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| A cool 1970s-style poster for Robert Clouse's Game of Death, which promises that star Bruce Lee is going to kick some serious butt in the film |
Billy Lo is an action movie star with an evil Macao gangster after him. After staging his own mock funeral, [which uses footage from Bruce Lee's (The Orphan/Ren hai gu hong (1960)) real-life funeral], Lo seeks to get rid of his enemies!
Game of Death is written by writer/co-director Robert Clouse (Darker than Amber (1970)), co-directed with co-director/star Lee. Clouse took over the film after Lee's untimely death in 1973 in the midst of production, forcing a drastically altered plot.
The film begins with the famous Lee-Chuck Norris (Top Dog (1995)) Colosseum fight scene lifted from Way of the Dragon (1972). In the film that follows, Dean Jagger (King Creole (1958)) is great as the triumphantly cackling Macao gangster villain Dr. Land, and Lee's fight against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Fletch (1985)) is phenomenal, as is the film's motorcycle scene.
The inevitable many doubles for the tragically suddenly passed away star Lee and poor slow-motion work impede this otherwise great martial arts classic.
Watch a fan-made trailer for the film here
Cost: Unknown, reportedly 850k $
Box office: Reportedly in excess of 31.3 mil. $
= Uncertain, but certainly a mega-hit (may have returned 36.62 times its cost)
[Game of Death premiered 23 March (Hong Kong) and runs 94-125 minutes (different edits). Shooting took place in Hong Kong and China. Production was halted when Lee was offered an 850k $ budget for his first kung fu movie produced by a Hollywood studio, Warner Bros.; Enter the Dragon, directed by Clouse. This was his last completed film; he passed away from cerebral edema (excess of fluid in the brain), before it was released and before he could return to filming of Game of Death. Though reportedly 100 minutes was filmed, only about 11 minutes were thought usable at the time and are incorporated into the finished film. Clouse was hired to rescue a film from the footage. The 850k $ budget for the film listed elsewhere is mysteriously identical to that of Enter the Dragon and could be false. The in any case low-budget production became controversial due to Lee's death; especially since it uses footage from his actual funeral, including of his corpse in his open casket! Abdul-Jabbar would not return to film more due to the controversy, and several other stars turned down offers to be in the film. Still it opened to enthusiastic audiences: It grossed 10 mil. $ (31.9 % of the total gross) in North America, the 2nd biggest market; 13.13 mil. $ (41.9 %) in Japan, the film's biggest market, and 6.12 mil. $ (19.6 %) in France, its 3rd biggest market. The 31.3 mil. $ gross is only from these markets plus Germany, and the film screened in several more and so must have had an even higher total gross. Game of Death II (1981) is made by an unrelated Chinese filmmaker, splicing past Lee performances together to serve a new plot. Clouse returned with The London Connection (1979). 32,540 Rotten Tomatoes users have given Game of Death a 3.57/5 average rating.]
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