Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma was heavily inspired by Bruce Lee’s Return of the Dragon for his 1989 Tamil debut film Shiva, only replacing the restaurant with a college setting, he recently revealed at a press meeting.

“I copied #Shiva from Bruce Lee's Return of the Dragon. The only thing I did was replace the restaurant with a college. I completed the first draft in 20 minutes after watching Return of the Dragon for the 16th time,” reads the translation of Varma’s speech in Telugu at the event, as per an X handle.

The Bruce Lee film took place in a restaurant. Varma changed the setting to a college campus in his film, starring Nagarjuna Akkineni.

“I simply replaced the restaurant backdrop with a college setting for Shiva. I came up with the one-line idea in just 20 minutes, combining all my college experiences into it,” he said.

The Hyderabad-born filmmaker previously said that Shiva, starring Nagarjuna as a college fresher who gets caught in the nexus between local goons, politicians and a corrupt student leader, has stood the test of time as it treated its protagonist as an ordinary person.

Return of the Dragon hit theatres in Chinese as The Way of the Dragon. The film’s synopsis reads: “Tang visits his relatives and decides to help them fight against a syndicate who are forcing them to sell their restaurant. However, things get ugly after the syndicate appoints someone to fight Tang.”

Shiva will be re-released in theatres on November 14. The re-release is a tribute to the film's impact on Indian cinema and is also timed to honour the 101st birthday of Akkineni Nageswara Rao, the actor's father.