The actor died at the age of 28, during a tragic accident on the set of the film The Crow.
Film production often turns out to be more perilous than expected. But some are truly tragic, like that of The Crow in 1994. On the set, Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, was killed by a bullet in the stomach. A tragedy that left a lasting mark on the history of cinema, and resurfaced in the news when a similar tragedy took place on October 21, on the set of the western Rust with Alec Baldwin.
Brandon Lee was only 8 years old when his father, Bruce Lee, died of cerebral edema. The whole family, who lives in Hong Kong, then returns to settle in the United States. From the end of high school, he loses interest in studies and pursues his desires for cinema. He took classes in the theater section of Emerson College in Boston, then at the Actor's Studio. Gifted in martial arts like his father, the young man turned to action films, such as The Heir to Violence or Kung Fu: The Movie. Then he landed the role that is supposed to upset his career: a dead guitarist, who came back to life to take revenge on the perpetrators of his murder, in The Crow. The shooting turns out to be intense, with multiple scenes where the actor has to film at night, and shirtless under artificial rain. According to Entertainment Weekly, the incidents also multiply, from the electrocution of a technician to a storm which devastates the set, passing by the fall of a construction worker.
On March 30, Brandon Lee is to film a scene where Funboy (Michael Massee), one of the film's antagonists, shoots his character. Under the eyes of the production, the 28-year-old comedian collapses to the ground, but no one realized he had been hit before director Alex Proyas shouted “Cut! ". He was rushed to Wilmington Hospital and died the next day at 1 p.m. The craziest rumors will surround his death, attributed by some conspirators to revenge by the Chinese mafia. The prosecutor will find simple negligence. The film, meanwhile, will still be released in theaters on May 13, 1994. The scent of tragedy that surrounds it has contributed to its status as a cult work.