michaelvelasquez

It's impossible to fully describe how influential Brandon Lee, his death and “The Crow” have been on my life and personality. As an Asian American kid growing up in Central California, seeing Brandon Lee on TV in “Kung Fu: The Movie” was the first time I remember consciously identifying with someone who looked like me in popular media (a much cooler and more handsome version of me, of course). It's crazy, but the fact that he was the legendary Bruce Lee's son was completely secondary to me. He was a naturally charismatic, sexy, badass, non-stereotypical Asian American man and I was hooked.

“Rapid Fire” is an underrated classic with a lot of inventive action sequences and fight choreography for the time in an American film. “Showdown In Little Tokyo”, despite being blissfully unaware of its own racism, is still a fun movie I watch a couple times a year. I've got a much watched VCD copy of “Legacy Of Rage” which has a pretty nuts final shootout. Brandon Lee managed to shine even in the “so bad it's good” C-movie “Laser Mission” with his self aware and sarcastic sense of humor.

But “The Crow” is a damn masterpiece that set my emo, teenage world aflame. It really changed the entire culture around films based on comic books and showed just how dark they could be while still retaining mainstream appeal. I usually hear Tim Burton's “Batman” being given credit for this instead and while it did come out 5 years before “The Crow” and was hugely influential, it's still a Tim Burton film through and through and never quite breaks free from his distinct style of camp. By comparison, “The Crow” paints a genuinely bleak, nihilistic portrait of society, then fills it with glimmers of sincere hope.

Sincerity is a word that constantly pops into my mind while watching “The Crow”. It's impossible to separate the film from Brandon Lee's death during filming, but even if he'd lived, I've no doubt it would still have had a massive cultural impact. You can just feel everyone involved in its creation firing on all cylinders, like they all know exactly how special this project is and don't want to mess it up. Lee's performance especially is seared into my brain. He's furious, forlorn, maudlin, charming, sardonic, tortured and in love all at the same time and it totally works. I feel like I based all my facial expressions in high school on Eric Draven from “The Crow”. I've owned this film on VHS, widescreen VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and digital download.

I rushed this watercolor painting at the end and I wish I hadn't. It was done on Fluid Easy-Block Watercolor Hot Press paper using Winsor & Newton Cotman watercolor paints. Where the shadow of the crow is on the left, I had originally painted building lights but I messed up badly and decided to paint over them. This is a still from the pawn shop scene. I'm glad I made a scan of the painting before I filled in the background, which you can see below. In retrospect, he looks great on the white background and I think most fans would've been able to tell exactly which frame of the film it's from.