The Game of Death: Movie Review

History is not history unless it is the truth. 
Abraham Lincoln in a letter to W.H. Herndon, 1856


The Game of Death, a movie that was never finished due to the untimley sad death of the producer,  Bruce Lee.

At this point, every one should know who Bruce Lee is. But just to make sure, Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor,philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement. He is widely considered by many commentators and other martial artists to be the most influential martial artist of modern times, and a cultural icon. 

Lee was born in San Francisco, California in the United States, to parents of Hong Kong heritage but raised in Hong Kong until his late teens. Upon reaching the age of 18, Lee emigrated to the United States to claim his U.S. Citizenship and receive his higher education. It was during this time he began teaching martial arts, which soon led to film and television roles.

Bruce Lee was in production of making a movie called The Game of Death. He soon had to put the project on hold when he had the opportunity to be in another movie Called Enter The Dragon where he became a star.

After the movie, he continue d to work with his previous project. He managed to get a few fight scenes, and completed some of the dialouge. Sadly, he never got to finish due to his untimely death in May 10, 1973. He was filming a scene of his movie and soon feel to the floor. He was quickly taken to the hospital to find out he had Cerebral edema (or tumor for short)

Bruce Lee died the following day.

At this point, people who were part of the recording team wonder if his movie will ever be finished. At the end, the producer of Enter the Dragon decided to finish the movie.

The movie, was a complete disaster.

At the beginning of the movie, it shows old clips from Enter The Dragon. This will attract people’s attention to only realize they are going to see horrible editing. When they show the new Bruce Lee going into his trailer, there is an clip that shows the real Bruce Lee. At one glance, the main hero’s dialogue does not add up to what is he saying. If looked carefully, a person can see Bruce Lee talking, but it is not synched correctly. Lastly in this scene, look at the towel. Again, with one glance, a person knows that towel was edited in. why did they do that is a question I will never know how to answer.

To make it worse, There is a scene where the fake Bruce Lee looks at the mirror. Again if a person examines that scene closely, there is a cardboard cut-out of the real Lee’s face covering the fake. I do not understand why they did this. To the creators of the movie believe terrible editing like this can be accepable? Well I can see why they had a pathetic excuse of an edit becuse it is old for its time. However if people mange to notice the horrible subbing and editing in a movie, get rid of that idea.

The plot is way worse than the editing/cutouts. A gang wants Bruce Lee to join thier syndicate but he refuses. Soon, the gang shoots him in the face, but the transaction does not make sense at all. The reason for such an odd transition is because they keep swapping out clips from the old and new, showing a fatal flaw on flow, and how the fake Bruce got shot make no sense to me at all.  

So after the fake Bruce fakes his death, the director does the unthinkable of adding insult to injury by actually showing real footage from the real Bruce Lee’s funeral. This is a discrace showing a clip of someone who is already dead.

The movie only gets good at the end since they use the footage that the real Bruce managed to finish. From there, it is all action and nothing more.

My Perspective:  A point I still want to point out is the idea of trying to finish the movie. I understand not wanting good project go to waste, however the edits of this movie were awful and the directors should have taken more time to fix them. Bruce will be disappointed from the outcome of the film, but at least his project was finished.

Nostalgic: martial art, but I never had the time. This film reminded me why I love it so much, to beat the crud out of people, look cool, and get my own battle cry.

Even though the movie had horrible editing, see the ending, that is where the real Bruce will be proud of people liking his work.

Movie beginning and Middle: 4/10    Movie at Ending: 9.5/10

sites used:
http://www.brucelee.com/site/biography
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=30899