Hall of the Unknown - The Game Of Death Appreciation Thread

[Killer Meteor]

And here's something interesting - a Mandarin print that top-bills Sammo and James Tien (who gets no credit on the HK or English prints) above all the Oscar winners! And credits for Fung Hark-on and Yuen Biao, but not Casanova Wong. I wonder if this version was made before the decision to include Wong's fight with Billy Lo in the greenhouse.

Here is the Cantonese intro for comparison

 

Edited April 18, 2023 by Killer Meteor

[PandaPawPaw]

Is this true?

[Gung Fu Movie Guy]

3 hours ago, PandaPawPaw said:

Is this true?

No. This is from the soundtrack that Wayne Hawkins wrote for 'A Warrior's Journey' I've asked him a few times by email if he was planning on releasing the full soundtrack  on cd or digital. The last time I didn't get a reply. 

[PandaPawPaw]

A GOD game would rule!

[DragonClaws]

 

@PandaPawPaw, Im now seeing Chieh Yuen credited in the Game of Death credits as simply Log Dude. Dan Inosantos character was showing some guts facing upto that guy, he must have created carnage with that weapon the floor below?. Not the sort of guy you want to see coming at you in an alley way. Surprised he didnt smash Dan's tiger skinned seat/throne.

[DragonClaws]

 

George Lazenby once said that Bruce Lee wanted his character to turn up in further Bruce Lee movies after Game of Death (1972). Did Bruce Lee plan to do a sequel to Game of Death?, did the original have an open ending?. It all up in the air if these planned would all have been scrapped, after find international success.

 

[saltysam]

Don't believe much of what George claims Bruce told him tbh

[ShawAngela]

On 4/19/2023 at 1:12 PM, PandaPawPaw said:

Is this true?

I love it ! By Joseph Koo ? It looks like a mix between the Way of the dragon and Fist of fury themes.

[ShawAngela]

On 4/18/2023 at 2:08 PM, Killer Meteor said:

And here's something interesting - a Mandarin print that top-bills Sammo and James Tien (who gets no credit on the HK or English prints) above all the Oscar winners! And credits for Fung Hark-on and Yuen Biao, but not Casanova Wong. I wonder if this version was made before the decision to include Wong's fight with Billy Lo in the greenhouse.

Here is the Cantonese intro for comparison

 

I posted this very same Mandarin opening months ago, asking if anybody here had ever got the release with this song sung by Roman Tam (who also sings the Cantonese theme).

Of all the Game of death releases I have, none has this theme song and I wonder on which release it is, then !

This opening is much more beautiful than the usual one, in my opinion.

[DragonClaws]

 

I wonder who will be doing the soundtrack for the new Game of Death documentary by Arrow?. I'll always associate the footage with both John Barry's 1978 score, and Paul Dunlaps soundtrack from Bruce Lee The Legend (1984).

[DragonClaws]

 

"we've used music by Joseph Koo (such as his 'Game of Death theme' as heard in the opening credits of Bruce Lee: The Legend) and sound effects from other contemporaneous Golden Harvest films, including The Way of the Dragon."

"The majority of the runtime is the full 123 minutes of raw footage filmed for The Game of Death in 1972, meaning the pagoda fights with Dan Inosanto, Ji Han-jae and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, as well as exterior footage filmed in the New Territories with Dan, Ji and Hwang In-shik."

"As I've been asked more than once: no, there are no fights with Bruce filmed outside. Any photos showing this are just behind-the-scenes poses or rehearsals, nothing more. It is an extension of the footage seen briefly in Bruce Lee: The Legend, only now in its full 'scope ratio"

- James Flower

Source: James Flowers via Twitter

 

[Gung Fu Movie Guy]

On 4/29/2023 at 7:37 PM, ShawAngela said:

I love it ! By Joseph Koo ? It looks like a mix between the Way of the dragon and Fist of fury themes.

No it's by Wayne Hawkins for John Little's  'A Warrior's Journey' doc

Edited May 10, 2023 by Gung Fu Movie Guy

[DragonClaws]

 

"As I've been asked more than once: no, there are no fights with Bruce filmed outside. Any photos showing this are just behind-the-scenes poses or rehearsals, nothing more. It is an extension of the footage seen briefly in Bruce Lee: The Legend, only now in its full 'scope ratio." - James Flower

If George Tan was right about their being footage for all the images from Game of Death. Then the exterior shots feautring Bruce Lee must be from behind the scenes footage captured by Nishimoto Tadashi?, rather than the stuff they were capturing for the actual movie?.

Edited May 11, 2023 by DragonClaws

[Cheer You On]

On 4/18/2023 at 1:08 PM, Killer Meteor said:

And here's something interesting - a Mandarin print that top-bills Sammo and James Tien (who gets no credit on the HK or English prints) above all the Oscar winners! And credits for Fung Hark-on and Yuen Biao, but not Casanova Wong. I wonder if this version was made before the decision to include Wong's fight with Billy Lo in the greenhouse.

There may be something to that. There's a Mel Tobias book that I've been reading called Memoirs of an Asian Moviegoer, and it alludes to an alternate cut that was shown in an advanced screening. The movie was released in HK on March 23, 1978 but Mel's review was for the March 18 issue of the Hong Kong Standard where he wrote "The two Lee fights, lasting between 20 and 25 minutes, are the only redeemers of the film - without them it would all just be a worthless Kung Fu outing."

He also wrote that the Cantonese version contained more funeral footage! ("...and gives a lingering look at the real Lee in his coffin")

[CastleOfDeath]

There are variations of the HK prints, so I'm guessing, knowing that Samo Hung directed reshoots, that they were still trying to find the film balance up to the release and even after. However the author there might just have thought that the footage lasted 20mn instead of 10, with his enthusiasm for finally seeing it making him lose the sense of time.

I always wondered if those many phones conversation shot with Gig Young, weren't to cover with dubbing that Billy Lo will have two aides to meet him at the restaurant, and thus allow for full original GOD footage to run in with James Tien and Taky Kimura. The problem there is that "Billy" will be too relaxed and playful during the fights, with the stakes. But then the added Greenhouse fight might have been made to get that playful tone back in the film.

One thing that I found absurd the first time I watched the film, is how they added a level with Hugh O'Brian above the Kareem level. It makes no sense, Billy should dispose of him before reaching Dan Inosanto level. (Also that fight is pretty ridiculous, the moment he grabs Hugh feet, to no avail while screaming, is embarassing).

I think there should be a way to redo a fan edit where one put in the whole original shoot in, and reduce the rest of the film shot by Clouse, removing everything embarassing and all the padding. Even if ultimately the film will be 1h12. You put Hugh fight, reduced to 30s or something, on level one, and then have the rest play, maybe with Billy watching through the Pagoda broken windows the vilain falls to his death at the end. There's probably a better film in there.

[PandaPawPaw]

Is the set from the GOD78' version a new one or the original set bruce used?

Was the original dismantled straight away or did they leave it as is till they decided what to do with the footage?

Edited May 21, 2023 by PandaPawPaw

[CastleOfDeath]

I think, according to what I read, that they left the sets standing after Bruce passed away.

Some have discussed this here and elsewhere, but there's probably some truth in the idea that the scenes filmed by Bruce were a proof of concept, in order to get US interest. I mean all they shot was on one redressed set, with friends and no contracts (Kareem). It sounds like a short-film/proof of concept shoot. Taky Kamura said Bruce would have reshot it all once US financing was in place, after the release of ETD, and it makes sense.

I don't see Bruce shooting the rest of the film one year later, and keeping the original footage, that would have resulted in problems of visual continuity. I would see him, however, reshooting it all, (even on the same sets), with better wardrobe, set dressing and photography.

[CastleOfDeath]

Something I might add, I was watching recently Bruce Lee in G.O.D. 2003 special edition, and it looks to me this was a special release of the workprint of Bruce Lee in G.O.D. 2000 with some 5.1 enhancement.

Here's a breakdown of the different versions:

- Game Of Death actual Bruce Lee edit from 1973. This edit remains unreleased.

- Game Of Death 1978 version of the footage. I think this is actually the actual 1973 edit with some parts removed.

- Bruce Lee in G.O.D. 2000 is made from a scan of interpositives of the rushes. (probably the same scan coming from Arrow). It's available on Japanese DVD, and as an extra on Metropolitan Films (french Blu-ray), HK Legends (Special Edition DVD) and I think Shout Blu-ray releases thought I don't own those. They all use the DVD as source with some conversion or re-encoding.

- A Warrior's Journey is the low budget version made from a rip of an old Beta digital capture of the rushes. (the one found by Bey Logan). It's weird that Bey Logan dubbed Bruce in the japanese version, when they used scans that he never found, but not in the John Little version where John used the actual Beta tapes found by Logan, who licensed the stuff to him, but that is the weirdness of show-business to you. (John dubbed Lee himself on this one).

- Bruce Lee in G.O.D. 2003 has been criticized for it's low quality, (despite 5.1 mix), but it's obviously a release of the workprint (ie a bonus) of Bruce Lee in G.O.D. 2000 to celebrate the 30th anniversary.

- A Warrior's Journey remastered (available on YouTube) is a fan great work that use A Warrior's Journey edit, but replace all the beta tape sourced bad images with Bruce Lee in G.O.D. 2000 footage.

- Game Of Death Redux available from Criterion, is a fan edit bonus, that for obscure reason they added in their box set, despite the awful quality of the mix (as it's based on Bruce Lee in G.O.D. 2000 mixed with The Game Of Death final film footage). There's been justified criticism of this one, but one has to respect the idea to mix the 1978 edit (which is as I said probably is just the 1973 edit cut down) with the new found footage from Bruce Lee in G.O.D. 2000.

- Game Of Death Redux V2 is a try as reported, to fix the problems of Redux first version.

- Arrow forthcoming final version we haven't seen yet, but I think it may be a definitive version, with all the others becoming just curiosities.

Yes it's all complicated, but as are all things Bruce Lee.

Feel free to comment.

Edited May 21, 2023 by CastleOfDeath

[Cheer You On]

22 minutes ago, CastleOfDeath said:

- Game Of Death 1978 version of the footage. I think this is actually the actual 1973 edit with some parts removed.

I guess this would mean that Alan Pattillo edited only Clouse's work whereas Peter Cheung Yiu-Chung was responsible for editing the fight footage including Sammo's work.

[CastleOfDeath]

That would make sense. The final 1978 is clearly a hodge-podge of styles, I myself think the 1972 footage and the Samo shot fights are quite good, whereas the rest feels like a TV show shot in cinemascope. I think what Patillo did regarding the original 1972 footage is just edited it down to remove James Tien and Chieh Yuan. Or maybe he didn't even touch it, and Peter Cheung Yiu-Chung took care of it.

[Cheer You On]

On 5/21/2023 at 10:38 AM, CastleOfDeath said:

I always wondered if those many phones conversation shot with Gig Young, weren't to cover with dubbing that Billy Lo will have two aides to meet him at the restaurant, and thus allow for full original GOD footage

They did something like this in Billy's restaurant scene with Ann. We hear Gig talking about Charlie Wang but we don't see Gig talking about him. This suggests that Tien's fight with Kareem was rearranged in the editing room at the last minute. They could have used Chieh Yuan's fight with Inosanto when Steiner is talking to Billy in his trailer.

[CastleOfDeath]

I didn't notice, I need to watch the film again, (but probably will wait for the forthcoming set). I think you're right, they probably put that flashback in earlier so that audiences get a glimpse of what's to come, and keep bums in seats.

According to various reports and observations, it looks to me that Clouse early cut might have had the complete 1972 edit in, but they probably didn't like the end results, called Samo Hung for some reshoots, and decided to butcher the 1972 stuff to keep the movie pace.

It's impossible that they did not at least try to make a full 1972 edit work, before changing their minds. That's a given, there's no way they edited it all down just out of spite or because Clouse was "not impressed".

[Josh Baker]

6 hours ago, CastleOfDeath said:

I didn't notice, I need to watch the film again, (but probably will wait for the forthcoming set). I think you're right, they probably put that flashback in earlier so that audiences get a glimpse of what's to come, and keep bums in seats.

According to various reports and observations, it looks to me that Clouse early cut might have had the complete 1972 edit in, but they probably didn't like the end results, called Samo Hung for some reshoots, and decided to butcher the 1972 stuff to keep the movie pace.

It's impossible that they did not at least try to make a full 1972 edit work, before changing their minds. That's a given, there's no way they edited it all down just out of spite or because Clouse was "not impressed".

I agree it would've been weird for the plot of the '78 version to essentially stop for half an hour for the Bruce Lee footage to happen, but this highlights the whole problem of trying to complete the film whilst trying to change its plot- the original footage would feel shoehorned in because its unrelated to the new plot.

If there is an earlier edit I suppose that means there would've had to have been pickup shots of James Tien and Chieh Yuan's characters arriving at the Red Pepper restaurant- I guess they would've been played by doubles as well?

[CastleOfDeath]

Probably shot from the back. Also, that would mean when Billy Lo enters the restaurant, he hears the fight upstairs so he picks up his bamboo and nunchaku and there he goes. However that edit was probably junked once they did the reshoots and final edits. That's Hong Kong.

[Cheer You On]

On 5/21/2023 at 10:38 AM, CastleOfDeath said:

However the author there might just have thought that the footage lasted 20mn instead of 10, with his enthusiasm for finally seeing it making him lose the sense of time.

The movie certainly had its impact on him.