Game of Death is considered a must-see for Bruce Lee fans, even though Lee only directed part of the film. In Game of Death, Lee plays a kung fu expert who has to fight his way through a tower, defeating martial artist after martial artist along the way. Among his opponents is a character played by NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In the same film, Lee wore the iconic yellow jumpsuit.
After making Way of the Dragon, Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest hired Lee to make their fourth film with them: Game of Death. As with his work on Way of the Dragon, Lee was attached to star, direct, and write the film. Filming began in Hong Kong in 1972, but was interrupted when Lee received an offer from Warner Bros.
Make his first (and only) Hollywood film, Enter the Dragon. Some time after filming on Enter the Dragon wrapped, Lee returned and filming on Game of Death resumed. The film was only partially completed when Lee died unexpectedly on July 20, 1973, aged just 32.
As a result of Lee’s death, the project was abandoned and seemed destined to become another unmade Bruce Lee film, but several years later Golden Harvest decided to release the film anyway. This, of course, was a huge problem considering Lee only shot about 40 minutes of footage. Plus, most of what Lee shot came from the second half of the script. This was barely enough for a full-length film.
To solve this problem, Golden Harvest brought in Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse to finish the film and released it in 1978. In order for this to work, much of Lee’s story had to be scrapped and replaced with entirely new stuff.
This process was carried out in different ways. The only thing they did was cast actors who could portray Lee’s stunt doubles, including Yuen Biao, who would go on to become a kung fu star himself. The studio went to great lengths to hide that these actors were not Lee, relying on lighting (or lack thereof), sunglasses, disguises, shots of the actor from behind, and more.
In one scene, the studio went so far as to superimpose an image of Lee’s face onto a body double. Since all these tricks failed to hide their physical differences, the film gave a plot explanation: Lee’s character had plastic surgery to avoid recognition.To offer viewers a little more of the real Bruce Lee and to help tie some scenes together, Golden Harvest used recycled scenes from his previous films such as The Big Boss, Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon. Game of Death, which drew heavy criticism, also used footage from Lee’s actual
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funeral for use in a scene where the main character faked his death. Lee’s face in the coffin could be seen in one of the frames.
All things considered, it’s easy to see that Game of Death is riddled with problems, but while it’s far from a complete film, fans argue that it contains some of Bruce Lee’s best work. The fight scenes he filmed with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and others were exciting, well-choreographed and exactly what you’d expect from a Bruce Lee film.