His films in Hong Kong and Hollywood elevated Hong Kong's traditional martial arts films to a new level of acclaim and popularity, creating in the West in the 1970s a keen interest in Chinese martial arts. The direction and tone of his films have changed and influenced the martial arts and movies themselves in the United States, Hong Kong and the rest of the world. Lee became known for his role in five feature films: The Big Boss (1971) and Fist of Fury (1972) by Lo Wei; Way of the Dragon (1972) by Golden Harvest, directed and written by Lee; Enter the Dragon (1973) by Golden Harvest and Warner Brothers and The Game of Death (1978), both featuring Robert Clouse.
Lee became an iconic figure around the world, particularly among the Chinese, as he portrayed Chinese nationalism in his films. He trained in wing chun art and later combined his influences from other sources in the spirit of his own martial arts philosophy, which he called jeet kune from (The Path of the Fist Interceptor). Lee had dual nationality, American and Hong Kong. He died in Kowloon on July 20, 1973, aged 32.