Game of Death
1979 Directed by Robert Clouse
Synopsis
Bruce Lee challenges the underworld to a Game of Death.
Bruce Lee plays Billy Lo, a HongKong based movie actor, who is a box office draw. His girlfriend, Ann Morris is a singer who is also climbing to the top. Now it seems the syndicate wants Billy and Ann to join their "management firm". But Billy knows that they will be treated like property, so he refuses and tells her to do the same. So they try to "encourage" him to join but he still refuses. He would be advised that they will not stop, so he must stop them, permanently. He is even more hesitant to do that but when an attempt on his life is made, he fakes his death and alters his appearance, and decides to go after the syndicate; taking them out one at a time.
Cast
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This Game of Death is a film built around 12 minutes of original footage that Bruce Lee had done for his own movie with the same title. The scenes they filmed to complete the movie were done 5 years after Lee's death and they also used some footage from some of his older films as well. They even use footage from his actual funeral... I kid you not.
If you actually consider this a Bruce Lee Film then it's his worst one by far, but if you consider this a Bruceploitation Film (which you should) then it's the most famous one. It's almost worth watching just for the 12 minutes of real Bruce Lee footage that was shot for the…
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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I knew Game of Death was completed after Bruce Lee's death, but I had no idea how bad the movie really was. Director Robert Clouse employs a number of tactics to put Lee in the picture artificially, from the embarrassing (taping or compositing a still of Lee's face over his double) to the awkward (casting him in shadow and shooting from far away whenever possible) to the outright offensive (the first time Lee shows up in Game of Death, it's footage of his actual dead body from his real-life funeral!). The film has no rhythm or pace, plodding and jerking along until the scant footage of the real Bruce Lee -- only 11 minutes worth of it in the whole movie -- can be shown. The footage itself is perfectly decent (the showdown between Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is something else), but philosophically, it's not worth the effort.
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Opening scene. Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris. Need I say more.
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the fuck.
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In my opinion, his last film is unique because the filming continued by relying upon the use of body double (poorly resembling Bruce Lee in wide shots) as well as the use of unused footages from the film and also others (sometimes cropped to only showing his fierce eyes). The death of Bruce Lee spontaneously forced Robert Clouse (director) to change the scenario. Entertaining and awesome performance from Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Dan Inosanto as Lee's actual disciples in the real life. The fight inside the pagoda is one big metaphor. Each level symbolizes achievement towards the goal in life, that every time you have to fight different demon to move to the next level. The setting itself was inspired by one of the locations he visited in Nepal in search for a location for his filming project called "Silent Flute".
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literally the best part of this movie is when they cut out a picture of bruce lee's face and taped it to a mirror
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I knew Game of Death was completed after Bruce Lee's death, but I had no idea how bad the movie really was. Director Robert Clouse employs a number of tactics to put Lee in the picture artificially, from the embarrassing (taping or compositing a still of Lee's face over his double) to the awkward (casting him in shadow and shooting from far away whenever possible) to the outright offensive (the first time Lee shows up in Game of Death, it's footage of his actual dead body from his real-life funeral!). The film has no rhythm or pace, plodding and jerking along until the scant footage of the real Bruce Lee -- only 11 minutes worth of it in the whole movie -- can be shown. The footage itself is perfectly decent (the showdown between Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is something else), but philosophically, it's not worth the effort.
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Opening scene. Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris. Need I say more.
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This movie has to be the worst edited movie of histroy lol. They only fimled 30 minutes of actually Bruce Lee footage, as he died making this movie.The rest of the time they had a body double, and a superinposed cut out photo of Lee's face on someone else lol. So so so bad. However this movie was primarly made for the fans, and the footage of Lee that was used was at the end of the movie which is the best part anyway. Bruce Lee's fight with Kareem Abdual- Jabbar was great!. The fact that this movie scored a 5.7 on the Imdb is awesome, some Van Damme movies dont get that score lol.
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Where is Lee?
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In many ways a classic martial arts film from the 70s but also slightly odd, in that the film has been stitched together from various parts. Bruce Lee was writing and directing his Game Of Death around ‘72 but died before it was done and so Robert Enter The Dragon Clouse picked up the footage and stitched it into this very different story of a Martial Arts film star trying to get out from under the thumb of a violent Hong Kong mob syndicate, this film being Game Of Death (1978).
The film itself is a mixture of poor acting, mostly in English, and decentish martial arts action. You can definitely see things kick up a notch when the footage…
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I loved it because of some great action sequences but hated it because it was Plan 9 but done for selfish reasons. The footage of his funeral was really in poor taste. I can't decide if I loved or hated it.
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Apart from the iconic fight with Kareem Abdul-Jabber in the yellow tracksuit the rest of this film is poor with terrible stand-ins after Lee's death such as a......cardboard cut-out!!!!!
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I liked the opening titles.