High up in the South Korean pagodaA tiered tower with multiple floors common throughout parts of Asia. In the film, Lee meets a different opponent on each floor., in a room known as "The Temple of the Tiger," Bruce Lee is staring at his challenger. Dressed in black, and three times his size, Dan InosantoA Filipino-American martial arts instructor who was the training partner of Bruce Lee. is a formidable opponent.

But Lee, clad from head to toe in yellow, is unmoved. Smiling slightly, he leaps nimbly around his rival, twice as agile and three times as cunning. Soon Inosanto, drenched in sweat, collapses onto the dusty floor. It is the battle of David versus GoliathWhen a small person or organisation tries to defeat a much larger opponent. The phrase originates from the Biblical account of David, a young shepherd, defeating the giant Goliath..

This is a scene from The Game of Death, a Hong Kong martial arts film written, directed by and starring the Hollywood icon and maverickA person with an independent mind. In 1964, Lee was challenged by a group of men who objected to him teaching martial arts to non-Chinese students. He accepted their challenge and won the fight. Bruce LeeThe star was born in the Chinatown area of San Francisco, but raised in Hong Kong. He returned to America as a student aged 18. in 1972.

It was a movie he never had the chance to see in cinemas: Lee died suddenly, aged just 32, before the final scenes could be filmed.

Yet Lee was more than just an actor, or a master martial artist. He was also a great philosopher.

In an early 1970s interview, he told fans: "Empty your minds. Be formless, shapeless like water. You put water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash."

It was a mantra that he embraced in his famous fight scenes: swift and athletic, the agile Lee overcomes his opponents just as a mighty river pours and tumbles past obstacles in its path.

And his ideas are set to extend further into the public imagination this week with the publication of a new book, written by Lee's daughter Shannon, exploring how her father's teachings can be applied to our everyday lives.

Many of Bruce Lee's ideas about water can be traced back to the sacred texts of ancient Eastern philosophers. His words echo those of Lao TzuSometimes spelled Laozi, some legends say he was born with white hair, having spent eight or eighty years in his mother's womb., the founding father of TaoismAn ancient Chinese philosophy that emphasises the importance of appreciating things as they are. It says people should act in accordance with the "Tao", or "Way", which is hard to describe but is a guiding force responsible for the order of the universe., who wrote extensively of the power of water to mould and shape even the hardest of rocks.

And now, nearly 50 years after Lee's tragic death, the philosophy he popularised is once again shaping a new generation.

Last summer, as unrest grew once again in his native Hong Kong, pro-democracy demonstrators adopted a "Be Water" strategy, expanding the iconic actor's metaphor to include four key principles.

The protestors have learned hard lessons from the failed Umbrella Revolution of 2014. Now, they "gather like dew" to surround government buildings, "scatter like mist" to avoid arrest, run "fluid like water" through Hong Kong's narrow alleyways, and when they are caught, they stand "hard as ice" and fight for their freedoms.

Today, just a year on from the sentencing and imprisonment of the "umbrella nine", the protestors' new tactics are confounding local police, government authorities and Beijing officials alike.

And just as every new raindrop adds to the river in Hong Kong, each new recruit becomes part of an unmovable tide, all the time staying two steps ahead of the police and paying tribute to one of the city's most famous sons.

Definitely, say some. We can all learn from the wise words of Bruce Lee. Why crash into obstacles, when you can simply flow around them? The new tactics adopted by the Hong Kong protestors show that by behaving like water, we can avoid confrontation, more effectively achieve our goals and maybe even reduce the shocking levels of violence in the world.

Of course not, say others. The word "water" does not always have positive connotations: if something is "watered-down" for example, it is weaker or less powerful than it once was. When a problem presents itself to you, the best thing to do is to face it head on. Everyone should always aim to be direct and honest, rather than cunningly avoid any stumbling blocks in their path.