I guess there is no accounting for poor taste:

I'm Getting A Godzilla Vibe Off This Thing

Artists in Foshan, a city in Guangdong province that bills itself as the home of Chinese kungfu, are creating a 30-meter-tall sculpture of Bruce Lee which they hope will one day become a landmark on the scale of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

The red-painted ceramic statue depicts an eight-legged Bruce Lee, known as Li Xiaolong in Chinese, balancing world famous monuments on each foot. These include The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Shanghai’s Oriental Pearl Tower, and the Bird’s Nest, or National Olympic Stadium, in Beijing. (China Daily)

Um, wow. There is a lot of weird to go around here. Someone call Scully and Mulder.

1. Eight legs? I’m not much of a fan, but I did see Enter the Dragon when I was a kid, and I think he only had two or three legs. Cool flick, though. Bolo Yeung‘s best work, in my opinion.

2. 30 meters tall? I’m American, so I don’t really know how high that is in the real world, but I’m thinking at least taller than Yao Ming, which is pretty freakin’ big. I don’t know about you, but having a 30-meter gargantuan statue of a dead martial arts star hanging over the city would give me nightmares. On the other hand, if Godzilla ever tried to hop over to the Mainland, I would run my ass down to Foshan to seek mega-Lee’s protection.

3. Statue of Liberty? Yeah, that analogy probably isn’t such a good idea. I understand the thinking (it’s famous and it’s a statue of a person), but hold on one second. The Statue of Liberty is not famous because it’s big and has a keen location, although that helps. The Statue of Liberty is a symbol. For a lot of people, it meant that the U.S. welcomed folks from anywhere in the world to become Americans; these days, I’m not sure what it means, but I suppose it still has historical value. What’s the Bruce Lee statue symbolic of?

The towering sculpture, which looks like a stop-motion capture of Lee doing one of his explosive high kicks, will not be ready for another year, according to artist Shu Yong.

“We hope it can compete with the Statue of Liberty. But our sculpture, The Kungfu God of 1,000 Legs, is meant to symbolize Chinese wisdom, creativity and health,” he said.

“We are taking it to the Guggenheim Museum (in Manhattan) next year as part of a grand world tour,” he said.

Come again? I thought this sucker had eight legs? But you’re naming it “God of 1,000 Legs”? I think I lost something in the translation here. Also, that symbol of Chinese wisdom, etc.? You’ve got thousands of years of history, more philosophers and artists than you can shake a stick at, and you go with Bruce Lee as the symbol of everything good about China? Gimme a break, dude. And you’re touting a Guggenheim exhibit? After seeing Cai Guoqiang’s ridiculous “tigers with arrows” at the Guggenheim a couple years ago, that museum is dead to me.

4. Balancing famous monuments? This is the utmost in bizarre. I’m sure that the artist was trying to make a point, but I didn’t get it. Is Bruce Lee balancing monuments as a judge? Is he supporting them (i.e., Bruce Lee is the symbolic inspiration behind all the world’s greatest monuments)? Perhaps this is a football thing, and he’s about to kick them somewhere? If you have any better ideas, please let me know.

Qiu Dailun, director of the exhibition commemorating Foshan Week, said the Bruce Lee sculpture was designed to “help China communicate with the world on an artistic level”.

Look, buddy, whatever the message was, it wasn’t received. Bruce Lee was amazingly successful and remains to this day as a movie/martial arts icon. That being said, the guy was a movie star, not a symbol of the wisdom of China. By the way, I am not playing favorites here. If New York City wanted to tear down the Statue of Liberty and replace it with a 30-meter tall Woody Allen statue, I’d most likely be against that as well, depending on how many legs it had.