Game of Death

Game of Death is a Hong Kong action film from 1978. It is based on a project that Bruce Lee shot in September and October 1972 and that remained unfinished after his death. The 1978 version was directed by Robert Clouse, the action was directed by Sammo Hung, and the screenplay was written by Clouse with Raymond Chow under the pseudonym Jan Spears. The running time varies by version. The film tells the story of Billy Lo, a martial arts film star whom the mafia tries to kill. Billy fakes his own death and, in disguise, turns against those behind the attack. Of the more than 120 minutes that Lee shot in 1972, the film uses only 12 minutes and 41 seconds, mostly from the final fights. In them Lee faces Dan Inosanto and his eskrima, the Korean hapkido master Ji Han-jae and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In the original concept each opponent was meant to embody the weakness of his style, whether reliance on fixed patterns of attack and defence or a lack of economy of movement, and Lee countered with fluidity, unpredictability and an eclectic mix of techniques. The structure of the original film, in which the hero advances through the guardians of the individual floors of a pagoda, is often linked to later action films and video games, for example Street Fighter and the game Kung-Fu Master from 1984; Italian film scholars call it an early arcade film. The yellow jumpsuit that Lee wears in the film and the Onitsuka Tiger shoes were worn as a tribute by Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.

Martial arts in this work

Origin

Bruce Lee shot a different story in September and October 1972 than the one that was eventually released. In the original screenplay his character Hai Tien is forced to lead a group of fighters into a five-storey pagoda in Korea to retrieve a Chinese national treasure from its top floor, because gangs have kidnapped his two younger siblings. Each floor was to present a different style. Fights with Dan Inosanto (eskrima), Ji Han-jae (hapkido) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were successfully filmed. Left unshot were the fights with ten to twenty karate fighters led by Bolo Yeung as sensei, with Hwang In-shik as a kicking specialist and with Taky Kimura, who was to demonstrate the mantis style and Wing Chun. The yellow jumpsuit was meant to express freedom in fighting without ties to a single style; according to André Morgan of Golden Harvest, Lee first chose black but switched to yellow because Abdul-Jabbar's footprints showed up better on it.

Fight choreography

The 1978 version had to replace Lee's character to a large extent. The action was directed by Sammo Hung. Lee was doubled by the Korean taekwondo master Kim Tai-chung, by Yuen Biao, who took over mainly the acrobatic shots, and also by Albert Sham and Chen Yao-po. Differences in the character are hidden by a false beard and large dark glasses, and the English voice of Lee's character was provided by Chris Kent. The pagoda fights were moved by the film to the Red Pepper restaurant, where Inosanto appears as Pasqual, along with Ji Han-jae, Abdul-Jabbar as Hakim and Hugh O'Brian as Steiner. The 2019 Redux version (producer Alan Canvan), by contrast, uses only footage from the original shoot and restores the missing dialogue.

People and martial arts

• Robert ClouseDirector
• Sammo HungAction director
• Bruce LeeActor — as Billy Lo· Jeet Kune Do (real practitioner)
• Dan InosantoActor — as Pasqual· Eskrima (real practitioner)
• Ji Han-jaeActor· Hapkido (real practitioner)
• Kim Tai-chungStunt performer — as Billy Lo (dublér)· Taekwondo (real practitioner)