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Brandon Lee is a movie actor and martial artist much like his father Bruce Lee. He would start acting in 1986, but his break-out role would not happen until 1994 with the movie The Crow. This however would be his last movie as he would, unfortunately, die on set at the young age of 28-years-old.
On March 31, 1993, Brandon Lee was filming a scene for the movie The Crow. In this scene, he was shot and killed by thugs. Brandon Lee's character Eric Draven walks into the apartment and finds his fiance had been beaten and raped. Micheal Massee's character, Funboy, shoots and kills Eric. This scene however would become a cruel reality.
The gun used in the scene was a prop (a real revolver) and was loaded with improperly made dummy rounds. The special effects crew made the dummy rounds were improvised from live cartridges that had the powder charges removed. This was so that in close-up shots the rounds would look realistic. However, they had made a mistake by not removing the primers from the cartridges.
At one point the gun was shot and because the primers were left it left enough energy to separate the bullet from the casing and pushed it part-way into the gun barrel. This is where it was unknowingly stuck known as a squib load. Before the scene, the dummy cartridges were replaced with blank rounds. The blank rounds contained a powder charge and primer, but no solid bullet. This was to have sound and flash effects with no chance of projectile. However, the unknown squib load made this a deadly combination.
When it came to the scene Michael Massee would shoot the gun from 12 to 15 ft toward Brandon Lee. When the gun was shot the dummy bullet would propel forward and hit him in the abdomen. This would cause him to fall backward instead of forward like he was supposed to. The director would end the scene.
Brandon Lee's stillness was thought to have been acting or him playing around. But when Jeff Imada checked him he was unconscious and breathing heavily. A medic would come forward and see if he hit his head, but no one realized he had been shot since there was no visible bleeding. His pulse would be regular, but within a few minutes, it slowed down dramatically and stopped.
Brandon Lee would then be rushed to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina. There were attempts to save him, but after six hours he would be pronounced dead at 1:03 p.m. It was an unfortunate and sad accident.
Michael Massee would be traumatized by the accident. He would take a year off from acting and never watched the movie. In 2005 he would state he had nightmares and "I don't think you ever get over something like that."
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