Reviewed by: cal42 Date: 07/27/2006 Summary: Extra cheese, anyone? For those that don’t know (I suppose there must still be a couple) GAME OF DEATH is a posthumously produced film starring Lee-alikes who look less like Bruce Lee than I do, featuring hilariously inept cutaways from Lee’s proper films and some really dodgy dialogue. The story goes along the lines of a crime syndicate putting the pressure on film star Billy Lo (who is supposed to be played by Lee, but never is) and his singing girlfriend. In amongst all the crap (and there’s a hell of a lot of it), we have scenes from Lee’s unfinished film of the same name. Make no mistake about it – GAME OF DEATH is bad. In fact, it’s APPAULINGLY bad. However, for those people who take great delight in movies like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (and I’m one of them) it does have its merits. Yes, this is the martial arts equivalent of PLAN 9 all the way. You could probably craft a lethal drinking game around this film – for example, take a drink every time you see an insert of the real Bruce Lee taken from WAY OF THE DRAGON or FIST OF FURY, take a drink when you spot Yuen Biao doubling for whoever was supposed to be Bruce Lee that day, take a drink whenever there’s a cheesy piece of dialogue and so on. But to be honest, you’d probably be unconscious before you’d reached the halfway mark. The production makes its intentions clear right from the start, when we’re treated to some footage from the WAY OF THE DRAGON duel with Chuck Norris, and we end up in Lo’s dressing room – where we see a picture of Bruce Lee’s face cut out and glued to the mirror to mask the presence of the double. It really has to be seen to be believed. That’s actually the film’s best special effect and it kind of spirals down from there, to be honest. One thing that certainly isn’t fun is the extremely bad taste left in the mouth when Lo fakes his death and we see footage of the REAL Bruce Lee’s funeral. Yep, that’s right – one of the few shots we have of the real Bruce Lee is where he’s lying dead in his coffin. Whoever thought that this would be acceptable entertainment clearly has no moral goalposts. When the film premiered in 1978, Bruce Lee’s mother left the cinema in tears at this point (she did return, however, after the scene ended). Director Clouse did try to put a couple of connections to ENTER THE DRAGON with Bob Wall and Sammo Hung both reappearing, but this film was always going to be a different kettle of fish. You can knock Clouse’s contribution to GAME OF DEATH all you like, but truth be told ENTER THE DRAGON was nearly as cheesy and who’s to say that Lee himself wouldn’t have appeared in a film very similar to the finished product if he’d lived? True, it would have had better action and a charismatic lead, but who knows what would have come after ENTER THE DRAGON? Late on in the film (when you’d pretty much forgotten it was coming), you get the real Bruce Lee doing real Bruce Lee type stuff. And it’s magnificent. It only goes to show what a great film GAME OF DEATH would have been if Lee had lived. In particular, the nunchaku duel with Dan Inosanto is brilliant and is one of my all time favourite scenes in the genre. The Lee footage (directed by Lee himself, it should be pointed out) contains a substantial amount of humour, and this only serves to show how Clouse mishandled the project by making his gangsters and his leads as straight faced as they come. It’s like chalk and cheese – and there’s no prizes for guessing which director contributed the cheese. Sadly, after about twenty minutes or so of brilliance, we’re back to the doubles. But while it lasted, it was fantastic. There are (or have been) many different versions of this film (I definitely recall seeing footage of the gates from the Coliseum in Rome from WAY OF THE DRAGON in one of the versions I watched but doesn’t appear in any of the versions I currently own), but don’t worry - they’re ALL bad :) . Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: Chungking_Cash Date: 01/27/2003 The cinematic equivalent to defecating on Bruce Lee's grave. Five years after his untimely demise Golden Harvest hired Robert Clouse (with the aid of Sammo Hung) to build a new film around a fraction of existing footage Lee had shot for "The Game of Death" (which Brandon Lee erroneously claimed was nearly completed when his father put the project on ice to film "Enter the Dragon"). The real Bruce Lee appears in only one sequence of Clouse's "The Game of Death" memorably fighting his off camera pupil basketball legend Kareen Abdul Jabbar. The remainder of Lee's character is comprised of a conglomerate of stand-ins incognito along with outtakes from past Bruce Lee roles shamefully spliced into the narrative. This in addition to an infamous sequence involving a Bruce Lee photo superimposed over a double's face during a brief but agonizing exchange. If there's ten films from Hong Kong that you should avoid at all costs make sure that Robert Clouse's "The Game of Death" is one of them. In 1997, Bey Logan of Media Asia found the dailies for Bruce Lee's "The Game of Death" in the Golden Harvest vault and while they featured a considerable amount of footage of the late martial artist's original vision they did not prove seamless enough to edit into a feature length film and were later licensed to a number of media outlets around the world most notably for the documentary "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey" (2000). Reviewer Score: 1

Reviewed by: Kyashan Date: 06/06/2002 Last movie of Bruce Lee. Good but not very well. Is not my favourite.

Reviewed by: Inner Strength Date: 04/14/2002 Summary: Bad Another unfinished Bruce Lee film, just as bad as the rest too, but more enjoyable story actually. That doesn't save it though. Rating: 1.5/5

Reviewed by: Sydneyguy Date: 03/08/2002 Summary: Ummm... There is only like 10-20 minutes of Bruce Lee, but the other time is is a doulbe where you never directly see his face. This movie is bad,and it drags on and all you want to see is Bruce Lee fight. just fast forward to the end fight scenes!! 3/10

Reviewed by: Ryoga Date: 12/25/2001 Bruce Lee never finished this so they used doubles, footage of other films etc. But the last 20 minutes of the fights are very well done. Bruce takes on three fighters in ways no one else can.

Reviewed by: hellboy Date: 09/13/2000 This film uses every trick in the book to convince you that the stand-in IS Bruce Lee. Old footage from Return of the Dragon, dark shades, even a paper cut-out of Lee's face on a mirror! These techniques are more humorous than they are effective. Yuen Biao was used as a stand-in in some scenes. Of course the final reel is Bruce Lee himself and the last fights more than make up for the rest of the movie. 4/10 for the last 15 minutes of GOD 10/10 Reviewer Score: 7

Reviewed by: tygrdx Date: 03/15/2000 Summary: Lee's Unfinished Piece Of course ther'e are only a few scenes in this movie which are really Bruce Lee. This movie was finished after Bruce Lee's death, Lee had shot about an Hours worth of Film and pieces were cut from that Film to create this film. The fight scenes in the end are great however.

Reviewed by: hkcinema Date: 12/21/1999 BRUCE LEE plays a young Kung Fu film star who is threatened by aninternational crime syndicate to join their faces. [Reviewed by Tai Seng Catalog]

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