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#544 - Game of Death
Robert Clouse, 1978
A film star is forced to fake his own death in order to take on an organised crime outfit.
It's not often that I end up shutting off a film without finishing it, but that's what happened the first time that I tried watching Game of Death. The film is well-known for being the film that Bruce Lee was working on at the time of his death, having already shot roughly half an hour of footage before his passing. Said footage can be found on the special edition DVD of Enter the Dragon, where I ended up watching it and finding it about as awesome as anything Lee ever did. Of course, that didn't stop Clouse and company from trying to put together a feature-length film that is supposedly intended to complete Lee's unfinished project but instead comes across as a cheap attempt to capitalise on Lee's posthumous popularity, which had already manifested in the form of various knock-offs featuring Lee look-alikes. Game of Death attempts to build a film around the combination of both existing footage of Lee and newly-shot footage featuring various doubles. The plot also takes a metafictional twist as Lee's character ends up being a star of martial arts films named Billy Lo (nice initials, dude), who ends up earning the wrath of a nebulous criminal organisation. After surviving an assassination attempt by said organisation, Billy opts to stay "dead" and proceeds to dismantle the organisation however he can, even though he does so at considerable expense to his love interest (Colleen Camp).
For a film that attempts to pay homage to Lee's legacy, Game of Death honestly feels like a feature-length insult to said legacy regardless of the makers' intentions. By trying to blend footage of Lee with new footage featuring doubles, Game of Death is constantly breaking one's suspension of disbelief to the point where I wish I was watching a film that simply used doubles and no actual footage of Lee. Homage or not, this attempt at compromise simply feels too patronising to genuinely enjoy. The obvious inter-cutting between shots of Lee and shots of doubles is too distracting to truly look past, while the ways in which the makers try to work around the difference end up being painful to watch. An early scene in which Billy is being cornered by a villain in his own dressing room seems to be the jumping-off point for any uncertain viewers; one can easily tell that Lee's face has been printed out and taped to a mirror in front of the double's reflection, which leads viewers to question whether or not they can put up with similar techniques for the next hour-and-a-half. It gets to the point where the doubles' admittedly decent physical abilities become difficult to notice because you're still getting pulled out of the action every time the film goes out of its way to convince you that, yes, that is most definitely Bruce Lee you are watching fight dozens of goons. Even by the standards of old-school martial arts films, the plot feels far too thin to even remotely compensate for these gross technical shortcomings; not even respectable actors like Dean Jagger or Gig Young do anything to sell the conflict at the heart of the film, to say nothing of the fact that Billy's vocal delivery is one of the most stunningly dull ones I've ever heard (which I guess was a conscious decision to not overshadow Lee's own distinctive voice, but that doesn't make it any less of a failure on the film's part).
If there is one remotely redeeming part of this film, it is definitely the footage that Lee shot before his death where he wears the iconic black-and-yellow jumpsuit as he fights his way through multiple highly-skilled opponents. However, it's edited down severely to fit the constraints of the film's wonky narrative and doesn't appear until the end of the movie. As a result, most of this film becomes an especially tedious waiting game as a viewer bides their time in the hopes of seeing sufficiently uninterrupted footage of Lee himself. In the meantime, Game of Death tries to build a sort of spy movie similar to Enter the Dragon (complete with an opening credits sequence and a background score straight out of a James Bond movie) but it fails incredibly hard. Though I managed to resist the urge to stop the film this time around, it seems like I was right the first time. With the unedited Game of Death footage available on the Enter the Dragon DVD, there is pretty much no reason to ever bother watching this film unless you are a die-hard Lee fanatic. Regardless of whether or not it was an homage to the late legend or a shameless cash-in, the resulting film is a disappointment that I don't think needed to exist.
Robert Clouse, 1978
A film star is forced to fake his own death in order to take on an organised crime outfit.
It's not often that I end up shutting off a film without finishing it, but that's what happened the first time that I tried watching Game of Death. The film is well-known for being the film that Bruce Lee was working on at the time of his death, having already shot roughly half an hour of footage before his passing. Said footage can be found on the special edition DVD of Enter the Dragon, where I ended up watching it and finding it about as awesome as anything Lee ever did. Of course, that didn't stop Clouse and company from trying to put together a feature-length film that is supposedly intended to complete Lee's unfinished project but instead comes across as a cheap attempt to capitalise on Lee's posthumous popularity, which had already manifested in the form of various knock-offs featuring Lee look-alikes. Game of Death attempts to build a film around the combination of both existing footage of Lee and newly-shot footage featuring various doubles. The plot also takes a metafictional twist as Lee's character ends up being a star of martial arts films named Billy Lo (nice initials, dude), who ends up earning the wrath of a nebulous criminal organisation. After surviving an assassination attempt by said organisation, Billy opts to stay "dead" and proceeds to dismantle the organisation however he can, even though he does so at considerable expense to his love interest (Colleen Camp).
For a film that attempts to pay homage to Lee's legacy, Game of Death honestly feels like a feature-length insult to said legacy regardless of the makers' intentions. By trying to blend footage of Lee with new footage featuring doubles, Game of Death is constantly breaking one's suspension of disbelief to the point where I wish I was watching a film that simply used doubles and no actual footage of Lee. Homage or not, this attempt at compromise simply feels too patronising to genuinely enjoy. The obvious inter-cutting between shots of Lee and shots of doubles is too distracting to truly look past, while the ways in which the makers try to work around the difference end up being painful to watch. An early scene in which Billy is being cornered by a villain in his own dressing room seems to be the jumping-off point for any uncertain viewers; one can easily tell that Lee's face has been printed out and taped to a mirror in front of the double's reflection, which leads viewers to question whether or not they can put up with similar techniques for the next hour-and-a-half. It gets to the point where the doubles' admittedly decent physical abilities become difficult to notice because you're still getting pulled out of the action every time the film goes out of its way to convince you that, yes, that is most definitely Bruce Lee you are watching fight dozens of goons. Even by the standards of old-school martial arts films, the plot feels far too thin to even remotely compensate for these gross technical shortcomings; not even respectable actors like Dean Jagger or Gig Young do anything to sell the conflict at the heart of the film, to say nothing of the fact that Billy's vocal delivery is one of the most stunningly dull ones I've ever heard (which I guess was a conscious decision to not overshadow Lee's own distinctive voice, but that doesn't make it any less of a failure on the film's part).
If there is one remotely redeeming part of this film, it is definitely the footage that Lee shot before his death where he wears the iconic black-and-yellow jumpsuit as he fights his way through multiple highly-skilled opponents. However, it's edited down severely to fit the constraints of the film's wonky narrative and doesn't appear until the end of the movie. As a result, most of this film becomes an especially tedious waiting game as a viewer bides their time in the hopes of seeing sufficiently uninterrupted footage of Lee himself. In the meantime, Game of Death tries to build a sort of spy movie similar to Enter the Dragon (complete with an opening credits sequence and a background score straight out of a James Bond movie) but it fails incredibly hard. Though I managed to resist the urge to stop the film this time around, it seems like I was right the first time. With the unedited Game of Death footage available on the Enter the Dragon DVD, there is pretty much no reason to ever bother watching this film unless you are a die-hard Lee fanatic. Regardless of whether or not it was an homage to the late legend or a shameless cash-in, the resulting film is a disappointment that I don't think needed to exist.