If Bruce Lee had managed to finish Game of Death, it would have been his best movie. Lee’s untimely death came just weeks ahead of the release of Enter the Dragon in 1973, which would posthumously make him a legend overnight. Today, it remains a one of the most revered martial arts films ever made, but for as much of an impact as it and Lee’s prior movies The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, and The Way of the Dragon would have, everything points to Game of Death being remembered as Lee’s biggest masterpiece if he’d been able to fully realize it.
In the “completed” version of Game of Death, released in 1978, footage of three fight scenes that Lee shot was used for the film’s climax, although each was greatly cut from what he finished. The rest of the film ended with laughable attempts to cover up his absence using body doubles, footage from other Bruce Lee films, a cardboard cutout of his face with a body double behind him, and even footage from Lee’s funeral in Hong Kong. On the other hand, the film originally conceived by Bruce Lee was not only better from a technical point of view, but also represented a real distillation of his views on martial arts.
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In the version of Game of Death that Lee had in mind, his character (named Hai Tien in his version and Billy Lo in the 1978 film) climbed a pagoda and faced an opponent on each floor, each using a different martial arts discipline . . Among the enemies Lee battles are Korean hapkido master Ji Hanjae, Filipino master Kali, played by Dan Inosanto, and future basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the latter two of Lee’s own students. The ultimate goal was to find an unidentified hidden object on top of the pagoda, but the real power of Game of Death was how close it was to Bruce Lee’s heart.
Lee had intended Game of Death as an allegory of the principals of his fighting philosophy of Jeet Kune Do, in which one’s approach to combat must be malleable and adaptable to the particular skill set that the opponent brings to the fight. Lee would liken this to the fluidity of water, which is able to take on the form of whatever setting it inhabits due to its formless nature. Aside from the enemies seen in the footage he did finish, Lee would also have faced ten Karate black belts at the base of the pagoda, along with Hwang Ing-Shik as a skilled kicker and Taky Kimura as a master of Praying Mantis kung fu.
While elements of Game of Death became iconic, such as Lee’s yellow tracksuit, the version released after his passing was only a shadow of his intentions. A much more accurate representation of his plans can be found in the documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey, which features finished footage of Lee as far as he was able to complete it. Unfortunately, the world will never truly see Bruce Lee’s complete vision for the film, but given what is known about it, all evidence points to Game of Death surpassing all of its work up to that point and becoming both the greatest and the most deep film by Bruce Lee.