Game of Death (1978)

Original title

死亡遊戲

Directed by

Robert Clouse, Sammo Hung, Bruce Lee

Genre

drama film, action film, cantopop, martial arts film

Country

Hong Kong, United States

Runtime

1h 32m

Rated

R

Rating

6.4 of 10 from 743 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Bruce Lee started filming a martial arts movie where his character must rescue stolen treasure by fighting through a pagoda. He died before finishing it, so five years later the studio released a version using body doubles and existing footage.

incompletefragmentedmelancholictribute-likeaction-heavydisjointednostalgicpatchwork

What happens

The Game of Death is an incomplete Hong Kong martial arts film directed by, written by, and starring Bruce Lee. Produced by Concord Production and expected to be released in 1973, over 120 minutes of footage was shot between September and October 1972, mostly from the climax of the film. During filming, Lee received an offer to star in Enter the Dragon, the first kung fu film to be produced by a Hollywood studio (Warner Bros.), and with a budget unprecedented for the genre ($850,000). Lee died of cerebral edema before the film's release. At the time of his death, he had made plans to resume the filming of The Game of Death. After Lee's death, Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse was enlisted to finish the film using two body doubles; it was released in 1978 as Game of Death, five years after Lee's death, by Golden Harvest. Surviving footage was also included as part of the documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey. The story of Lee's original 1972 film involves Lee's character who, in order to save his siblings, is forced into joining a group of martial artists who have been hired to retrieve a stolen Chinese national treasure from the top floor of a five-story pagoda in South Korea, with each floor guarded by martial artists who must be defeated while ascending the tower. The 1978 film's plot was altered to a revenge story, where the mafia attempts to kill Lee's character, who fakes his death and seeks vengeance against those who tried to kill him. The final part of the film uses some of Lee's original film footage, but with the pagoda setting changed to a restaurant building, where he fights martial artists hired by the mafia in an attempt to rescue his fiancée Ann Morris (played by Colleen Camp). This revised version received a mixed critical reception but was commercially successful, grossing an estimated US$50,000,000 (equivalent to $250,000,000 in 2025) worldwide. It was an influential film that had a significant cultural impact. The original version's concept of ascending a tower while defeating enemies on each level was highly influential, inspiring numerous action films and video games. The film is also known for Lee's iconic yellow-and-black jumpsuit as well as his fight scene with NBA player and student Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, both of which have been referenced in numerous media. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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