Shekhar Kapur shares vintage photo of Yash Johar, Bruce Lee, James Coburn

Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur is right in the middle of pre-production for his Hollywood film, Little Dragon, on the life of young Bruce Lee, growing up in 1950s Hong Kong. Bruce Lee’s daughter, Sharon Lee, will be co-writing the script along with Kapur.

Little Dragon is due to begin shooting this July in China and Malaysia, but Kapur couldn’t resist sharing with Karan Johar (and everyone on Twitter) a vintage photo of his father, Yash Johar, with Bruce Lee and actor James Coburn.

He tagged Karan Johar saying, “Was going thru archives in research for my film on Bruce Lee. Look what I found! A Pic of ur Dad with James Coburn and Bruce”

The black and white photograph, which seems to be taken in the 1970s, shows Yash Johar (far right), standing next to actor Coburn and Bruce Lee. The two had wrote the story for Richard Moore’s Circle of Iron (1978) and Coburn was one of Bruce Lee’s famous students. Lee taught him and others, including actors Steve McQueen, Chuck Norris and basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Yash Johar, before launching his own banner Dharma Productions, was a production controller for the Hindi and English crews on the bilingual film Guide (1965), based on RK Laxman’s iconic novel. The photo seems to suggest that Bruce Lee was possibly scouting for locations for a film which never got made. Bruce Lee died on 20 July 1973.

A delighted Karan Johar replied back, “OMG! That’s amazing!!!! Thank yo so much for sharing this”.

But the conversation didn’t end there. Kapur was as pleased to share his find with the proud son.

Meanwhile, Karan Johar was “dying to show it to mom [Hiroo Johar]”.

Later, Mr. India himself, Anil Kapoor, joined in the conversation to say, “This picture has so much history & genius in it! Yashji is a legend & one of the most humble & kind people I’ve ever met!”

All eyes are on Shekhar Kapur as he embarks on this latest project. His last feature film was a decade ago with Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) starring Cate Blanchett. Kapur has directed a few short films and produced the 2017 television series, Will, on the life of young William Shakespeare. Since then, his long-awaited return to Indian cinema with Yash Raj Films’ Paani has also been shelved.