THE SILENT FLUTE

Hong Kong, July 20 1973. Bruce Lee, on a stretcher and in a coma, is hurried down the hallways of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong. His wife Linda hurries after him but is told by a nurse to wait outside the operating theater.
Bruce dies. He enters a state the Buddhists call the Bardo state where time has no meaning. All memory is erased but with the help of a brooding dark youth he is guided back through the hallways of the life of a determined man. Bruce witnesses the poignant events in this life, from leaving Hong Kong as a troubled youth to the successes he forges as a young adult and his untimely death at age 32. Ultimately he must judge himself and decide whether he is worthy of liberation from his body or whether he should return to his former life or be reborn. Bruce’s decision is made more difficult by the realisation that the young man who accompanies him on this journey is a troubled soul from the future who has lost his own life. It is Bruce’s son Brandon.
THE SILENT FLUTE is the name of a story that Bruce Lee wrote, a story he desperately wanted to turn into a film. In his mind it was the film that would bring him the success he so craved. But no one would support him and Bruce never got to make it.
THE SILENT FLUTE was really a philosophical autobiography, it was about Bruce's own journey toward enlightenment and all he wanted to do was share this idea with the world.
The musicalisation of this story winds its weft and weave through the ideals of Bruce Lee. Using "No Way" as "Way", this is a musical journey which defies styles; a fusion of Rock, Electronica, Funk and Orchestral, live action, film and martial arts, The Silent Flute is perhaps stylistically as intangible as the man himself was.
MUSIC AND BOOK BY ANDREW WORBOYS LYRICS BY CAROLYN SHINE, TINA HARRIS AND ANDREW WORBOYS