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

[saltysam]

Pretty sure it would be the 20th ,which was a Friday

[Cognoscente]

Steve Kerridge said 20: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bruceleelivestributeforum/bl-poll-please-all-vote-how-did-bl-die-t2987-s10.html#p13877

[DragonClaws]

9 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

Steve Kerridge said 20: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bruceleelivestributeforum/bl-poll-please-all-vote-how-did-bl-die-t2987-s10.html#p13877

 

@Cognoscente did Enter the Dragon get released in British Chinatowns uncut?, like Bruce Lee's earlier films?. Thanks for sharing the link, so the Fist of Fury crowds helped to spark the idea for Kung Fu Monthly.

 

[Cognoscente]

Tony Rayns might know.

[DragonClaws]

 

- What kinds of Asian clients are you working with?
- Almost every country has a national archive, but there are also many private libraries and our clients are completely mixed we work with both. We recently restored four
Bruce Lee titles in Hong Kong for Fortune Star Media Limited; they were The Big Boss (1971), The Way of the Dragon (1972), Fist of Fury (1972) and The Game of Death (1978). This project reflects the growing demand for 4K restorations and we were very proud to work on such important titles.

- What film materials were available and what condition were they in?
- For two of the titles we were able to work from the original camera negative and for the other two we started from the interpositive because the camera negative was not available. Since they are very popular films, the materials were pretty damaged through heavy use and in fact we decided to do Wet Gate scans for all four titles. There were a lot of scratches and other issues with the material – nothing impossible, but it took a long time to carry out the work. It was important to select the best elements available and to pay the same attention to the sound as to the image. Special attention was given to the color correction process, in order to respect the original look of the films.

- Does the fact that delicate film materials now won’t have to leave Asia reassure your clients?
- This is the most important thing,because sending films overseas makes people ner vous and increases the restoration costs. With our Asian hub we can cover the first part of the workflow locally, so in Hong Kong we do the film inspection, film repairs, film washing, film scanning and sound scanning. Then we send the files to Italy to be digitally restored. With the color correction we have two options: we can do it in Italy or we can do it in Hong Kong through a local partner, which is useful if the director or cinematographer live in Asia and can attend

source- https://www.arri.com/resource/blob/32352/3fbf25984e4759b73d254c6d4b99292a/2016-4-arri-news-english-data.pdf

 

Edited June 14, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

At the 42-seconds into the below 2018 tribute video, there's a very brief clip from an rare English Big Boss trailer. It uses the Big Boss title, which did appear in other markets even in America. The soundtrack in the background during the Big Boss vs Cheng Chiu-On showdown, is different in this trailer too. I don't think its from the old Rank trailer.

 

 

[shukocarl1441996347]

9 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

At the 42-seconds into the below 2018 tribute video, there's a very brief clip from an rare English Big Boss trailer. It uses the Big Boss title, which did appear in other markets even in America. The soundtrack in the background during the Big Boss vs Cheng Chiu-On showdown, is different in this trailer too. I don't think its from the old Rank trailer.

 

 

That clip is from a Super 8 sound trailer. I used to have a copy back in the 70's. It was the rejected English dub and has been widely seen...you should find it on one of the HKL releases.

[saltysam]

I paid a pretty penny to get that trailer transferred from super 8 to VHS back in the day

[DragonClaws]

 

The Fortune Star online movie catalogue currently lists The Big Boss with a running time of 115-Minutes. The same running time, that was listed on some of their 4K cinema screenings over the past few years.

Link- http://www.fortunestarentertainment.com/thebigboss.html

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

On 6/15/2022 at 1:44 AM, shukocarl1441996347 said:

That clip is from a Super 8 sound trailer. I used to have a copy back in the 70's. It was the rejected English dub and has been widely seen...you should find it on one of the HKL releases.

 

Thanks for reminding me, its a long time since I sat down and watched those extras.

 

23 hours ago, saltysam said:

I paid a pretty penny to get that trailer transferred from super 8 to VHS back in the day

 

Do own many of the old Super 8 trailers?.

[Kevin Chan]

19 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

The Fortune Star online movie catalogue currently lists The Big Boss with a running time of 115-Minutes. The same running time, that was listed on some of their 4K cinema screenings over the past few years.

Link- http://www.fortunestarentertainment.com/thebigboss.html

 

Whoa..!

[starschwar]

20 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

The Fortune Star online movie catalogue currently lists The Big Boss with a running time of 115-Minutes. The same running time, that was listed on some of their 4K cinema screenings over the past few years.

Link- http://www.fortunestarentertainment.com/thebigboss.html

 

 

It has been listed as such since 2017.  Either this is an old typo that has not been corrected, or they have been sitting on big news for half a decade.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20170620070500/http://www.fortunestarentertainment.com:80/thebigboss.html

[DragonClaws]

Just now, starschwar said:

It has been listed as such since 2017.  Either this is an old typo that has not been corrected, or they have been sitting on big news for half a decade.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20170620070500/http://www.fortunestarentertainment.com:80/thebigboss.html

 

Thats right, I first heard about it on the Bruce Lee Lives forum that year. The same years it was screened, with an extended runtime list at some cinemas. Possible errors again, especially if someones given them the wrong information. Have many fans tried to contact FortuneStar about this subject in the past four years.

 

[Coliseum1972]

Another BB dream i had : in this one there was no opening theme song in the movie , just the title in white and the characters stood next to a tree surrounding a large wooden basket of clothes in the front , Chow Mei prolly was gonna dry them , heh 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Coliseum1972

[DragonClaws]

On 6/14/2022 at 2:01 AM, Cognoscente said:

Tony Rayns might know.

 

I wonder if the Cantonese or Mandarin prints were shown around London and elswhere in the U.K. I've seen some Cantonese prints of Enter the Dragon, which have burnt in English subtitles spliced with susbtitles for other Asian dialects.

 

[Cognoscente]

The below still looks like a deleted scene that was captured in the novelization...

Cheekily referring to last night's sexual fun, Lee asks Roper: "Get a good sleep?"

Roper: "Not a lot."

He looks around and asks Lee: "What's this? Compulsory calisthenics?"

Lee shrugs wryly and says: "Compulsory enlightenment."

Edited June 27, 2022 by Cognoscente

[DragonClaws]

 

[DragonClaws]

On 6/27/2022 at 8:12 AM, Cognoscente said:

The below still looks like a deleted scene that was captured in the novelization...

 

[Cognoscente]

Glenn Johnson posted some stills of the scene on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/charisma4season/enter-the-dragon/

 

[PandaPawPaw]

Would Warner Brothers likely still have the ETD deleted footage or is it lost? I ask as I wonder if it was moved about or not given back when Tower of Death was being made?

[DragonClaws]

3 hours ago, PandaPawPaw said:

Would Warner Brothers likely still have the ETD deleted footage or is it lost? I ask as I wonder if it was moved about or not given back when Tower of Death was being made?

 

I'm not sure if unseen deleted scenes/outtakes and behind the scenes footage was all divided up. Or if it was all handed back over to Warner Brothers post 1981?. According to George Tan - Warner Brothers still have all the outtakes and footage in their vaults. I've included a quote by Tan, in my main article in the first post of this thread. Where he talks about this subject in an interview he did.

 

[shukocarl1441996347]

2 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

I'm not sure if unseen deleted scenes/outtakes and behind the scenes footage was all divided up. Or if it was all handed back over to Warner Brothers post 1981?. According to George Tan - Warner Brothers still have all the outtakes and footage in their vaults. I've included a quote by Tan, in my main article in the first post of this thread. Where he talks about this subject in an interview he did.

 

I'm sure GH didn't have any more Enter footage as we would have seen more in Game of Death 2. If there are still additional scenes surviving at Warners...well, I hope they are taking good care of them.

[Killer Meteor]

28 minutes ago, shukocarl1441996347 said:

I'm sure GH didn't have any more Enter footage as we would have seen more in Game of Death 2. If there are still additional scenes surviving at Warners...well, I hope they are taking good care of them.

I imagine GH could only use footage of Bruce for GOD2, so scenes with Saxon and Kelly were a no-no. And the fact the deleted scenes were still around in 1981 doesn't mean they would be now, but you never know.

[Coliseum1972]

On 6/7/2022 at 10:49 AM, shukocarl1441996347 said:

Okay, I was 21 when the 'uncut' print was shown in London (a KFM "Film Festival") and my first thought was "Oh, all the music is different" and of course it was in mandarin with subs. When the 'new' scenes played out I was just thinking, "well, that's not in our version". So the scenes with the Cart, the slightly extended body cutting at the factory the short conversation in the house, the 2nd prostitute were all present but the saw clip wasn't -whatever anyone remembers! I can't recollect anything else and of course no one had any inkling that we'd never see that version again.

what about the alleged key hole scene , couldve sworn i saw a cut with this as a kid......

[DragonClaws]

13 hours ago, Coliseum1972 said:

what about the alleged key hole scene , couldve sworn i saw a cut with this as a kid......

 

Jason Hart said in his article that this scene was one of the casulities of the Hong Kong censor cuts, edited pre to the widespread public theatrical release in Hong Kong. Which most likely never made it to any kind of VHS release.