When Abbas Alizada looks in the mirror, he sees The Dragon. For over a decade, he has been emulating a titan who knocked the socks off film lovers with his flying sidekicks and lightning-fast punches, but left the world too soon. Needless to say, Abbas―the ‘Afghan Bruce Lee’―is an expert in the nunchuck and spinning heel kicks.
The drama in Abbas’s life can match any Bruce Lee movie. Being the doppelganger of a legend with followers around the world inevitably led to him becoming a social media star. Sadly, fame would only make him an easier target. For, when the Taliban came storming back, art and artists once again became enemies of the state. To make things worse, Abbas is a Hazara, an ethnic group that has been systemically targeted in Afghanistan.
Hazaras, who speak an eastern variety of Farsi, are a mostly Shia community with Turkic and Mongolic lineage. Distinguishable by Asiatic features, they have endured massacres, enslavement and forced displacement under different regimes. Under 19th century ruler Abdur Rahman Khan, around 60 per cent of Hazaras were massacred, enslaved or forced into exile. Hazara lands were confiscated and given to Pashtun settlers and nomads from other parts of the country by Khan, forcing them to take shelter in the central mountainous region, now known as Hazarajat (land of Hazaras). They currently inhabit Hazarajat and are also in Kabul and Balkh, among other places.
After the Soviet withdrawal from Kabul, the mujahideen’s brief stint in power and the Taliban’s subsequent rule led to further atrocities against Hazaras. The Taliban even imposed blockades on Hazarajat, blocking humanitarian relief and crippling the local economy in an effort to enforce a famine.
Therefore, when another Taliban takeover became imminent in 2021, Abbas fled Kabul with his wife Heena and children―the 31-year-old had seen enough in his lifetime to know there could be no negotiations with extremists. Good samaritans helped him to find asylum on British shores after a perilous journey. He has dodged every challenge that life threw at him and continues to cherish his dream―become a Hollywood icon and make Afghanistan proud. Already a movie star, Abbas also has a regular job and is a student at the University of Manchester―he refused to share details about both.
Practice makes perfect
Abbas did not have fame handed to him on a platter. For one, facial features alone makes nobody Bruce Lee-like. Abbas has been hitting punching bags since childhood and once he realised the prospects of the gift he was given, he started to hit them harder. He did his part well, toiling for hours to remain in the best shape. “I train different martial arts, including karate, kung-fu and kick-boxing,” he told THE WEEK. “Earlier, I used to train in the mornings and evenings for many hours. But, now, I dedicate two hours every evening, six days a week, since I don’t want to pressure myself.”
He swears that he had become a fan of Bruce Lee and picked up martial arts way before the resemblance with the action legend started showing. “I was eight years old when I first watched Enter the Dragon (1973),” he said. “I started learning kung-fu at the age of 12. Some years later, my best friend told me at the gym that I look like Bruce Lee.” He likes to believe the heavens decided to reward his love and devotion for the great man.
Red carpet moment: Abbas, his wife, Heena, and their elder son, Almas, attend the Bloodline London premiere | Getty Images
Those were the years when the Taliban had been forced back to their caves on the fringes of the country. Local bazaars sold foreign movie disks and Abbas’s family could afford a television. They even had the resources to let him train at a martial arts academy for a while. But when his father, Mohammad Reza, suffered a stroke, Abbas had to drop out. Instead, he decided to watch Bruce Lee’s movies and train at home. With the basics he picked up from the martial arts academy, he became a self-taught fighter who repeated the movie star’s kicks and punches a thousand times to perfection. “I am a disciple of his in a sense,” he said.
He was in his early 20s when the internet did its thing and made him a social media star. At Kabul’s Darul Aman palace, he recorded his martial arts expertise for the world to see. The world started “following” him in the winter of 2014 after his friend’s Facebook post highlighting ‘Bruce Hazara’ went viral. But, Abbas was certain that was not how he wanted to be known. He wanted to be the ‘Afghan Bruce Lee’. He wanted to replicate what his idol did for Hong Kong for his watan (country) and he did not want to be limited to his ethnicity.
In 2015, an Azerbaijani film crew approached him. They wanted someone to play a role that reminded the audience of Bruce Lee and who could fit the bill better than Abbas. He did not have to think twice before packing his bags. It was not Hollywood, but it was definitely a start. If Brat Li was released today, no one would believe it was Abbas and not an AI-generated clone of Bruce Lee. Donning the famous yellow tracksuits and wielding the nunchuck, Abbas made the most of the opportunity. He also did five commercials in Baku before heading back.
Such was Abbas’ popularity in the 2010s that the BBC reached out for a documentary. A Google search of his name will yield plenty of articles on the young man who took the internet by storm. But, there is not much on how his life changed dramatically following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Home turns hostile
There was panic in Kabul with the news of another Taliban offensive. Government troops scattered and the wait for the inevitable arrived. A sudden pang of dread hit Hazaras as they were suddenly reminded of the Afshar incident. In February 1993, the Hazara-populated Afshar region witnessed the massacre of 1,000 civilians by militia groups who did not even spare women and children. Decapitated bodies were left unburied to send a message to the survivors.
Abbas knew the Taliban would not spare his family. If their Hazara identity was not enough, Heena was also a martial artist with a brown belt in karate. He feared what lay in store for her under the Taliban’s chauvinistic doctrine. And then, there was his career. Certainly, there were going to be no film stars or influencers under the Taliban. He was not ready to take any chances.
His fears were later proven right when a video of Nazar Mohammad (Khasha Zwan), one of Afghanistan’s beloved comedians, being detained inside a car by armed Taliban fighters went viral. They slapped him across the face, abused and taunted him. Later, his bullet-riddled body was found.
A 2023 report by the Michigan Journal of International Law stated that Hazaras have been attacked in a widespread and systematic manner in recent years. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, 49 Hazaras were killed between November 2023 and January 2024 alone. Apart from the Taliban, Hazaras also remain under perennial threat from the Islamic State Khorasan Province. Their modus operandi includes suicide attacks. Therefore, besides frequent summary executions, thousands of Hazaras have been killed and injured during assaults on hospitals, schools and places of worship. Even modes of public transport, work sites, weddings and cultural events are targeted to massacre them. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s notorious ministry of propagation of virtue and prevention of vice has been carrying out targeted arrests of Hazara women and girls under the pretext of wearing improper hijabs.
Abbas and Heena’s eldest son, Almas, was one and their second child, Elyas, was two weeks old when they made up their mind. They were ready to build a life from scratch somewhere else rather than being outcasts in their homeland. Elyas had no passport, so they crossed over to Pakistan and then to Iran. Abbas remembers how they slept in rough tents with no beds and he almost went bald because of the stress. His contact person in London, Mehtab Aziz, to whom he is eternally grateful, found them a charity sponsorship to reach British shores. But, uncertainties were galore.
Dawn follows the darkness
Abbas recited Bruce Lee’s famous “Be like water, my friend” quote when asked how he mustered hope in difficult times. “It is a very meaningful quote,” he said. “It means you have to be flexible in every stage of life. You put water in a teapot, it [takes the shape of] a teapot, you pour it into a cup, it takes the shape of a cup. It can flow and also crush if needed. That’s how you have to be no matter how much you struggle.”
A true Bruce Lee disciple, he became water. And fate smiled at him again as he landed a part-time job. With life settling back down, he logged back on to the virtual space with his punches and kicks. Today, the ‘Afghan Bruce Lee’ is a celebrity among the UK’s South Asian cabbies. He has acted in three Indian movies. His Bloodline (2024) was a British-Indian production and was shot in Kerala. It released in India in March this year.
His was a supporting role, but he says he loved the experience. “The crew found me via Instagram,” he said. “They are a fantastic group. It was my first film in southern India. It was a good journey, but a difficult one.” He added that he was a part of something big, but stopped short of spilling the beans because of its enormity. “When it comes out, you will be surprised,” he said with a smile.
He says he has no regrets about the choices he made. But he is at a loss for words while trying to describe how much he misses meeting his dear ones back home. The man who can do two-fingered push-ups with ease struggles at the thought of his mother. “The best days for me were when my friends and family were able to be together and be there for each other. Now we are all far away from each other, only with those memories,” he said. His former teacher still runs an academy in Kabul and some of his childhood friends are around. He is hopeful that things will become better and that he will get to visit his home again. “My kids are going to school, we are settled, life is good,” he said. “But I feel helpless and sad when I hear about the bad things happening in my country.”