The Cutting Room Floor: Lost, Censored & Deleted Bruce Lee Movie Scenes (Article)

[DragonClaws]

 

@ShawAngela, I recently re-watched The Big Boss, and the scene with Mi's son  character killing the lady of the night. Does not appear to have been cut, but I could be wrong. In some versions of the movie, the music from that scene plays over the next shot, of Chiao Mei (Maria Yi). While in some versions, it ends as the scene changes.

This is how end of the The Big Boss looked, when I first watched it. The pre-cut international version, with additional cuts to weapons use by the BBFC. The audio was really out of sync, and the print was full of white splice marks, from the editing process. I wish I could find BBFC censored version of the ice factory fight. Just to show non U.K fans, how bad this version looked. It did come paired with a shorter slightly censored version of the rare Manderin trailer. That featured some brief footage still missing from movie.

 

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

(Links Expired))

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

 

Can anyone confirm if the following information is true?. Maybe @Takuma, know's more about this subject?.

 

Quote

The Japanese TV cut that aired in the early 80s is missing the full sequence in which Hsiu Chien visits the casino and then is later attacked by bouncers/thugs. Aside from this, the music score in the Japanese language version of the Japanese TV cut (the film was broadcast bilingual English/Japanese in Japan) mixes the Joseph Koo music cues from the Japanese soundtrack as well as music cues from the original Mandarin cut. Unlike the English dubbed Japanese cuts, TV or theatrical, the Japanese dub features *none* of the Peter Thomas score.

source- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067824/alternateversions

 

 

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

I thought the following sequence from the finale of Way of The Dragon, was identical in all prints?.

 

Quote

Also in the HK version when uncle stabs Tony Liu we see him presumably bleeding or dying. In the US version this scene was blurred out

source- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068935/alternateversions

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

 Heres a NEW YouTube video series that explores infamous missing Big Boss scenes.

 

 

 

Edited March 12, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

(Up-Dated)

 

 

Edited May 23, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

Some details on the alterations made to Fist of Fury for its Japanese Theatrical release by Toho Towa.

"Raymond Chow, the president of Golden Harvest, reportedly worried that the anti-Japanese sentiment in Fist of Fury, would irritate the Japanese audience. And this may explain why certain changes were made in the Japanese version. One of these, was the famous scene where several Japanese are teasing Chen Zhen in front of a signboard outside a park reading "No Dogs & Chinese Allowed". One of the Japanese says to Chen "If you walk like a dog of our Japanese Empire, I’ll tell you in" but the Japanese subtitled were simplified to "If you walk like a dog I’ll take you in". The scene of a Japanese stripper dancing at a feast was also cut out in order to protect Japan from denigration". Source - Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

Does anyone have a digital copy of the Enter the Dragon nunchaku photo. Thats spread across pages 58 & 59 of Bruce Lee: The Untold Story book published in 1986.

 

[Coliseum1972]

On 11/4/2021 at 10:27 PM, WarriorBloodCrest said:

Funny enough, Not once in the film does Hsiao Mi (The "Big Boss") actually leave the area of his mansion. Regardless, it's still a solid headcanon you wrote. The angle with Chiao Mei is also another good possibility. 

He prolly did leave the mansion going for biz trips , it just wasnt shown in the movie

[DragonClaws]

 

[DragonClaws]

 

 

[DragonClaws]

 

Missing sidekick from the cavern fight sequence featured in Enter the Dragon, click on the link below for the image.

 

Link- https://hkmdb.com/db/movies/image_detail.mhtml?id=5449&image_id=414671&display_set=eng

 

[Josh Baker]

3 minutes ago, DragonClaws said:

 

Missing sidekick from the cavern fight sequence featured in Enter the Dragon, click on the link below for the image.

 

Link- https://hkmdb.com/db/movies/image_detail.mhtml?id=5449&image_id=414671&display_set=eng

 

Wonder where this is supposed to go in the sequence?

[DragonClaws]

Just now, Josh Baker said:

Wonder where this is supposed to go in the sequence?

 

Either before or after the slow-motion part of the cavern fight scene?. You are unable to see if there are any other stuntmen on the floor?. Which would help to maybe locate/I-D where it appears in among those particular scenes.

 

[DragonClaws]

 

Thanks to @TheKungFuRobber for posting this enhanced trailer online in a decent quality version.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

On 5/8/2022 at 12:32 PM, Josh Baker said:

Wonder where this is supposed to go in the sequence?

 

This sequence also may have been apart of the fight infront of the elevator?, that abrutly ends just before the staff sequence. Suddenly Mr Lee has leaped over the opium pans?, and fight the guards with a staff. The possible cut scene I'm talking about occurs at 2-minuts 14-secs, in the below video.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by DragonClaws

[Josh Baker]

16 minutes ago, DragonClaws said:

 

This sequence also may have been apart of the fight infront of the elevator?, that abrutly ends just before the staff sequence. Suddenly Mr Lee has leaped over the opium pans?, and fight the guards with a staff. The possible cut scene I'm talking about occurs at 2-minuts 14-secs, in the below video.

 

 

The only thing is I dont understand how the guy with the headband could get back up again after having his ribcage stamped in by Lee earlier in the fight 😂

[Josh Baker]

Also, all this unused Lee fight footage and none of it was used in GOD 2? I find that very strange

[DragonClaws]

Just now, Josh Baker said:

The only thing is I dont understand how the guy with the headband could get back up again after having his ribcage stamped in by Lee earlier in the fight 😂

 

A lot of the same stunt guy's turn up multiple times to get clobbered.

 

Just now, Josh Baker said:

Also, all this unused Lee fight footage and none of it was used in GOD 2? I find that very strange

 

There's a lot of connections between those two movies, and its rumoured that Golden Harvest planned to use more Bruce Lee footage in Tower of Death. Maybe this is why the end of Tower of Death, takes place in an underground hide out?.

 

[Cognoscente]

Once they killed off the Bruce Lee character, they couldn't use it for the finale unless they wanted to make a movie about twins. I remember reading that Golden Harvest wanted to use more BL footage but Ng See-Yuen put his foot down. Either way, they should have used these alternate fight takes for the Legend documentaries.

[Josh Baker]

1 minute ago, Cognoscente said:

Once they killed off the Bruce Lee character, they couldn't use it for the finale unless they wanted to make a movie about twins. I remember reading that Golden Harvest wanted to use more BL footage but Ng See-Yuen put his foot down. Either way, they should have used these alternate fight takes for the Legend documentaries.

So if Ng-See Yuen wasnt calling the shots, GH wouldve gone ahead with having it be Bruce throughout the movie and use the unused ETD (or any other of his movies) footage?

[Josh Baker]

2 minutes ago, DragonClaws said:

 

A lot of the same stunt guy's turn up multiple times to get clobbered.

 

 

There's a lot of connections between those two movies, and its rumoured that Golden Harvest planned to use more Bruce Lee footage in Tower of Death. Maybe this is why the end of Tower of Death, takes place in an underground hide out?.

 

Thats exactly why, theres a deleted scene where Kim Tai Chung fights a guy wearing the ETD black jumpsuit on a set thats almost an exact re-creation of the opium lab from ETD. I wonder why...

[DragonClaws]

Just now, Cognoscente said:

Once they killed off the Bruce Lee character, they couldn't use it for the finale unless they wanted to make a movie about twins. I remember reading that Golden Harvest wanted to use more BL footage but Ng See-Yuen put his foot down. Either way, they should have used these alternate fight takes for the Legend documentaries.

 

How different would the movie have turned out, if they had gone with using more unseen footage.

 

[Kevin Chan]

1 hour ago, Cognoscente said:

I remember reading that Golden Harvest wanted to use more BL footage but Ng See-Yuen put his foot down.

I remember quite the opposite, lol.

I think on the HKL DVD of GoD2 it was either an interview with Ng See-Yuen or it was mentioned by Roy Horan in the audio commentary that Golden Harvest kind of lured Ng to direct the movie because they claimed to have a ton of unused footage, but when he started dissecting the footage he learned it was actually much less than he was promised.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Kevin Chan

[Cognoscente]

1 hour ago, Josh Baker said:

So if Ng-See Yuen wasnt calling the shots, GH wouldve gone ahead with having it be Bruce throughout the movie and use the unused ETD (or any other of his movies) footage?

It would appear that way. GH were more desperate to cash in on the success of SITES and DM than GOD. It seems like GH used BL as an excuse to coax key personnel from Seasonal. TOD seemed to be more of a Seasonal one than a GH one. On the Bruce Lee Lives forum, I posted more about my thoughts on the matter: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bruceleelivestributeforum/ng-see-yuen-interview-t3689-s10.html#p33653

17 minutes ago, Kevin Chan said:

I remember quite the opposite, lol.

I think on the HKL DVD of GoD2 it was either an interview with Ng See-Yuen or it was mentioned by Roy Horan in the audio commentary that Golden Harvest kind of lured Ng to direct the movie because they claimed to have a ton of unused footage, but when he started dissecting the footage he learned it was actually much less than he was promised.

Check out the second page of a Combat interview that I posted over at the BLL forum. Ng is quoted as saying: "There is more there (at Golden Harvest) that I decided not to use."

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bruceleelivestributeforum/viewtopic.php?p=33644#p33644