Green Bamboo Warrior & Producer Andrew Vajna

[Josh Baker]

3 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

It's sad that Bruce never got to do big budget movies. The transition would have been akin to JCVD transitioning from Cannon to Universal.

I mean GH are a level above Cannon😂 but yeah the movies never went above the million mark. ETD was the most expensive and lavish film he made and that cost under a million!

[Cognoscente]

Not by much. Part of the reason why ETD looks as good as it did was because Warner Brothers had supplied half of the financing. Even then, GH in 1973 were not on the level that Cannon were when Jean-Claude left them.

[DragonClaws]

8 hours ago, Josh Baker said:

That wouldve been interesting- were these re writes done before or after Bruce's death? It wouldve been interesting to see a filmmaker like Sammo Hung or John Woo make the film in the mid 70s

 

These were done while he was still alive, he was putting a lot of work/time into getting this project of the ground. A few sources point to this being his next American movie post Enter the Dragon.

[DragonClaws]

8 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

Not by much. Part of the reason why ETD looks as good as it did was because Warner Brothers had supplied half of the financing. Even then, GH in 1973 were not on the level that Cannon were when Jean-Claude left them.

 

8 hours ago, Josh Baker said:

I mean GH are a level above Cannon😂 but yeah the movies never went above the million mark. ETD was the most expensive and lavish film he made and that cost under a million!

 

It was given a T.V movie budget, Warner Brother didnt want to risk spending/losing too much money. If the film had gone onto bomb at the box office.

[Josh Baker]

2 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

 

These were done while he was still alive, he was putting a lot of work/time into getting this project of the ground. A few sources point to this being his next American movie post Enter the Dragon.

Does anyone know if a screenplay exists? Has the screenplay been found? Because Id love to see what Bruce and Russell came up with.

I wonder what wouldve happened to Shrine of Ultimate Bliss if Green Bamboo Warrior was supposed to be Bruce's 1974 production for Warner Brothers? Would it have suffered the same fate of having its budget slashed and Angela Mao subbing in for Bruce's intended role even if Bruce had been alive? Or would it have been put on the back burner until Bruce had finished GBW? Is the rumour of Bruce pencilled in to star in Shrine even accurate to begin with?

[Cognoscente]

Russell Cawthorne's relatives might have it.

Shrine of Ultimate Bliss would not have happened with Bruce. He complained in a letter to Ted Ashley that he was burned badly by a HK organization (read: Golden Harvest). I can, however, imagine Angela wanting to step in so as to rival Bruce because he made it clear in a heated argument with Huang Feng that Jhoon Rhee should have got top billing instead of her for When Taekwondo Strikes.

As far as Bruce was concerned, his career trajectory post-ETD was going to be GOD, the Shaw epic and GBW.

[Josh Baker]

3 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

Russell Cawthorne's relatives might have it.

Shrine of Ultimate Bliss would not have happened with Bruce. He complained in a letter to Ted Ashley that he was burned badly by a HK organization (read: Golden Harvest). I can, however, imagine Angela wanting to step in so as to rival Bruce because he made it clear in a heated argument with Huang Feng that Jhoon Rhee should have got top billing instead of her for When Taekwondo Strikes.

As far as Bruce was concerned, his career trajectory post-ETD was going to be GOD, the Shaw epic and GBW.

Oh dear. I know Bruce was standing up for his friend but it isnt particularly conscientious behaviour toward Angela- she was obviously a bigger star than Jhoon Rhee so of course she would get top billing. 

So I'm guessing George Lazenby wouldve had a role GBW as some racist American official instead of starring in Shrine if Bruce had lived I guess, per their tacit agreement that he and Bruce were going to work together. Or has the of Lazenby co-starring with Bruce in his next several projects also been exaggerated over time?

[Cognoscente]

Their partnership has been exaggerated. For example, if Bruce was such a fan of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he wouldn't have rebuffed Raymond Chow's initial attempt at getting him to meet Lazenby.

I also question the official story of their time together in general. In the August '92 issue of Impact, Bolo claimed that the last time he met Bruce was 10 days before he died. Coincidentally, this was Michael Chan Wai-Man's birthday (Bolo is one of Michael's friends). In the official story, Bolo has been incorporated as having been around Bruce much closer to July 20 i.e. the story of people being crammed into Bruce's car so as to make Chow's car feel lonely on their way to some restaurant.

[Josh Baker]

8 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

Their partnership has been exaggerated. For example, if Bruce was such a fan of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he wouldn't have rebuffed Raymond Chow's initial attempt at getting him to meet Lazenby.

I also question the official story of their time together in general. In the August '92 issue of Impact, Bolo claimed that the last time he met Bruce was 10 days before he died. Coincidentally, this was Michael Chan Wai-Man's birthday (Bolo is one of Michael's friends). In the official story, Bolo has been incorporated as having been around Bruce much closer to July 20 i.e. the story of people being crammed into Bruce's car so as to make Chow's car feel lonely on their way to some restaurant.

Yeah I remember that story on the Bey Logan commentary for GOD that Bruce, Bolo and George Lazenby all went for dinner in a restaurant about three days before Bruce died. So i guess that didnt actually happen, or the dates are wrong, because Bolo shouldve mentioned at some point that he met George if he actually did.

All of the accounts from George has led me to subscribe to the idea George met Bruce a couple of times two-three days before he died and became fast friends, making a verbal agreement for him to be in GOD in some capacity. I wonder if that's actually the case?

Edited May 25, 2021 by Josh Baker

[DragonClaws]

On 5/24/2021 at 12:26 PM, Josh Baker said:

Does anyone know if a screenplay exists? Has the screenplay been found? Because Id love to see what Bruce and Russell came up with.

 

Hard to say if it still exists, like all movie scripts there will have been multiple versions of it.

 

On 5/24/2021 at 4:20 PM, Josh Baker said:

So I'm guessing George Lazenby wouldve had a role GBW as some racist American official instead of starring in Shrine if Bruce had lived I guess, per their tacit agreement that he and Bruce were going to work together. Or has the of Lazenby co-starring with Bruce in his next several projects also been exaggerated over time?

 

I've heard about George Lazenby been connected to Bruce Lee future projects. Never heard an exact number from anyone?, and he would only go onto appear in three Golden Harvest films. Did he sign his deal with Golden Harvest, before or after Lee's death?.

[Cognoscente]

Bruce Lee historian Marcos Ocaña wrote...

There are some quick notes regarding the relationship between both men and the GOD project. I took them from the July 1973 issues of the South China Morning Post at the newspapers archive in Hong Kong. I hope that help to shed some light on this, and I'm sure that someone out there will specially like it:

July 15th: Sunday: Lazenby flies to HK to talk about some film projects.

July 18th: Wednesday: The papers relate for the first time to Lazenby with Bruce.

July 20th: Lazenby plans to come to HK to film on Sep 20th, 1973. He signed the contract with Golden Harvest to do GOD on July 19th, Thursday.

According to the news papers Lazenby left Hong Kong on July 27th.

Source: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bruceleelivestributeforum/bruce-lee-god-what-about-george-lazenby-t109.html

My thoughts: It's ironic that Bruce could convince Chow to cough up 10,000 U.S. to give to Lazenby but couldn't squeeze out money to provide for himself and his family. Something doesn't add up. Don't forget that Chow's past experience of working for the press made him a spin doctor of sorts.

[DragonClaws]

8 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

July 20th: Lazenby plans to come to HK to film on Sep 20th, 1973. He signed the contract with Golden Harvest to do GOD on July 19th, Thursday.

 

If some fans dispute if he the pair actually did meet, this pretty much proves it did indeed happen.

[Cognoscente]

Remember that Bruce intended for the period of September - November to be reserved for the Shaw Brothers epic.

I wonder when Stoner began filming, especially since Wu Ngan is in it. It's weird how Bob Baker didn't appear in it but was okay with doing that period Taekwondo movie in Taiwan.

[DragonClaws]

8 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

It's weird how Bob Baker didn't appear in it but was okay with doing that period Taekwondo movie in Taiwan.

 

He left Hong Kong before the funeral right?, maybe he couldnt make for Stoner?. Did he have a contractual obligation to make one more movie in Hong Kong/Asia at the time?. I wonder if was set to appear in one of BL's future projects?, had he signed anything to do so?. A bit like how Chuck Norris ended up making one more Asian movie?.

[Cognoscente]

Baker certainly took his time to go from completing Fist of Fury in early 1972 to doing Kung Fu of Taekwondo in the second half of 1973. He didn't even appear in ETD. Also, it's strange that Golden Harvest (nor Bruce) didn't think of putting him in the more relevant TKD project - the white-friendly When Taekwondo Strikes.

Chuck Norris mentioned in an issue of Fighting Stars that it was only after Bruce's death that he was offered the chance to be in Lo Wei's Yellow-Faced Tiger.

[DragonClaws]

8 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

Baker certainly took his time to go from completing Fist of Fury in early 1972 to doing Kung Fu of Taekwondo in the second half of 1973. He didn't even appear in ETD. Also, it's strange that Golden Harvest (nor Bruce) didn't think of putting him in the more relevant TKD project - the white-friendly When Taekwondo Strikes.

 

I wonder why Bob Baker wasnt drafted in to play one of Jon Benns thugs in WOTD?. They needed Western looking faces, to play the thugs and he'd already worked on FOF. Or he could have been one of the tournament fighters in ETD?, there are no images of him on the set of that movie either.

[Cognoscente]

Bruce probably thought that playing an unskilled thug was beneath Bob.

[DragonClaws]

8 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

Bruce probably thought that playing an unskilled thug was beneath Bob.

 

Then they could have added him to the Bob Wall and Whang In Sik fight in the finale?.

[Cognoscente]

Originally, Bruce only wanted Chuck and Whang to be the final fighters. Wall tagged along against Bruce's wishes, but Bruce didn't have it in him to shut down Wall...plus he wanted to punish Wall by doing the fight scene.

[DragonClaws]

On 5/25/2021 at 10:49 AM, Cognoscente said:

Originally, Bruce only wanted Chuck and Whang to be the final fighters. Wall tagged along against Bruce's wishes, but Bruce didn't have it in him to shut down Wall...plus he wanted to punish Wall by doing the fight scene.

 

If Bob Wall had stayed in the U.S, would they have made Chuck Norris - Whang In Sik's on-acreen student, or have it the other way round?.

Would Bob Wall have been apart of GBW?, Bruce Lee liked working with him enough to get him a part in ETD.

[Cognoscente]

Chuck would have called Whang his student since Chuck was older despite being born in the same year.

If Wall had not been in WOTD, he would not have been considered for ETD...let alone GBW. If anything, Joe Lewis could have been enticed to be in GBW because Bruce's character was going to suffer a beatdown in that movie.

[DragonClaws]

9 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

If Wall had not been in WOTD, he would not have been considered for ETD...let alone GBW. If anything, Joe Lewis could have been enticed to be in GBW because Bruce's character was going to suffer a beatdown in that movie.

 

Bolo Yeung was attached to the project, so he might have been down for facing Bruce Lee as his main foe?. Bruce Lee told him on the set of Enter the Dragon, that he planned to use him in a future fight scene. Which is why John Saxon's character faces him in ETD.

[DragonClaws]

 

The below information, is taken from Jospeh Kuby's excellent Rebellious Reign review, from CityonFire.Com.

 

Link- http://www.cityonfire.com/hkfilms/qr/rebelliousreign.html

 

Quote

Green Bamboo Warrior

After completion of The Game of Death, Bruce was planning on returning back to the U.S. to star in another film for Warner Brothers (basically he would alternate between Hong Kong and America for projects in the same way Jackie does now). This was to be 'Green Bamboo Warrior', later to be translated as 'The Conqueror of the Golden Mountain'. Bruce had completed his script for this film by January 1972 after he had completed his second film 'Fist of Fury' a.k.a. Chinese Connection. Apparently there are taped recordings of Bruce Lee explaining the story and recording his ideas. These exist! Bolo Yeung was going to co-star with Bruce in this film. Funnily enough, this was the film Bruce was going to use 'Enter the Dragon' as the title for, and wanted to actually film this script before The Way of the Dragon.

In terms of the storyline, the setting is turn-of-the-century San Francisco. Bruce would play one of twelve Chinese workers who endure the long sea voyage in their quest for the 'Mountain of Gold', and a new life in America. On arrival they are put to work in a mining town, where conditions are brutal. Bruce who is skilled in the martial arts becomes the leader of the Chinese workers.  Finally, he rebels against the bullying westerners, and uses his Jeet Kune Do techniques to teach one of them a very harsh lesson (partially reminiscent of the plot used for A Man Called Hero). The mine's foreman holds Bruce at gunpoint, and the rest of the guards gather to deliver a brutal beating. Bruce is now left in the mines, tied up and very close to death.

Wounded and hungry, Bruce escapes from the mine. He takes refuge in the cabin of an old Chinese woman who also works in the mine.  When she sees that he is severely injured, she feeds him some congee (rice porridge) to build his strength. The old woman's treatment and the congee is what saves Bruce's life, and now he vows to take revenge. He uses a length of green bamboo as his weapon, and uses it to beat the bad guys. Bruce becomes a real hero for the Chinese workers. He faces various challengers from both Asian and Western fighters, and wins every encounter.

During the making of Enter the Dragon, Bruce had been approached by Andrew Vajna, a Hong Kong businessman planning to move into the film industry. Bruce had pitched the story to Vajna, who was very receptive. Vajna enlisted Golden Harvest employee Russell Cawthorne to work on an English version of the script.

Before Enter The Dragon came into production, Hollywood wasn't responding (ala the same scenario with The Silent Flute script). Bruce was very impatient and decided to film Way Of The Dragon to get international response and possibly raise financing for his immigration tale. Fred Weintraub wanted Bruce's first international feature to be more accessible, thus it was decided that Enter The Dragon would be a martial arts take on the famous Bond flick Dr. No, with Western actors backing him up to ensure a big breakthrough (kind of like what happened with the crossover television episodes featuring Batman & Robin and Green Hornet & Kato); therefore if the film proved to be a successful hit internationally (which it did) then Bruce would be able to secure financing for the Green Bamboo Warrior project (Green Bamboo Warrior being the Chinese/working title whereas it was decided that the international title would be the more prestigious and less chop-socky sounding The Conqueror of the Gold Mountain).

An arrangement (though really a personal agreement if not anything strictly professional) was made between Lee and Vajna that they would make their millions before attempting to film this mega-budgeted dream project (ala what Johnny Depp and Terry Gilliam decided when things weren't going swell {so well} when they initially tried to film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote).

Andrew's had already attempted to make his millions by producing his own take on Five Fingers of Death (i.e. his own Kung Fu movie that would travel stateside), except with a twist.....it would star a female lead - Angela Mao. Through Mao's association with Bruce Lee (both of whom worked at Golden Harvest), Andrew was given the go-ahead in 1972 to produce The Opium Trail - a Kung Fu film which also had Carter Wong and Lung Fei in the cast. It was directed by Huang Feng (mentor of Sammo Hung - basically he's to Sammo Hung what Chang Cheh is to John Woo). The film was retitled as Deadly China Doll and was advertised as a Kung Fu Coffy (much like how Bruce Lee's Big Boss was originally advertised as a Kung Fu French Connection). It was released in 1973 to much fanfare (becoming more successful than Five Fingers of Death) and helped to give Enter The Dragon more commmercial appeal considering Mao had an appearance in that film.

Even though Bruce had already made a deal with Warner Bros. that they would be the financiers of his futue projects, he promised Andrew to have a share in the deal seeing as how he was one of the few Western producers to have an interest in him. Unfortunately, Andrew and Bruce never got together to share their success and build on it to make Bruce's dream project.

Andrew Vajna went on to make his name in Hollywood with the Sly Stallone actioner First Blood and producing many famous Hollywood features as can be
seen here.

As is evident from the unfinished 'The Game of Death' the unmade 'The Silent Flute' and 'Green Bamboo Warrior' Project, Bruce Lee had planned to move beyond 'mere technique' to express his philosophy through his films.

Source- http://www.cityonfire.com/hkfilms/qr/rebelliousreign.html

 

[DragonClaws]

Quote

When Bruce Lee died, he left behind several incomplete projects for his producers as well as a few he was working on himself.  A tape of Lee narrating his own idea for a film, Southern Fist/Northern Fury, has been uncovered; the movie line echoes The Silent Flute in many ways.  A script titled Green Bamboo Warrior was also found.  In this movie, set in San Francisco, Lee had planned Andrew Vanja (of First Blood fame) as the producer and had slated Bolo Yeung as his co-star.  Some of his projects had even had photo shoots and costumes sketched prior to his tragic death.  Golden Harvest had planned on Lee building on his success following The Big Boss and Fist of Fury with a third film, and a competing studio known as the Shaw Brothers had signed Lee on for a movie with filming dates set for September through November of 1973.

Source- https://worldjkd.com/bruce-lee-movies/

 

Was there a costume/screen test for Green Bamboo Warrior?.

Edited August 8, 2021 by DragonClaws

[DragonClaws]

 

The following video, features some shots from one of Andrew G. Vajna's first and only meeting with Bruce Lee?.