NY Times Article: 50 Guys, All Trying to Look Like Bruce Lee

Discussions on Asian cinemas: Japanese, Korean, Thai, ....

NY Times Article: 50 Guys, All Trying to Look Like Bruce Lee

Postby Gaijin84 » Thu Aug 17, 2006 7:59 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/05/movies/05bruce.html?ex=1155960000&en=78b693bd854d020b&ei=5070

If the link doesn't work (includes a slideshow), here is the article:

50 Guys, All Trying to Look Like Bruce Lee
By ROBERT ITO

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 4 — The casting call for an extra was specific yet succinct. The applicant had to be male. He had to be Asian. He couldn’t be a member of the Screen Actors Guild. And one other thing: he had to look like Bruce Lee.

Finding one man who looks just like that legendary martial arts master would have been a challenge, even in this actor-rich, Asian-rich city.

But the creative minds behind “Finishing the Game,” the latest film by the director Justin Lin, weren’t looking for just one. They wanted 100.

Last month casting directors made calls, posted e-mail messages and talked to friends, and friends of friends. This week the look-alikes who made the cut were told to gather at the David Henry Hwang Theater in the Little Tokyo district here for the first shoot, preferably in 1970’s-era clothes.

“It doesn’t have to be jumpsuits,” the e-mail announcement read.

The result was a satiny sea of young Asian men in leisure suits and too-tight polyester slacks. Shirts with enormous collars were unbuttoned to reveal chunky gold chains. A few hardy souls feathered their hair; others replicated Lee’s signature do with wigs provided by the makeup department. There were fat belts and tortoise-shell shades.

The filmmakers fell short of their goal of 100 Lees, but a decent crop, more than 50 actors and hopefuls of all sizes and shapes, had shown up for the final casting call on Wednesday.

The thing is, none of them really looked like Bruce Lee.

A few had the right height and weight, like Nicholas C. Endres, a 23-year-old Korean-American actor with a black belt in Tae Soo Do. “People have told me I look like Bruce Lee,” he said, “but I grew up in the Midwest, so I’ve had people tell me I look like Sandra Oh and Margaret Cho, too.”

But most of the aspirants bore little resemblance to the martial arts star. Which was precisely the point, according to Mr. Lin, whose previous credits include “Better Luck Tomorrow” and “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”

“This is very much a comedy about denial,” he said. “It’s about putting regular people in ridiculous situations, and seeing how they float.”

“Finishing the Game” is a comedic take on the 1978 film “Game of Death,” one of the most infamous in the martial arts canon. Soon after Lee’s untimely death in 1973, producers wondered what to do with 40 minutes of usable film he had shot before “Enter the Dragon” made him an international star.

It was great stuff: the leftover film had a brutal nunchaku battle, and a David-and-Goliath rumble between Lee and the N.B.A. great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — but 40 minutes of unedited film does not a feature make. So the problem became, how do you make a Bruce Lee movie without Bruce Lee?

The solution: hire body doubles, hide their faces behind sunglasses and fake beards, then fatten the whole thing with clips snatched from previous films, even clips from Lee’s own Hong Kong funeral. The finished product, which includes about 12 minutes of Lee’s original fight scenes, was grotesque.

Mr. Lin’s fictionalized account, shot in documentary style, follows the would-be Lees as they compete for the coveted lead in “Game of Death.” The 100 — well, 50 — Lees were needed for cattle-call sequences and audition scenes in which their numbers are whittled down in the most ignominious of ways.

Among those playing the finalists in “Finishing the Game” are the “Better Luck Tomorrow” stars Sung Kang, whose character, Colgate Kim, is a veteran of a Ron Jeremy pornographic film, and Roger Fan, who plays Breeze Loo, a martial artist whose credits are said to include “Fists of Furor” and “Exit the Serpent.” The wild card finalist is the actor McCaleb Burnett; wild card because Mr. Burnett, besides looking nothing like Bruce Lee, is white.

None of the Lees are here for the money because, to be honest, there is not much of it. The film is operating under an actors’ guild modified low-budget agreement, which applies to films with budgets under $500,000. Mr. Lin will not say how much under $500,000, but he figures that he could pay for all of “Finishing the Game” with the money he spent on a single day of “Tokyo Drift.” He is able to shoot on film only because Kodak gave him a cut rate; Universal Studios, which released “Tokyo Drift,” is helping with the wardrobe rentals. The lead actors, who include much of the cast from Mr. Lin’s last three films, are getting at or near the guild minimum. “I’m getting paid in turquoise,” says Mr. Fan, flashing his 70’s-style rings.

Blake Kushi, a Japanese-American actor from Hawaii, has had lead roles in the Borderlands Theater in Tucson and the El Portal’s Forum Theater in North Hollywood. He’s done “Hamlet” and “Waiting for Godot.”

At the Wednesday audition, however, Mr. Kushi was just another face in the crowd, one Bruce Lee out of 50.

“If it weren’t for Justin Lin, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “I wanted the chance just to work with him and observe.” He paused, then got up to go to the next cattle-call scene. “That, and they said there was a possibility that we might get one line.”
User avatar
Gaijin84
HKMDB Immortal
 
Posts: 2517
Joined: Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:03 pm
Location: New York City

Postby bmwracer » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:28 pm

Finishing the Game is a comedic take on the 1978 film Game of Death


Does Justin Lin have a creative bone in his body? Didn't Stephen Chow already spoof the genre?
User avatar
bmwracer
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:36 pm
Location: Southern California

Postby Brian Thibodeau » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:51 pm

Actually, there's a lot of interesting directions that could be taken with the lore surrounding the horrible GAME OF DEATH, so it might be interesting to see what he does with it. Maybe it'll be less a spoof of the genre, and more a spoof of the unscrupulous Hong Kong movie industry of the time, an industry wherein people had no qualms about putting on gargantuan displays of mourning for a fallen idol, then years later putting actual footage of his corpse in the casket into a shitty movie with a washed-up American director...
User avatar
Brian Thibodeau
 
Posts: 3843
Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2004 2:50 pm
Location: Near Chinatown

Postby bmwracer » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:58 pm

Brian Thibodeau wrote:Actually, there's a lot of interesting directions that could be taken with the lore surrounding the horrible GAME OF DEATH, so it might be interesting to see what he does with it.

I think if it were approached as a drama/docudrama it could be interesting, but a comedy?

I'm leery that it's gonna be exploitative crap.

years later putting actual footage of his corpse in the casket into a shitty movie with a washed-up American director...

Speaking of exploitative crap.... :x
User avatar
bmwracer
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:36 pm
Location: Southern California

Postby Brian Thibodeau » Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:47 am

But that's my whole point, really. There's a likeable absurdity to the way things are often done in the Hong Kong media and movie industries. You could actually build a good comedy around the GAME OF DEATH debacle without harming he reputation of Bruce Lee or exploiting anything other than the exploitative nature of the film industry itself. Tong Lung? I'm sure he could live with a little tweak. That old wino Gig Young? Sure, give him a poke. But the real Lee could easily remain a sort of enigma, since the film sounds like it will take place long after his death.
User avatar
Brian Thibodeau
 
Posts: 3843
Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2004 2:50 pm
Location: Near Chinatown

Postby bmwracer » Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:19 am

Brian Thibodeau wrote:But that's my whole point, really. There's a likeable absurdity to the way things are often done in the Hong Kong media and movie industries. You could actually build a good comedy around the GAME OF DEATH debacle without harming he reputation of Bruce Lee or exploiting anything other than the exploitative nature of the film industry itself. Tong Lung? I'm sure he could live with a little tweak. That old wino Gig Young? Sure, give him a poke. But the real Lee could easily remain a sort of enigma, since the film sounds like it will take place long after his death.

I guess I'm taking the whole thing way too seriously. *takes a deep breath*
User avatar
bmwracer
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:36 pm
Location: Southern California

Postby cal42 » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:28 am

You mean Clouse's Game of Death wasn't a comedy?? It's one of the funniest films I've ever seen! How can you spoof that?
User avatar
cal42
 
Posts: 467
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:45 am
Location: Birmingham, England

Postby Brian Thibodeau » Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:12 pm

:lol:
User avatar
Brian Thibodeau
 
Posts: 3843
Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2004 2:50 pm
Location: Near Chinatown

Postby bmwracer » Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:41 pm

cal42 wrote:You mean Clouse's Game of Death wasn't a comedy?? It's one of the funniest films I've ever seen! How can you spoof that?

LOL. :lol:

Particularly hilarious was the superimposing of Bruce's face over the guy who played him in the movie. :lol:
User avatar
bmwracer
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:36 pm
Location: Southern California

Postby cal42 » Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:15 pm

bmwracer wrote:Particularly hilarious was the superimposing of Bruce's face over the guy who played him in the movie. :lol:


Yes, makes me laugh every time I see it, especially knowing that it's the best special effect in the movie :lol: . If it wasn't for the appauling funeral scene, Game of Death would be a masterpiece of bad cinema.
User avatar
cal42
 
Posts: 467
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:45 am
Location: Birmingham, England

Postby bmwracer » Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:20 pm

cal42 wrote:Yes, makes me laugh every time I see it, especially knowing that it's the best special effect in the movie :lol: .

Just think what they could've done if CGI was available...

If it wasn't for the appauling funeral scene, Game of Death would be a masterpiece of bad cinema.

On the order of Plan 9 From Outer Space? :lol:
User avatar
bmwracer
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:36 pm
Location: Southern California

Postby cal42 » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:45 pm

Indeed. And as such, it deserves to be taken out every now and again for a cuddle.
User avatar
cal42
 
Posts: 467
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:45 am
Location: Birmingham, England


Return to Asian Movies

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests

cron