Viral video of Bruce Lee’s ping-pong with Nunchaku is an advertisement
Claim
Rating
Explanation
A 26-second video clip purportedly showing Bruce Lee playing table tennis with Nunchaku against two other players is shared widely on social media platforms with the claim “Bruce Lee 2v1 against professional table tennis players with Nunchakus”. This video clip is viral for the last few years. And the video shared by the ‘Historic Vids’ Twitter page today has gained around 2.4M views so far.
Bruce Lee 2v1 against professional table tennis players with Nunchakus pic.twitter.com/gDxIxdSFPY
— Ashraf El Zarka (@aelzarka) March 22, 2023
What is the truth?
Youturn fact-checked and published an article on the same in Tamil on 10, November 2019.
When searching for the video of Bruce Lee playing table tennis, we found the full-length version of the same video on Ted Bundo’s YouTube channel on December 16, 2008. The video is titled “Bruce Lee Ping Pong (Full Version)”. In the comment section of that video, it is mentioned that the person in the video is not Bruce Lee and mentioned the video as fake. Also, at the end of the video, an advertisement for the Nokia cell phone is seen.
After a detailed search, we found an article published in 2015 on the ‘Adweek’ website with the title “5 Brilliantly Faked Viral Ads That People Still Keep Thinking Are Real”. This article also published information about the video of Bruce Lee playing table tennis.
The article states that people think of it as archival footage of kung-fu master Bruce Lee playing ping-pong with nunchucks but it really is an advertisement for the Nokia N96 Bruce Lee Limited Edition developed by an agency called JWT Beijing.
When searching with the keywords ‘Nokia N96 Bruce Lee’, we found multiple YouTube videos with the title “Nokia N96 bruce lee limited edition commercial” released in November 2008. Also, the interview given by the officials of JWT Beijing agency is found published in ‘Agency Asia’.
In 2008, the table tennis part of the video is shot with Bruce Lee’s look-alike. Then, finally, the audio and the image of the ball are added and the video is a “digital creation”.
Conclusion
In our search, we found that the viral video of Bruce Lee playing table tennis with a nunchuck was a 2008 digital ad for the “Nokia N96 bruce lee limited edition”.
Based on an interview given by JWT Beijing, the agency that created it, and the actual video posted on YouTube, the viral video is known to be misinterpreted. The video of Bruce Lee playing table tennis with a nunchuck is a Nokia ad.
Proof Links
