Bruce Lee was born Lee Yuen Kam in San Francisco's Jackson Street Hospital on the evening of November 27, 1940 between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00, significantly in both the hour and year of the Dragon. The fourth son of Grace Li, a Chinese woman whose ancestry was one-quarter British, and Li Hoi Chuen, a star of the classical Chinese opera, Lee's name meant "Protector of San Francisco." The circumstances of his birth in the Chinatown district of San Francisco under the sign of royalty are appropriate to a man who spent his career poised between two continents and acting as a conduit for cultural exchange, both by introducing American audiences to Chinese martial culture and by working to bring western technology to a nascent Chinese film industry. Lee enjoyed a stellar film career cut short by his sudden and untimely death. Much like other American youth...