Avenue of Stars

The Avenue stretches along Victoria Harbour like a cinematic showcase: its wooden railing brings together the names and hand casts of those who created Hong Kong cinema. It opened in April two thousand four with seventy-three names, on a tourist promenade visited by the city's guests. After the renovation, the casts were moved from the pavement to the railing so that they could be viewed at hand height without bending down.

Bronze Bruce Lee—an actor and martial artist whose work made Hong Kong kung fu films known far beyond the city—stands in a fighting stance. Along the railing run the handprints of other actors, directors, producers, and stunt coordinators. Instead of one print, Lee was given a two-meter figure. Fans made it happen.

The Avenue opened in April two thousand four. Its organizers chose the tourist promenade beside Victoria Harbour to show how many people from the local film industry were already known to audiences beyond Hong Kong. The first plaques bore seventy-three names. Visitors placed their hands on the prints of Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, and Andy Lau. The promenade immediately became a place where screen fame was measured in the most literal way—by the size of a palm.

Wong Yiu-keung, chairman of the Hong Kong Bruce Lee Club, wanted a permanent city monument to his idol. A small Lee museum in Yau Ma Tei closed after operating for only a year. The actor himself had died back in nineteen seventy-three, at the age of thirty-two, and no separate memorial to him had ever appeared in Hong Kong.

When the Avenue of Stars opened, Wong wrote to its managers several times and suggested placing the figure here. He led a fan association, not an institution with a ready budget, so after receiving approval he spent months persuading friends and celebrities to contribute money. The club raised about eight hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars. In March two thousand five, the organizers of the Hong Kong Film Awards named Bruce Lee the “Star of the Century”—the most influential person of the first century of Chinese cinema. Fans from different countries voted to choose the statue's fighting stance, and the sculptor Cao Chong-en rendered it in bronze.

The work took nine months. On November twenty-seventh, two thousand five, the day Lee would have turned sixty-five, his family unveiled the monument on the Avenue. Wong gained here the permanent address he had sought.

Later, he spent eleven years trying to preserve Bruce Lee's house on Cumberland Road and establish a museum there. No agreement could be reached, and the house was demolished in two thousand nineteen. On the fiftieth anniversary of the actor's death, Wong returned to this promenade, laid flowers before the bronze figure, and watched for a long time as fans from other countries did the same.

After the renovation, the stars' handprints were moved from the pavement to the wooden railing, so that palms could be viewed and compared without bending down. The barrier in front of Bruce Lee was removed. The actor's house disappeared; the place for flowers before his figure remained where Wong Yiu-keung had once begged for a site and raised money from acquaintances.