Bruce Lee is back in the upcoming 'Game of Death Redux' (version 2.0)!

[PandaPawPaw]

12 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

Nope, its was intended for use in the final movie.

There's got to be more of it. I doubt that's all that was filmed.

I've read there were meant to be guards and Bolo outside but BL and Co looked pretty fresh when they get to Dans floor.

[Cognoscente]

2 hours ago, PandaPawPaw said:

I've read there were meant to be guards and Bolo outside but BL and Co looked pretty fresh when they get to Dans floor.

Bruce wanted to make a point about mainstream martial arts being inferior, which is why no-one was to get killed outside the pagoda or even on the TKD floor. It's only on the Wing Chun floor that two of the raiders get killed.

James Tien and Chieh Yuen played guys who took the easy way out, so I can imagine that it was the other three raiders who did all the hard work. Perhaps the duo's excuse was that they needed to keep the locksmith out of harm's way.

Despite Tien talking about brotherhood to Yuen, they're not really allies. Tien didn't go up with Yuen to take on Inosanto together like they did with Ji Han-Jae. For Tien, the game of death is like chess where you have to sacrifice pawns.

It's weird that Bruce didn't have any character names for Tien and Yuen.

[PandaPawPaw]

Another thing, are the pics of BL wearing trousers and fighting Dan from filmed scenes or just promotional pics?

Same goes with the pics of BL in a carpark wearing a suit and stuff though I know he filmed a cigarette CM which I think they may have been from.

[Cognoscente]

Just promo pics.

[DragonClaws]

5 hours ago, PandaPawPaw said:

There's got to be more of it. I doubt that's all that was filmed.

I've read there were meant to be guards and Bolo outside but BL and Co looked pretty fresh when they get to Dans floor.

 

There will have been more footge filmed, not all of it would have been useable or inlcuded in the finished film. They look fresh I guess, but theyve just reached the halfway point in the pogoda. The foes on the first two floors were not as tough, the work was also spread out over a bigger team. Which is slowly shrinking as it goes up the tower and the foes get tougher.

 

[DragonClaws]

Just now, Cognoscente said:

Just promo pics.

 

Some of the moves in those pictures, look similar the ones used in the pogoda nucnhaku duel. Were they rehearsing out there aswell as filming new material?, or had Dan Inosanto filmed his level by the time of the exterior shoot?.

[Cognoscente]

Just rehearsing the nunchaku duel.

[DragonClaws]

 

Great to see the extended/enhanced version of Alan Canvan's Game of Death project, appearing on the latest Arrow box-set. There's so many great extras and features listed on the new Blu-Ray collection, that I cant recall if this re-cut of the pogoda raid. Will have a commentary track too?. Looking forward to seeing the documentary, thats also apart of this project. All with the added bonus of the missing log sequence.

[PandaPawPaw]

14 minutes ago, DragonClaws said:

 

Great to see the extended/enhanced version of Alan Canvan's Game of Death project, appearing on the latest Arrow box-set. There's so many great extras and features listed on the new Blu-Ray collection, that I cant recall if this re-cut of the pogoda raid. Will have a commentary track too?. Looking forward to seeing the documentary, thats also apart of this project. All with the added bonus of the missing log sequence.

Is it? I didn't see anything about his version being on it. Just a version from 2001 which I suppose is the Artport cut?

[DragonClaws]

Just now, PandaPawPaw said:

Is it? I didn't see anything about his version being on it. Just a version from 2001 which I suppose is the Artport cut?

 

"The Final Game of Death, a brand new three-hour video essay by Arrow Films that incorporates a new 2K restoration of all two hours of Lee’s original dailies from a recently-discovered interpositive"

I thought this was it?, or that Alan Canvan's version was going to be included in the above bonus feature?.

[PandaPawPaw]

12 minutes ago, DragonClaws said:

 

"The Final Game of Death, a brand new three-hour video essay by Arrow Films that incorporates a new 2K restoration of all two hours of Lee’s original dailies from a recently-discovered interpositive"

I thought this was it?, or that Alan Canvan's version was going to be included in the above bonus feature?.

That's not it. I'm pretty sure the 3-hour essay has been made by Arrow themselves.

[saltysam]

Yep,Arrows version is not Redux 2.0

[One Armed Boxer]

16 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

I thought this was it?, or that Alan Canvan's version was going to be included in the above bonus feature?.

From what I heard Canvan was approached to be a part of the set, but declined as he wants his version to have its own standalone release.

[CliveReston]

9 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

From what I heard Canvan was approached to be a part of the set, but declined as he wants his version to have its own standalone release.

I heard the same thing and that he's also working on the definitive Game of Death documentary that's supposed to cover the 1972 footage and  the 1978 film.

I've heard some big names mentioned as being part of this. 

 

[Drunksnake]

I'm pretty sure that Arrows "The Final Game Of Death" feature ends with a new edit using ALL available reels.

[DragonClaws]

Just now, Drunksnake said:

I'm pretty sure that Arrows "The Final Game Of Death" feature ends with a new edit using ALL available reels.

 

There's ging to be another re-edit of the footage?.

[One Armed Boxer]

19 hours ago, DragonClaws said:

There's ging to be another re-edit of the footage?.

 

[starschwar]

8 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

 

The phrasing on that isn't 100% clear to me.  Yes, they're showing all two hours of footage in the 3 hour documentary.  But does it include a compilation of the best takes to simulate how it might have been in a hypothetical finished version?  I'd be surprised if it did not conclude as such, but I do remain curious.

[Drunksnake]

On 5/2/2023 at 10:29 PM, starschwar said:

The phrasing on that isn't 100% clear to me.  Yes, they're showing all two hours of footage in the 3 hour documentary.  But does it include a compilation of the best takes to simulate how it might have been in a hypothetical finished version?  I'd be surprised if it did not conclude as such, but I do remain curious.

From what I understand, the dailies and outtakes when complete (with all reels, including outdoor footage) is two hours.

The remaining hour is an edit of the sequence using ALL of the reels. Personally I am very excited to see what they've done.

I'm very happy to have all the GOD footage in HD, on home media and with a new edit, that's a rather sweet cherry on top.

[Colonel Mortimer]

So will Redux 2.0 ever come out at this point?

[CliveReston]

4 hours ago, Colonel Mortimer said:

So will Redux 2.0 ever come out at this point?

I believe it will accompany the Game of Death documentary that Canvan is currently working on.

[One Armed Boxer]

2 hours ago, CliveReston said:

believe it will accompany the Game of Death documentary that Canvan is currently working on.

Great to hear the documentary has already been picked up for distribution (if I'm reading your post correctly), can you shed any light on which label has got it (obviously not Arrow!)?

[CliveReston]

16 hours ago, One Armed Boxer said:

Great to hear the documentary has already been picked up for distribution (if I'm reading your post correctly), can you shed any light on which label has got it (obviously not Arrow!)?

From what I've seen him say in interviews this will be a streaming release. No idea if there are plans for a blu-ray release in the future.

[Drunksnake]

Seems Arrow's James Flower and Brandon Bentley make quite the dynamic duo!
All this info is only serving to ramp up my excitement for this!
A tweet from James Flower..

Hope you all had lovely long weekends! Now I'm feeling refreshed, I can tell you a bit more info about the Bruce Lee bonus feature The Final Game of Death, signed off and delivered (at last!) on Thursday.

As there's been some confusion, I thought I'd clear up a few things about what it is, and isn't. For one thing, it's no longer just "three hours" long; it came in at a whopping 223 mins (!). A testament to hubris run amok or my inability to properly delegate? Quite possibly so!

Brace yourself and sit comfortably, this thread is going to be almost as long as the film...

Anyway, what is it exactly? A documentary? There's no interviews so I'm not sure it qualifies. "Video essay" sounds more correct, though at what point does it become a "video dissertation" given the runtime? Either way, it's kind of weird, but I hope you dig it.

It came about basically by accident: having assumed the elements were lost in Japan somewhere, we found out last summer L'Immagine Ritrovata were sitting on a scan of an interpositive of all the rushes, and got approval to access them. It seemed to me a unique opportunity...

.. not only to give the most comprehensive rundown yet of the original GoD project, but to forensically examine Bruce's filmmaking and choreography choices in a style similar to one of my favourite ever documentaries, coincidentally about my favourite film...

I am of course referring to Robert Gitt's magnificent Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter, which you should seek out immediately if you haven't seen it (after Laughton's film, of course!). Though there are major differences here: the GoD footage has no sound...

... and its status as an "unfinished" film means there is no complete version to compare it against for context. So it became something else: less about the making of The Game of Death, than its un-making.

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.

The Inosanto footage finally includes the 'log fight' with Chieh Yuan and the start of his fight of James Tien, basically the whole first reel of rushes prior of Lee's on-screen entrance.

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.

The rushes play with music and, for the most part, narration written by myself,
@OldPangYau & Wing-Ho Lin, and read aloud by yours truly. (No, I wasn't my first choice, but given the amount of material and how late we were making changes, it was the only feasible option...

... besides which, if you don't like my voice or the narration in general and decide to mute it while you watch the raw footage, technically that's actually the purest way to see Bruce Lee's The Game of Death since he never lived to edit or dub it!)

The footage has been arranged into shooting order (meaning the Kareem fight comes first) and is bookended with chapters discussing Bruce as a writer/director and how the project came to be, and finally Bruce's death and how the project mutated into a Bruceploitation film in 1978.

My favourite bits? The flashes in between each take - sometimes only a handful of frames - of Bruce and the crew setting up and talking among themselves. The closest we'll ever come to seeing behind-the-scenes footage, and often slowed-down in other parts of the essay.

(Yes, I'm aware there's oft-bootlegged video footage shot by Bruce and Robert Lee showing a fight rehearsal in Bruce's garden with Dan and Wu Ngan, as well as the photo shoot with Bruce, Kareem and James Tien. No, we couldn't access it.)

As well as info about the planned plot of the film, the production, Bruce and the rest of the cast, the narration attempts to parse rumour and legend from fact as much as possible, though a ten-hour film couldn't possibly address every mad theory that's been floated about GoD.

If you're wondering how two hours of raw footage could ever be fun to watch, bear in mind that the film was 'edited in-camera', which means there's very little in the way of extraneous material. Many times, there's only one take of a shot; once they got it right, they moved on!

But wait, there's more! In addition to the video essay section, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to do a whole new assembly and dub of the footage into a 'finished' form. It's not A Warrior's Journey, or Bruce Lee in G.O.D., or Redux - it's something else.

Another huge thanks to @OldPangYau for working with me on the short film edit, especially given his exhaustive knowledge of prior versions of the material. Brandon's the best!

Our aim was to present a 'complete' short film that feels as much as possible like it was made by Golden Harvest in the break between Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon. Obviously (as the narration takes pains to point out) it is not Bruce Lee's vision of TGOD...

... and it would be dishonest to say any assembly/dub is 'finishing' the film as he would. We will never know what that would be. But we can emulate the style and tone of films made in Hong Kong in 1972, so that the spirit of something resembling Lee's intent can be evoked.

To that end, 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.

Big shoutout to Þorsteinn Gíslason (not sure if he's on Twitter) who has done an extraordinary job on the sound effects, which include authentic Bruce yelps and cries matching the on-screen action.

We've commissioned a brand new animated opening credits animation sequence in the style of credits from the period, brilliantly executed by the geniuses at
@gazelle_inc Justin at Gazelle also did some excellent voiceover work for us! Speaking of which...

A round of applause for the other very talented voice actors, who all did a terrific job: @BrianRandomVA as Bruce, @Jason21608030 as James,@ItBeMeMrButts as Chieh, @GriffinPuatu as Dan, @TheThorntonWay as Kareem - thank you!

This may be controversial: we also dabbled in some Bruceploitation of our own by filming a short prologue that condenses the pre-pagoda exposition Bruce never got to film. MASSIVE thanks to @neerdowellfilms, @Jimmythenut, @RussWould for helping put this together!

If you want to skip all the video essay stuff and just go straight to the short film, you can do so by going ahead to Chapter 8, titled "Life After Death". Only a few minutes of me yammering then you're in business.

So that's The Final Game of Death! It's an odd duck and I'm much too close to it to say whether it's any good or not, and it may well be an acquired taste. But I think it's pretty cool, and I hope some of you do too. Though I don't recommend watching all 223 mins in one sitting!