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HONG KONG: Bruce Lee aficionados gathered at a Hong Kong mini-museum dedicated to the legendary martial artist to bid farewell to the site on Tuesday, as operating expenses forced the itinerant archive to close once again.

The Bruce Lee Club, which was founded by the Lee family, had put a collection of about 2,000 artefacts, including decades-old magazines and a large sculpture showing the superstar’s iconic moves, on display in the bustling Yau Ma Tei neighborhood in 2001. But a rent increase shut the project in 2016.

Three years and a move to industrial Kwun Tong later, the club began welcoming visitors to see the collection again just before democracy protests roiled the city, dampening tourism.

In a statement, the club wrote that the social movement followed by the Covid-19 pandemic had “severely disrupted” plans for the archive.

“We anticipated a recovery, yet reality fell short,” it said. “The accumulated expenses over these six years have compelled us to rethink how to most effectively utilize our resources to sustain the flame of Bruce Lee’s spirit.”

It added that it will “explore new ways” to engage with the public, but for now, ahead of what would have been Lee’s 85th birthday, it is shutting shop.

At least temporarily, all the assorted ephemera related to the Hong Kong icon will be boxed up and stored.

Born in San Francisco in 1940, Bruce Lee was raised in British-run Hong Kong and had an early brush with fame as a child actor. He later became one of the first Asian men to achieve Hollywood stardom before his death at the age of 32.

At the unassuming Kwun Tong archive on Tuesday, visitor and martial arts coach Andy Tong called it a “great pity” to lose the place.

“(Lee) helped build the image of the Chinese and overseas Chinese in the Western world,” Tong, 46, said.

While the superstar is widely beloved and celebrated in the city, with frequent retrospectives and exhibitions staged, fans have struggled to ensure organized and systematic preservation.

In 2004, petitioners successfully managed to get a bronze statue of Lee installed on Hong Kong’s famed harborfront, but a campaign to revitalize his former residence failed to spare it from demolition in 2019.

Bruce Lee Club’s chairman W Wong said the Hong Kong government lacks long-term and continuous planning for preserving Lee’s legacy.

But he added the Club “will never give up” their dedication to championing Lee’s spirit.
“Although Bruce has passed away, his spirit continues to inspire people of all kinds,” Lee’s 76-year-old brother Robert Lee told AFP.

“I believe, rather than hope, the spirit of Bruce Lee will forever remain here (in Hong Kong).”

MOSCOW: Ukrainian drones attacked the Russian city of Izhevsk on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding dozens in one of the deepest strikes inside Russia of the three-year conflict, authorities said.
Izhevsk, more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the front line, has arms production facilities including factories that make attack drones and the world-famous Kalashnikov rifle.
A Ukraine security services source said Kyiv had targeted an Izhevsk-based drone manufacturer and that the attack had disrupted Moscow’s “offensive potential.”
Unverified videos posted on social media showed at least one drone buzzing over the city, while another showed a ball of flames erupt from the roof of a building.
The region’s head said the drones hit an industrial “enterprise,” without giving detail.
“Unfortunately, we have three fatalities. We extend our deepest condolences to their families,” Alexander Brechalov, head of the Udmurt Republic, where Izhevsk is located, wrote on Telegram.
“I visited the victims in the hospital. At the moment, 35 people have been hospitalized, 10 of whom are in serious condition.”
Russian forces in turn struck the town of Guliaipole in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, causing “casualties and fatalities,” Ukraine’s southern defense forces said, without specifying numbers.
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have stalled in recent weeks.
The two sides held direct talks almost a month ago but Moscow has since stepped up deadly strikes on Ukraine.
Kyiv’s military chief vowed in June to increase the “scale and depth” of strikes on Russia, warning Ukraine would not sit back while Moscow prolonged its offensive.
Moscow’s army has ravaged parts of east and south Ukraine while seizing large swathes of territory.
An AFP analysis published Tuesday found that Russia dramatically ramped up aerial attacks in June, firing thousands of drones to pressure the war-torn country’s stretched air defense systems and exhausted civilian population.
Moreover, in June, Moscow made its biggest territorial gain since November while accelerating advances for a third consecutive month, according to another AFP analysis based on data from US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
In another sign of an intensifying offensive, a top Kremlin-installed official claimed on Monday that Russia was now in full control of Ukraine’s eastern Lugansk region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly accused Russia of dragging out the peace process — something that Moscow denies.
“We are certainly grateful for the efforts being made by Washington and members of Trump’s administration to facilitate negotiations on the Ukrainian settlement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters including AFP on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump has pressed both sides to reach a ceasefire but has failed to extract major concessions from the Kremlin.