Enter the Game of Death (also known as
The King of Kung Fu, which is the title used in the wildly overconfident trailer), features one of the more baffling Bruceploitation tropes cited in Grady Hendrix's and Chris Poggiali's
These Fists Break Bricks: guys with Hitler mustaches. But it makes some diegetic sense here. The movie is set during World War 2 and the guy with the Hitler 'stache is Japanese, part of a conspiracy to steal some sort of precious document integral to China's national security. Okay, it doesn't make that much diegetic sense, but Japan was still an Axis country and I'm trying to meet the movie halfway. Anyway, the espionage plot is pretty threadbare and a pretty transparent excuse to string together a lot of fights, so you'll forgive me for not being too particular about the specifics.
The highlight of the movie is a riff on the pagoda climax from
Game of Death, only here it makes up the movie's second act. I'm basically the target audience for this movie as I'll be halfway entertained if you put a guy in a primary coloured tracksuit and have him fight his way through an interesting environment. (For a non-Bruce-adjacent example, look to the Jackie Chan haunted house fight in
My Lucky Stars.) Add a bit of the
Enter the Dragon theme (just enough to skirt below any standard of copyright infringement) and I'm guaranteed a good time. That being said, compared to the completely dire version in
True Game of Death, the scene here is actually pretty entertaining, not especially distinguished from a choreography perspective, but rendered with some imaginative mise-en-scene. If you've seen the version of the
Game of Death fight in its relatively "original" state (outside of the finished movie), you'll know that it leans towards the mystical, its unfinished quality giving it an added aura of mystery. The fight here taps into that feeling somewhat, although the effect is dispelled slightly when the narrative resumes afterwards.
The hero here fights a series of monks, each with a different gimmick: bald guy with metal balls (not in that sense), snake guy, candle and nunchuk guy, and a pair of guys in a room with red lights. Snake guy is probably the most out there, but also the toughest to watch. Let's say that when he was whipping and attempting to strangle the hero, I got the sense that not all of the snakes he used were props. If you are sensitive to animal cruelty, this scene runs from minutes forty-three to forty-seven of the runtime if you're looking to skip it. Also, at one point he sprays the hero with snake blood like a firehose.
Outside this sequence, the movie is a series of fights, usually taking place along the same stretch of wooded path. Because these are paced quickly enough, performed by relatively able fighters, and shot and edited with some degree of clarity, I found them reasonably diverting. Some of the later fights feature a dash of slow motion. During one of these moments the hero kicks his opponent in the crotch multiple times, so the flourish is well deployed. The hero is played by Bruce Le, known as the most over the top of the Bruce Lee imitators, and I can report that his facial contortions have a sufficiently rubbery quality while his rendition of Lee's Kiai sounds alternately bring to mind tea kettles, sirens and the Three Stooges. I previously enjoyed him in
Challenge of the Tiger, which felt a lot higher rent than this movie. But this is a good enough time, and after
True Game of Death, it might as well be
Citizen Kane.