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

[starschwar]

8 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

Apart from the often talked about continuity errors/jump cuts in some of The Big Boss's many fight scenes. Will the Mandarin Print public release finally correct any other continuity errors featured in the film?.

 

I think it's safe to assume that the visual and audio discontinuities of the end of the river scene are going to be fixed.  This stuff isn't nearly as obvious with the Thomas and Koo scores, but the original score really makes you feel the cuts in the short version.  Note the position of Bruce's hands and the contents thereof whenever there audio jumps.. 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2023 by starschwar

[DragonClaws]

On 5/9/2023 at 6:51 PM, starschwar said:

I think it's safe to assume that the visual and audio discontinuities of the end of the river scene are going to be fixed.  This stuff isn't nearly as obvious with the Thomas and Koo scores, but the original score really makes you feel the cuts in the short version.  Note the position of Bruce's hands and the contents thereof whenever there audio jumps..

 

I think this scene would have played out better after the final brothel visit or just sbefore the last ice factory fight, then it would have gone straight to the final fight with Han Ying-Chieh after Cheng chracter dsicover his fallen cousins. Rather than interupting the pace of the films ending. The place of this scene within the movie, will be revelaed in the longer is release in July.

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by DragonClaws

[Coliseum1972]

Derby sounds more convinient since they show all the films in 1 day , might need a room as travelling back to Lon after a whole day is a bit much. Ive never seen BL in cinema , only bad thing ive seen the films like 40 times , lol

Edited May 18, 2023 by Coliseum1972

[saltysam]

Looks like i'll be missing this, train strikes announced for 2nd June

[fabhui]

51 minutes ago, saltysam said:

Looks like i'll be missing this, train strikes announced for 2nd June

Come along to the event in Derby on June 10th 😉

[Killer Meteor]

I wish my local arthouse was getting them!

[PandaPawPaw]

12 hours ago, saltysam said:

Looks like i'll be missing this, train strikes announced for 2nd June

You could always use Bruce's method of getting to places.....

[DragonClaws]

 

Anyone having any issues with editing their posts in this thread?.

 

 

[Josh Baker]

Hey for those who cant make 2nd June there's a preview screening of the Mandarin Cut on May 31st at the PCC. I shall be there

[DragonClaws]

On 5/18/2023 at 12:48 PM, saltysam said:

Looks like i'll be missing this, train strikes announced for 2nd June

 

Dont get started on this subject, so many people I know cancaelling trips and holidays due to the train constantly striking. It seems the services are striking at least once a week where I live, and its usally always on a Saterday or Weekend. Many people out there unable to even get to work, or go out on the weekend due to this.

[DragonClaws]

On 5/9/2023 at 6:51 PM, starschwar said:

I think it's safe to assume that the visual and audio discontinuities of the end of the river scene are going to be fixed.  This stuff isn't nearly as obvious with the Thomas and Koo scores, but the original score really makes you feel the cuts in the short version.  Note the position of Bruce's hands and the contents thereof whenever there audio jumps.. 

 

Yes, Im more curious about some of the other jump cuts in the movie. Even though this scene has been trimmed, there's always been fair bit of info about it online and in books/magazines articles etc.

[CharlieParker]

There's an interesting breakdown of all the scenes alleged to have been included at a one-off screening in the UK in 1979. I've copied this directly from imdb - mostly because I'm curious to see if it matches the newly found footage.

Remember, a lot of people say they saw these things - but others say they didn't, and that their memories are playing tricks on them (for example, they saw a fragment of a cut scene later in a trailer and merged the memories together, etc)

Was this the version screened in 1979? And can we finally put all the rumours to bed - after all these years.

This is the list of collected memories of that version:

It is said that the fully uncut version was shown in London, England in 1979, which was approximately 105 to 110 minutes long. This means, about 5 to 10 minutes of additional footage was shown. Footage included:

• Longer fight between Cheng Chao-An (Bruce Lee)/Hsiu Chien (James Tien) against the casino bouncers, in which the bouncers try to run the two over with a burning cart of coals.
• A scene of dialog with Hsiu bragging about the above fight to the other cousins and their uncle once they've returned home.
• A scene with Chiao Mei (Maria Yi) seeing Cheng and their uncle off before going back to the ferry dock with a couple of small glasses of tea.
• A scene of dialog between Bruce Lee and the drink stand girl (Nora Miao) after Bruce sees his uncle off at the ferry docks.
• Longer and more graphic scene of the first two cousins' deaths via large circular saws.
• Longer fight between Hsiu and Hsiao Chiun (Tony Liu) featuring a shot of Hsiu with blood literally squirting out of his head due to a knife attack.
• More bodies shown in the ice blocks when Bruce is "investigating" at the ice factory.
• A cut from the banquet scene where Cheng gets drunk. While his vision blurs, he hallucinates and sees Wu Mang (Malalene) topless, and it quickly changes to an image of Chiao Mei.
• Slightly extended scene with Cheng finding his cousins murdered.
• Additional shots of the murdered cousins superimposed over the river as Cheng contemplates what to do next.
• After Cheng throws his last possessions into the riverside, he screams in Mandarin three times (with Bruce Lee being dubbed since he was actually speaking Cantonese), "I'll get revenge" while shaking his fist. It is noticeable, before he runs to the boss' mansion, that he can been seen him holding his fist up in the air in the regular cut.
• Between the time Cheng runs from the river to the boss' mansion, he runs into the Pak Chong town and stops outside the brothel. He pauses for a moment and decides to go in. Inside, he pays some money to someone behind a counter, and goes upstairs to where the sex slaves are sitting. He picks a Thai prostitute (who is actually visible in the background the second time Cheng visits the brothel), and they go to the same room he had slept in with Malalene. The prostitute closes the curtains, and she tries to flirt with Cheng, only to be roughly pushed onto the bed by him. He then takes off his shirt and she removes her dress. They face each other; Cheng is standing naked behind the bed (with a noticeably emotionless face). The prostitute lies on the bed and Cheng (waist-high shot) walks toward the camera and blurs out the scene. Next, Cheng is shown putting on his shirt, while the prostitute is still sleeping on the bed, with a well-satisfied expression on her face. While she's sleeping, Cheng takes out his remaining money, and lays it down on her stomach, even though he already paid to be with her. He does this since he realizes that he will not need it anymore if he dies. He also then sees a bag of prawn crackers and decides to take them as a "last meal". This explains why he has the crackers when he shows up at the boss' mansion. This scene, with Cheng at the brothel, was supposed to explain that if he knew he was going to die or get arrested while trying to seek revenge, he might as well enjoy his final pleasures with the prostitute, and eat the crackers as his last supper. However, many people would've thought of Cheng as "I'll get revenge...after I have some sex." They may not have understood the message trying to be sent across, or taken kindly to the hero postponing the revenge and the rescue of his cousin for the sake of a final sexual encounter, so the scene was cut, only to be in this version, well as the 1971 version that premiered in Hong Kong.
• In an interview, director Lo Wei explained his rationale for the above-mentioned scene: "The hero of The Big Boss is an energetic young man. When such a man prepares to kill the villain at any cost, he naturally will want to give vent to his desire. So, he goes to the whorehouse and makes love to a prostitute."
• Furthermore, an old HK poster magazine from 1976 describes another scene which was apparently filmed as part of Bruce's encounter with the second Thai prostitute but cut by the HK censors, not long after the film's release. It is recorded by the Censor's Office as follows: 'Cheng Chao-An and a Thai prostitute make love in bed. The moaning noises produced are so loud that another couple in the adjacent room are disturbed. The girl peeps through a hole into Cheng's room. The man also wants to see, but the girl will not give way until he pays her some money. The man cannot held (sic) himself, he pays.'Like the 'saw in the head', this 'peeping' scene was also not included in the Mandarin print screened in London in 1979, so this must have been the version that suffered slightly at the hands of the HK censors shortly after the premiere, but predated the further (and more significant) cuts made by the studio for the international release in 1973.
• A second "blood tasting" shot, in which Cheng tastes the blood from his stomach when he's been cut with a knife by The Boss. This was most likely trimmed as not to seem repetitive after a similar shot the night before. In current prints, the scene is re-edited by cutting out the blood tasting portion of the scene and replacing with the first part of the dollying back shot of The Boss. It is most likely that the shot played out with Cheng ripping off the remnants of his shirt, tasting his blood, and then having the look of anger on his face. After this, the entire dollying shot of The Boss about to attack Cheng would be shown.
• The extended death scene of the boss, which is only partially shown in different parts in different cuts. The Hong Kong version shows the "aftermath" in which blood is shown running down The Boss' pant legs and Cheng's fingers visibly buried in The Boss' chest. However, once the camera has fully panned up and the two begin to rotate around one another, the scene cuts to a wide shot of the two. The censored versions, however, show the second half of the original scene, cutting out the explicit footage of what Cheng did to The Boss, but replacing it with the full shot of the two of them slowly walking around one another. No current wide-release print shows the scene in its entirety, but the two halves of this full scene do exist separately. 90% of the above mentioned scenes have some type of solid proof to back up their existence, whether it be through old first release movie trailers (the scene with Hsiu bragging about the fight, additional Nora Miao scene, Hsiu's "battle damage", more bodies in ice, final brothel scene) or still photos (extended fight with casino bouncers, Chiao Mei seeing off Cheng and Uncle, Cheng vowing revenge by the river). However, a couple of scenes are only known through people who saw the extended print, either in 1979, or through private collectors, such as the extended scene of the two cousins being cut up by the circular saws.

Edited May 23, 2023 by CharlieParker

[CharlieParker]

Found this post on the bluray forums:

Originally Posted by Hatfield Peverel 

So, I went to the Prince Charles Cinema's screening of the Mandarin cut of The Big Boss tonight, and was very interested to see what had been restored.

The restoration looked terrific, and was introduced by James Flower, the set's producer. The additional material is somewhat faded and worn, and has the burned-in subtitles, but doesn't look as bad as I'd feared.

Spoilers for the additional scenes (or as many as I can remember) below:
 

First up: contrary to the accumulated rumours, there's almost no extra gore. The exception is James Tien getting bloodily slashed in the head during his final confrontation. There's several extra shots involving exchanged looks between him and his assailant at this point in the fight, while his head spurts/streams blood, which works far better than what was previously available.

But there's nothing extra in the way of the cutting up of the cousins [EDIT: there IS an extension to the end of this scene of a decapitated head being thrown into the ice mould as water is poured in, as OldPangYau correctly points out below], or the bodies being found in the ice. It looks like Hong Kong censorship took almost everything out that was previously rumoured before it got in front of audiences. The alleged scene where Bruce drunkenly imagines a waitress topless also isn't there.

Much of the restored footage is brief shots, or extra lines during conversations.

The overall sense you get from the edits is to speed up the first half to get to Bruce's portion of the film earlier. There are several extended fights - James Tien's brawl with the ice cart bullies is greatly elongated. Similarly, when we meet the Big Boss for the first time, the fight that involves his son has more material, as does the Boss's demonstration of fighting tactics.

There's some extra stuff with the family early on, involving bad sportsmanship in a game of draughts before Bruce arrives.

The extended attack scene after the gambling den is short but enjoyable - it isn't a flaming cart, but two carts coming from either end of a narrow alley that Bruce and James leap up onto a wall to avoid. They then get home and James describes what happened to the rest of the family in lengthy comic detail.

There's also a longer, more effective introduction to the assassins/kidnappers invading the family home towards the end before their massacre.

The extra material at the end is interesting too - there's lots more of Bruce's inner monologue by the river before he jumps up and screams for revenge. And Bruce's final visit to the brothel is great to see, but I do think it probably derails the momentum of the final stretch. It does seem like he gets distracted rather too easily. The scene where he selects the prostitute he wants is quite memorable too, given that there are about 25 all sitting in a corridor, before settling on the one he likes best.

There's also a slightly extended final moment of death for the Boss too.

The original Golden Harvest wheatfields logo is back at the start, as well as the original "The End" final shot as well.

The film definitely feels more complete with this material back in - several scenes are less choppy and abrupt, and less crude in their construction. The brief scene where Bruce Lee sees Nora Miao again and tries to ignore her smiling at him so as to keep his mind on higher things (as glimpsed in one of the trailers) helps bridge the scene when he goes to ask her later about his missing relatives.

It was such a pleasure to see all the extra footage, I don't quite know if this version is "better" than the standard cut we all know, or if on repeat viewings I'd find it slows the film down too much. My gut feeling is that nearly all of it strengthens the film and makes it a more satisfying experience overall. It's great to have it back.

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by CharlieParker

[Josh Baker]

2 hours ago, CharlieParker said:

Found this post on the bluray forums:

Originally Posted by Hatfield Peverel 

So, I went to the Prince Charles Cinema's screening of the Mandarin cut of The Big Boss tonight, and was very interested to see what had been restored.

The restoration looked terrific, and was introduced by James Flower, the set's producer. The additional material is somewhat faded and worn, and has the burned-in subtitles, but doesn't look as bad as I'd feared.

Spoilers for the additional scenes (or as many as I can remember) below:
 

First up: contrary to the accumulated rumours, there's almost no extra gore. The exception is James Tien getting bloodily slashed in the head during his final confrontation. There's several extra shots involving exchanged looks between him and his assailant at this point in the fight, while his head spurts/streams blood, which works far better than what was previously available.

But there's nothing extra in the way of the cutting up of the cousins [EDIT: there IS an extension to the end of this scene of a decapitated head being thrown into the ice mould as water is poured in, as OldPangYau correctly points out below], or the bodies being found in the ice. It looks like Hong Kong censorship took almost everything out that was previously rumoured before it got in front of audiences. The alleged scene where Bruce drunkenly imagines a waitress topless also isn't there.

Much of the restored footage is brief shots, or extra lines during conversations.

The overall sense you get from the edits is to speed up the first half to get to Bruce's portion of the film earlier. There are several extended fights - James Tien's brawl with the ice cart bullies is greatly elongated. Similarly, when we meet the Big Boss for the first time, the fight that involves his son has more material, as does the Boss's demonstration of fighting tactics.

There's some extra stuff with the family early on, involving bad sportsmanship in a game of draughts before Bruce arrives.

The extended attack scene after the gambling den is short but enjoyable - it isn't a flaming cart, but two carts coming from either end of a narrow alley that Bruce and James leap up onto a wall to avoid. They then get home and James describes what happened to the rest of the family in lengthy comic detail.

There's also a longer, more effective introduction to the assassins/kidnappers invading the family home towards the end before their massacre.

The extra material at the end is interesting too - there's lots more of Bruce's inner monologue by the river before he jumps up and screams for revenge. And Bruce's final visit to the brothel is great to see, but I do think it probably derails the momentum of the final stretch. It does seem like he gets distracted rather too easily. The scene where he selects the prostitute he wants is quite memorable too, given that there are about 25 all sitting in a corridor, before settling on the one he likes best.

There's also a slightly extended final moment of death for the Boss too.

The original Golden Harvest wheatfields logo is back at the start, as well as the original "The End" final shot as well.

The film definitely feels more complete with this material back in - several scenes are less choppy and abrupt, and less crude in their construction. The brief scene where Bruce Lee sees Nora Miao again and tries to ignore her smiling at him so as to keep his mind on higher things (as glimpsed in one of the trailers) helps bridge the scene when he goes to ask her later about his missing relatives.

It was such a pleasure to see all the extra footage, I don't quite know if this version is "better" than the standard cut we all know, or if on repeat viewings I'd find it slows the film down too much. My gut feeling is that nearly all of it strengthens the film and makes it a more satisfying experience overall. It's great to have it back.

 

I was there too! There wasn't much downgrade in the image quality in the new footage as you said, and as you said the extra footage did make the film feel more complete and whole, but in contrast to you I felt the second prostitute scene was the only one which shouldve stayed and was essential; it upped the stakes of the final duel because you see visually that Cheng Chao An isn't intendeding to come back from this after he gives the hooker all of his money. 

[CharlieParker]

That post was from the bluray forums by a user called Hatfield Peverel

I wish I had been there

Aside from the 'saw in the head' and the 'topless women' mirage - what is now considered completely lost? It does seem like most of the missing footage is in the Mandarin cut.

[DragonClaws]

22 hours ago, CharlieParker said:

what is now considered completely lost? It does seem like most of the missing footage is in the Mandarin cut.

 

More details will be in some of the special features on the ARROW Box-set. The peep hole scene mentioned material you shared from the IMDB, which must have been sourced from Jason Harts article?. I guess the rest is just hearsay or rumours that cant be proven. Id like to have seen what version went out to Taiwan back on its first run there. That market often got longer or more violent cuts in the 1970's, than those shown in Hong Kong.

Edited June 2, 2023 by DragonClaws

[CharlieParker]

I don't suppose anyone has a scan of the HK poster magazine from 1976 with this reference to this extra peepshow scene in the brothel?

And what is the reference source for this scene:

• A cut from the banquet scene where Cheng gets drunk. While his vision blurs, he hallucinates and sees Wu Mang (Malalene) topless, and it quickly changes to an image of Chiao Mei.

 

The list I posted above seems to imply it was possibly in the Mandarin cut screening in 1979 - but we now know it almost certainly wasn't in it. Is this one to scrub off the list entirely?

I'm asking as someone who's just curious and doesn't have the cash to fork out for this box set. It's just information that's freely available on the web - the snag is where to find the sources?

Edited June 2, 2023 by CharlieParker

[DragonClaws]

56 minutes ago, CharlieParker said:

And what is the reference source for this scene:

 

Dont quote me, as Im not 100% sure on this one, but I think it was Director Lo Wei who mentioned it in a interview?. We know BL mentioned some cuts that were made, in the Ted Thomas interview he did.

 

56 minutes ago, CharlieParker said:

The list I posted above seems to imply it was possibly in the Mandarin cut screening in 1979 - but we now know it almost certainly wasn't in it. Is this one to scrub off the list entirely?

 

Some people also claimed the saw scene was included, while others confirmed it wasnt such as @shukocarl1441996347. Sme of the 70s Asian Martial Art flicks, featured a gag where a brothel customer was offered a glimpse through a peep hole. It's a sigh gag/joke thats been used in other films too. Im not saying it didnt exist at one time, but there are a lot of urban myths/misinformation that have built up around it over the years.

If you had access to every version, maybe there woldnt be any one cut that features every scene. These films, like so many others, were edited for different markets, sometimes remvoing violence, or even animal cruelty, that Asian audiences at the time didnt mind. It strange how, The Big Boss has a group of attack dogs, yet when Cheng goes to the mansion at the end. They are knowhere to be seen?, what happened to them?.

 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by DragonClaws

[CastleOfDeath]

I don't think this scene exists, it probably was mistaken with a similar scene from a french film.

Look, in the 70's, many people would go around making themselves feel important by inventing stuff, just to shine over other people. Bruce Lee was a prime target for this kind of lies and abuse.

[Brucemee]

On 5/23/2023 at 1:58 PM, CharlieParker said:

There's an interesting breakdown of all the scenes alleged to have been included at a one-off screening in the UK in 1979. I've copied this directly from imdb - mostly because I'm curious to see if it matches the newly found footage.

Remember, a lot of people say they saw these things - but others say they didn't, and that their memories are playing tricks on them (for example, they saw a fragment of a cut scene later in a trailer and merged the memories together, etc)

Was this the version screened in 1979? And can we finally put all the rumours to bed - after all these years.

This is the list of collected memories of that version:

It is said that the fully uncut version was shown in London, England in 1979, which was approximately 105 to 110 minutes long. This means, about 5 to 10 minutes of additional footage was shown. Footage included:

• Longer fight between Cheng Chao-An (Bruce Lee)/Hsiu Chien (James Tien) against the casino bouncers, in which the bouncers try to run the two over with a burning cart of coals.
• A scene of dialog with Hsiu bragging about the above fight to the other cousins and their uncle once they've returned home.
• A scene with Chiao Mei (Maria Yi) seeing Cheng and their uncle off before going back to the ferry dock with a couple of small glasses of tea.
• A scene of dialog between Bruce Lee and the drink stand girl (Nora Miao) after Bruce sees his uncle off at the ferry docks.
• Longer and more graphic scene of the first two cousins' deaths via large circular saws.
• Longer fight between Hsiu and Hsiao Chiun (Tony Liu) featuring a shot of Hsiu with blood literally squirting out of his head due to a knife attack.
• More bodies shown in the ice blocks when Bruce is "investigating" at the ice factory.
• A cut from the banquet scene where Cheng gets drunk. While his vision blurs, he hallucinates and sees Wu Mang (Malalene) topless, and it quickly changes to an image of Chiao Mei.
• Slightly extended scene with Cheng finding his cousins murdered.
• Additional shots of the murdered cousins superimposed over the river as Cheng contemplates what to do next.
• After Cheng throws his last possessions into the riverside, he screams in Mandarin three times (with Bruce Lee being dubbed since he was actually speaking Cantonese), "I'll get revenge" while shaking his fist. It is noticeable, before he runs to the boss' mansion, that he can been seen him holding his fist up in the air in the regular cut.
• Between the time Cheng runs from the river to the boss' mansion, he runs into the Pak Chong town and stops outside the brothel. He pauses for a moment and decides to go in. Inside, he pays some money to someone behind a counter, and goes upstairs to where the sex slaves are sitting. He picks a Thai prostitute (who is actually visible in the background the second time Cheng visits the brothel), and they go to the same room he had slept in with Malalene. The prostitute closes the curtains, and she tries to flirt with Cheng, only to be roughly pushed onto the bed by him. He then takes off his shirt and she removes her dress. They face each other; Cheng is standing naked behind the bed (with a noticeably emotionless face). The prostitute lies on the bed and Cheng (waist-high shot) walks toward the camera and blurs out the scene. Next, Cheng is shown putting on his shirt, while the prostitute is still sleeping on the bed, with a well-satisfied expression on her face. While she's sleeping, Cheng takes out his remaining money, and lays it down on her stomach, even though he already paid to be with her. He does this since he realizes that he will not need it anymore if he dies. He also then sees a bag of prawn crackers and decides to take them as a "last meal". This explains why he has the crackers when he shows up at the boss' mansion. This scene, with Cheng at the brothel, was supposed to explain that if he knew he was going to die or get arrested while trying to seek revenge, he might as well enjoy his final pleasures with the prostitute, and eat the crackers as his last supper. However, many people would've thought of Cheng as "I'll get revenge...after I have some sex." They may not have understood the message trying to be sent across, or taken kindly to the hero postponing the revenge and the rescue of his cousin for the sake of a final sexual encounter, so the scene was cut, only to be in this version, well as the 1971 version that premiered in Hong Kong.
• In an interview, director Lo Wei explained his rationale for the above-mentioned scene: "The hero of The Big Boss is an energetic young man. When such a man prepares to kill the villain at any cost, he naturally will want to give vent to his desire. So, he goes to the whorehouse and makes love to a prostitute."
• Furthermore, an old HK poster magazine from 1976 describes another scene which was apparently filmed as part of Bruce's encounter with the second Thai prostitute but cut by the HK censors, not long after the film's release. It is recorded by the Censor's Office as follows: 'Cheng Chao-An and a Thai prostitute make love in bed. The moaning noises produced are so loud that another couple in the adjacent room are disturbed. The girl peeps through a hole into Cheng's room. The man also wants to see, but the girl will not give way until he pays her some money. The man cannot held (sic) himself, he pays.'Like the 'saw in the head', this 'peeping' scene was also not included in the Mandarin print screened in London in 1979, so this must have been the version that suffered slightly at the hands of the HK censors shortly after the premiere, but predated the further (and more significant) cuts made by the studio for the international release in 1973.
• A second "blood tasting" shot, in which Cheng tastes the blood from his stomach when he's been cut with a knife by The Boss. This was most likely trimmed as not to seem repetitive after a similar shot the night before. In current prints, the scene is re-edited by cutting out the blood tasting portion of the scene and replacing with the first part of the dollying back shot of The Boss. It is most likely that the shot played out with Cheng ripping off the remnants of his shirt, tasting his blood, and then having the look of anger on his face. After this, the entire dollying shot of The Boss about to attack Cheng would be shown.
• The extended death scene of the boss, which is only partially shown in different parts in different cuts. The Hong Kong version shows the "aftermath" in which blood is shown running down The Boss' pant legs and Cheng's fingers visibly buried in The Boss' chest. However, once the camera has fully panned up and the two begin to rotate around one another, the scene cuts to a wide shot of the two. The censored versions, however, show the second half of the original scene, cutting out the explicit footage of what Cheng did to The Boss, but replacing it with the full shot of the two of them slowly walking around one another. No current wide-release print shows the scene in its entirety, but the two halves of this full scene do exist separately. 90% of the above mentioned scenes have some type of solid proof to back up their existence, whether it be through old first release movie trailers (the scene with Hsiu bragging about the fight, additional Nora Miao scene, Hsiu's "battle damage", more bodies in ice, final brothel scene) or still photos (extended fight with casino bouncers, Chiao Mei seeing off Cheng and Uncle, Cheng vowing revenge by the river). However, a couple of scenes are only known through people who saw the extended print, either in 1979, or through private collectors, such as the extended scene of the two cousins being cut up by the circular saws.

The way Lo Wei  (& Bruce, in an interview with Ted Thomas) tried to justify the sex scene with the prostitute before the climactic fight scenes is kind of silly. Come on, guys, you were making an exploitation film, of course you thought it'd be a good idea to throw in some sex & nudity to go along with the blood & violence! No need to try to justify it by saying this is what our deeply layered, well fleshed out lead character would have done under the circumstances!

That being said, I am, of course, very much looking forward to seeing this longer version of The Big Boss when I get the Arrow collection next month  

[PandaPawPaw]

I'm sure BL hated it.

BL: "What!?, another sex scene. I don't think it's needed but if you insist, I'll do it!".

BL: "BTW director I was thinking how about shooting me in a threesome scene with Maria and Nora? I think it'll really add to the story".

Director: "Bruce you little perv! Sounds good!"

BL: WATAH!

Edited June 3, 2023 by PandaPawPaw

[WarriorBloodCrest]

2 hours ago, Brucemee said:

The way Lo Wei  (& Bruce, in an interview with Ted Thomas) tried to justify the sex scene with the prostitute before the climactic fight scenes is kind of silly. Come on, guys, you were making an exploitation film, of course you thought it'd be a good idea to throw in some sex & nudity to go along with the blood & violence! No need to try to justify it by saying this is what our deeply layered, well fleshed out lead character would have done under the circumstances!

That being said, I am, of course, very much looking forward to seeing this longer version of The Big Boss when I get the Arrow collection next month  

Others think the scene is essential, others think it's unnecessary, and that's understandable. That said, Lo Wei's reasoning of pretty much "a young guy is going to want one last screw before dying" does reek of projection on his end as opposed to an accurate assumption of the mind of someone traumatized by familial death and preparing to die in an act of revenge. Those who don't think much of the movie as a whole would feel utilizing a prostitute for a pre-death battle carnal release would animalize Cheng Chao-An,  when he's supposed to be more human. Now if his relationship with the prostitute was a more developed and caring one, then one last act of intimacy before a death-battle would flow better as a message, but that's just me.

[CharlieParker]

It could well be that the studio/distributors who financed the film (Golden Harvest) insisted on a quota of t&a in the film to appease a section of the audience. It wasn't uncommon at all back then to require x amount of nudity before they'd get financing approved.

I wonder if the saw in the head/naked birds in a drunken mirage/peephole scene were all from the original shoot and were left out because they didn't work (saw in the head) or weren't needed (nudity) once they had their final cut. Either way, short of finding an early work-print, I think we can assume they're lost to time now. Unless there's something in the Taiwan National Film Archive? That would be the first and last port of call for those scenes at this point, I'm guessing.

Still, it's great to see that just about everything else has been rediscovered - all credit to Arrow for this.

[DragonClaws]

On 6/3/2023 at 2:04 PM, CharlieParker said:

I wonder if the saw in the head/naked birds in a drunken mirage/peephole scene were all from the original shoot and were left out because they didn't work (saw in the head) or weren't needed (nudity) once they had their final cut. Either way, short of finding an early work-print, I think we can assume they're lost to time now. Unless there's something in the Taiwan National Film Archive? That would be the first and last port of call for those scenes at this point, I'm guessing.

 

Did Golden Harvest dtich the first cut they showed in cinemas?, or was it archived just like the Mandarin print was?. That was never lost in the first place, it just slowly went out of circulation in the 80's as newer prints were made and sold around the world. With the same version being released worldwide, with a few minro exceptions/differences to some scenes.

 

On 6/2/2023 at 2:40 PM, CastleOfDeath said:

Look, in the 70's, many people would go around making themselves feel important by inventing stuff, just to shine over other people. Bruce Lee was a prime target for this kind of lies and abuse.

 

Good points, with Chinese whispers often being told as the truth. What makes it hard, is so few Westerners actually saw these movies on their first run in cinemas in Hong Kong and in the rest of Asia. By the time Bruce Lee became popular in the West, Hong Kong was already moving quickly onto the next big thing.

 

[Coliseum1972]

Im confident that a peep hole scene *was* in the vhs copy I saw late 80s (yes , real BB....not Bruce Li or other kf films) , there were a few different versions around then , of course since I dont have that copy I cannot proof it , I assume it was a rental tape. Who peeped I dont remember , couldve sworn it was another customer at the brothel but it might as well been the manager as rumored....... 

Edited June 5, 2023 by Coliseum1972