Bruce Lee's Daughter Applauds Chinese TV Series

Bruce Lee's daughter said Friday she's happy that China has embraced her father with a 50-part prime-time TV series on his life - even though the late action star was no fan of communism.

The series currently airing on state broadcaster China Central Television, which portrays the late action star as a nationalist hero, is China's first movie or TV drama on the late actor. When Lee made his name playing characters who defended the Chinese against oppressors in the early 1970s, China was still a closed country.

"Obviously, my father doesn't have a lot of love for communist ideology and believed in a different outlook on life," Shannon Lee told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.

"But what I do think is great is that China is embracing him as a role model. It may not be exactly in the way he would necessarily have viewed it, but at the same time, I think they recognize him as an influence in the world, which I think is great," said Lee, who authorized the TV series.

Lee, who died in 1973, was born in San Francisco but grew up in Hong Kong.

The younger Lee also said she is working with Hong Kong officials to convert her father's former home into an museum.

The two-story house is owned by developer Yu Pang-lin, who has said he is willing to donate the property but wants the Hong Kong government to lead efforts to raise funds for the museum.