard on which many were to later meet. Born in San Francisco to a Chinese opera singer, he grew up in Hong Kong in 1950’s fighting and dancing his way through his teenage years. He was fortunate enough to have received Wing Chun tuition under the Great Grandmaster Yip Man, the man who brought Wing Chun to the general public in Hong Kong. Seen often as the embodiment of Kung Fu, Bruce Lee honed and trained himself to become a true kung fu master able to knock-out any opponent in seconds. His studies culminated with his martial art of Jeet Kwon Do, the “Way of the Intercepting Fist” which is a system or philosophy of fighting containing many vital practical aspects of martial combat. On-screen he worked with fledgling greats and can be seen in Enter the Dragon with Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and even Yuen Wah. Decades after his mysterious death, his legacy lives on and he himself has become legend.

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Mecha is a genre of Japanese Animé with stories centred around mechanical robots with humanoid arms and legs controlled by an operator inside – much like the APUs in The Matrix. It all started in 1956 with Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s manga book Tetsujin 28-go which was later made into an animated film which spawned a whole genre of mechanical robot stories. More famous were the Gundam and Macross series which showcased Mecha of incredible size used to fight in wars. More domestic-sized Mecha can be seen in Patlabor for construction and general policing in Appleseed.

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