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

[ShawAngela]

On 6/3/2023 at 11:04 PM, CharlieParker said:

because they didn't work (saw in the head

The German blu ray shows Bruce taking the saw, and then, there is a big blood splash on the screen, so, maybe the scene exists and they changed it this way in order to "protect" the audience from too much blood ?

On 6/2/2023 at 6:14 PM, DragonClaws said:

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?.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that in one version I saw many years ago, Bruce gave them something to eat and either they were "dompted", either they fell asleep. Maybe I saw this in my French VHS.

On 6/2/2023 at 2:59 PM, CharlieParker said:

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.

I'm not sure if she was topless, but there is a similar scene where Bruce sees Maria Yi instead of the prostitute during the banquet. I don't remember in which version I saw it.

 

I'm also almost sure that I saw somewhere the scene with the second prostitute in one of my versions, still maybe in my French VHS? I don't know.

[Omni Dragon]

26 minutes ago, ShawAngela said:

I'm not sure if she was topless, but there is a similar scene where Bruce sees Maria Yi instead of the prostitute during the banquet. I don't remember in which version I saw it.

The character imagines or hallucinates seeing Maria Yi through a drunken fantasy instead of the prostitute in the regular version.

 

30 minutes ago, ShawAngela said:

I'm also almost sure that I saw somewhere the scene with the second prostitute in one of my versions, still maybe in my French VHS? I don't know.

 The second prostitute is seen in a few trailers.

[Coliseum1972]

4 hours ago, ShawAngela said:

The German blu ray shows Bruce taking the saw, and then, there is a big blood splash on the screen, so, maybe the scene exists and they changed it this way in order to "protect" the audience from too much blood ?

Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that in one version I saw many years ago, Bruce gave them something to eat and either they were "dompted", either they fell asleep. Maybe I saw this in my French VHS.

I'm not sure if she was topless, but there is a similar scene where Bruce sees Maria Yi instead of the prostitute during the banquet. I don't remember in which version I saw it.

 

I'm also almost sure that I saw somewhere the scene with the second prostitute in one of my versions, still maybe in my French VHS? I don't know.

Saw scene was pictured on italian movie posters , Italy didnt seem to have a problem with such a scene (that is if it was actually shown there , it prolly wasnt , just pr shots......then again people who saw BB then are starting to pass away now or might not remember properly)

[DragonClaws]

17 hours ago, Coliseum1972 said:

couldve sworn it was another customer at the brothel but it might as well been the manager as rumored....... 

 

If the scene was filmed, was it it an attempt to catch Lee's chracter unaware?. Him vanishing from the film was never explained, which may have just been a continuity issue?.

 

[WarriorBloodCrest]

6 minutes ago, DragonClaws said:

 

If the scene was filmed, was it it an attempt to catch Lee's chracter unaware?. Him vanishing from the film was never explained, which may have just been a continuity issue?.

 

catch unaware? not quite following what you mean there.

[CastleOfDeath]

I'm wondering if people don't just mix this hallucination scene with the one in Stoner, when Lazenby sees Angela Mao after being given the love drugs and hallucinate it's actually Betty Ting Pei.

I know some people went online for years saying there was a cut scene in Terminator 2 where Arnold says "Shuuuut Upppp!!!", when it's actually in Kindergarten Cop. Same kind of stuff.

[PandaPawPaw]

Maybe people were stoned when they watched Big Boss back in the day.

[DragonClaws]

Just now, WarriorBloodCrest said:

catch unaware? not quite following what you mean there.

 

Did the ice factory boss plan to attack Bruce's character while his attention was elswhere?.

[Coliseum1972]

The manager got into an argument with Lo Wei and quit or was fired , Malalene watched them fight i read......

[DragonClaws]

On 6/11/2023 at 9:16 PM, Coliseum1972 said:

The manager got into an argument with Lo Wei and quit or was fired , Malalene watched them fight i read......

 

They should have put his characters face in the ice blocks, with the other body parts.

 

[Josh Baker]

 

[Omni Dragon]

On 6/17/2023 at 3:53 PM, Josh Baker said:

 

So it seems like it was in the Golden Harvest/Media Asia/Fortune Stars archive all along? 

If that's the case I don't understand how it was missed? Did they not realise they had it until recently? When having recent scans done or something? Did they not realise or even care about the significance of it? Something else?

[Josh Baker]

6 hours ago, Omni Dragon said:

So it seems like it was in the Golden Harvest/Media Asia/Fortune Stars archive all along? 

If that's the case I don't understand how it was missed? Did they not realise they had it until recently? When having recent scans done or something? Did they not realise or even care about the significance of it? Something else?

I read on this site called Lair of Lost Films that an independent company (not HKL) wanted to put it out on DVD in 2004 but Fortune Star put a stop to it. 

I think though this site is like Wikipedia where its user altered so I don't know whether it's true or not, there may be a citation but I can't remember.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Josh Baker

[starschwar]

I vividly remember the news making the rounds back in the day - "The version you've never seen! Edition"   But I figured it was a hoax, since nothing came of it.  So in other words, it is true that the version was announced, but I sincerely doubt there was ever going to be a release.

I simply refuse to believe that Fortune Star has been sitting on this for decades.  Impossible.  Bruce's small filmography has been milked so much in the half-century since his death.  It is inconceivable that they would sit on a goldmine, a holy grail such as extended Big Boss and not think to permit its release until now. 

 

That said, FS's website has had the movie's runtime listed at 115 minutes since at least 2017.

 

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

 

So I think a more likely explanation is that there was indeed a search / chance discovery at some point before then, but lengthy/expensive restoration was required before it was in a releasable state.  I mean... the Criteron box set came out just three years ago, with the theatrical cut of Enter the Dragon being a selling point.  There's no way they didn't inquire about this. 

[PandaPawPaw]

I was under the impression that Fortune Star has only in the last few years become more helpful and actually want to help make the most complete discs.

I remember one film that had missing frames or something and a request was made to FS to find them and they did. I don't think they would of done this years ago.

Maybe new management or they just realised being helpful is actually beneficial to them.

Either way at least it's finally being released.

Edited June 19, 2023 by PandaPawPaw

[DragonClaws]

On 6/19/2023 at 12:56 AM, starschwar said:

I simply refuse to believe that Fortune Star has been sitting on this for decades.  Impossible.  Bruce's small filmography has been milked so much in the half-century since his death.  It is inconceivable that they would sit on a goldmine, a holy grail such as extended Big Boss and not think to permit its release until now. 

 

Warner Brothers continue to do this, they have material in their vault thats just siting their. They could have given fans at least a teaser of what they have, a ten minute montage of behind the scene clips in HD. They havent even put together any new documentaries, interviews or other unique special features, for its latest release. The films made the studio and other people a lot of money over the last five decades, but I guess these releases are mostly aimed at new fans. There's always another generation coming up to sell these older films to, the ones who havent been over exposed or jaded. The same way older music acts can be re-sold over and over to the next generation in continually re/remastered new releases, Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana being two examples.

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by DragonClaws

[CastleOfDeath]

Sadly, these companies are often run by youngsters and oldsters who just don't have our culture or passion for films.

Their interest is not films, their interest is keeping their salaries and position in the corporation.

Edited June 20, 2023 by CastleOfDeath

[CharlieParker]

It does feel like someone just got a print from Taiwan or possibly Singapore - which explains the Mandarin dub. The prints playing in Hong Kong would have been in Cantonese. Maybe someone at Fortune Star figured this out and bothered to look. It would explain why nobody happened to mention it before. It's not like licensing a film is cheap, and a new 'more complete' version translates as cash to these rights holders. I've yet to meet anyone with an aversion to cash - whether they like the fu or not.

 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by CharlieParker

[Josh Baker]

6 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

Warner Brother continue to do this, they have material in their vault thats just siting their. They could have given fans at least a teaser of what they have, a ten minute montage of behind the scene clips in HD. They havent even put together any new documenaries interview of other unique special features, for its latest release. The films made the studio and other people a lot of money over the last five decades, but I guess these releases are mostly aimed at new fans. There's always another generation coming up to sell these older films to, the ones who havent been over exposed or jaded. The same way older music acts can be re-sold over and over to the next generation in continually re/remastered new releases, Jim Hendrix, Nirvana being two examples.

 

WB management is in disarray right now so they're probably not thinking about it- it makes me wish the rights for ETD had been subsidised to GH/Fortune Star for home video release during the DVD era, like they did with Battle Creek Brawl; that film did make less money though so it would've been easier to give up.

An early 2000s HKL release of Enter the Dragon would've been fucking ace- deleted scenes would've definitely have made their way on there.

[starschwar]

38 minutes ago, CharlieParker said:

It does feel like someone just got a print from Taiwan or possibly Singapore - which explains the Mandarin dub. The prints playing in Hong Kong would have been in Cantonese.

 

 

 

It's my understanding that Bruce's movies didn't get Cantonese dubs until the 1980s Hong Kong re-releases.  All the old trailers - including the one for Big Boss that had snippets of the lost footage - were in Mandarin, at the very least.  I think Cantonese in general wasn't really a commonly used language for movie audio until the late 1970s.  Going by Jackie Chan's filmography, all his Lo Wei stuff prior to Fearless Hyena (1979) were Mandarin first, with both of his Seasonal films (1978) being the first to jump to Canto as primary language.  So that might give an idea as to when the switchover started.  I'm not entirely sure why  , I'm sure someone here knows the details.

[Josh Baker]

9 minutes ago, starschwar said:

 

It's my understanding that Bruce's movies didn't get Cantonese dubs until the 1980s Hong Kong re-releases.  All the old trailers - including the one for Big Boss that had snippets of the lost footage - were in Mandarin, at the very least.  I think Cantonese in general wasn't really a commonly used language for movie audio until the late 1970s.  Going by Jackie Chan's filmography, all his Lo Wei stuff prior to Fearless Hyena (1979) were Mandarin first, with both of his Seasonal films (1978) being the first to jump to Canto as primary language.  So that might give an idea as to when the switchover started.  I'm not entirely sure why  , I'm sure someone here knows the details.

Yeah I think the Cantonese dubs were done in 1981?

[CharlieParker]

I stand corrected - I just did  a Google search and it seemed to suggest Cantonese became the norm in the 1970s. Clearly not the 'early' 70s

Do we know for sure when this switch over occurred?

[Coliseum1972]

the version I saw in late 80s prolly had burning cart scene too 

[Killer Meteor]

On 6/19/2023 at 11:58 PM, CharlieParker said:

I stand corrected - I just did  a Google search and it seemed to suggest Cantonese became the norm in the 1970s. Clearly not the 'early' 70s

Do we know for sure when this switch over occurred?

Golden Harvest didn't do a Cantonese martial arts film until 1977 with IRON FISTED MONK. Shaws took even longer, their first was SHADOW BOXING in 1979.

 

 

[DragonClaws]

On 6/28/2023 at 4:14 AM, Killer Meteor said:

Golden Harvest didn't do a Cantonese martial arts film until 1977 with IRON FISTED MONK. Shaws took even longer, their first was SHADOW BOXING in 1979.

 

Were Cantonese audiences just not as into Martial Arts movies?.

Edited June 29, 2023 by DragonClaws