How disrespectful to Bruce Lee was the original 1978 release of Game of Death.

[Cognoscente]

5 hours ago, Josh Baker said:

rip-off films already using the pagoda concept is a strawman argument and sounds like a disguise for the real reason which hasn't yet been disclosed.

Most of the rip-offs came out after Clouse had been hired to finish the film e.g. Duel with the Devils (released in September 1977), The True Game of Death (1979) and Enter the Game of Death (1981). It's not a coincidence that the two co-stars who had their roles reduced/removed just happened to be two guys who didn't attend Bruce's funeral.

Taken from Bey Logan's BL book: “So why didn't Golden Harvest act sooner? Andre Morgan remembers general discussions at Golden Harvest about what to do with the Game of Death footage. In principle, Raymond Chow supported the idea of somehow finishing the film. Given that he and Lee were technically partners on all of Bruce's Concord projects, there was still the question of who retained which rights on the material that Lee was developing at Concord. There was also the absence of someone on the creative side. None of the established Golden Harvest directors were keen to drive the project. No-one wanted to be accused of trading on Lee's reflected glory or trying to fill his shoes. It took Chow four years to get someone to take on Game of Death, and even then – it was an American."

They could have got Brian Trenchard-Smith to complete it given that he actually was scheduled to interview Bruce for a documentary before he died.

In the Bruce Lee Conversations book, Andre said: "The problem was very simple - we didn't have enough footage with Bruce Lee in it that would allow us to tie those scenes together. And after talking to the distributors and exhibitors around the world, we gave those distributors the option of releasing the footage in the form of a documentary or releasing it in the form of a reworked story using the footage that existed. The collective wisdom back then, 30 years ago, was that the audience of the world would prefer to see the footage that existed in the context of a story and not see it as documentary footage. Now, in fairness to the distributors and exhibitors of the 1970s, I don't think anybody at that point in time realized what a cult figure Bruce Lee was destined to become. These were the early days immediately after his death, and before he managed to become part of the youth culture around the world. So, when you try to construct a story and you don't have the leading man available to tie the story together, you have to make some choices on which footage you can use and which you can't use."

[PandaPawPaw]

Or they could just leave it alone and move on. The GOD footage isn't that great to begin with.

[Cognoscente]

Clouse said the same thing in an issue of Kick Illustrated.

[Josh Baker]

8 hours ago, Cognoscente said:

 

They could have got Brian Trenchard-Smith to complete it given that he actually was scheduled to interview Bruce for a documentary before he died.

 

That would've been amazing, but I guess he didnt want the hassle of trying to complete the film or was never asked.

[WangYu]

I don’t like the footage of GoD that wasn’t used for the Clouse film. It is too much stop start in nature, Bruce talks too much, his adversaries pose little threat.  Bruce comes off as a know it all that can’t be touched. I consider them his worst filmed fight scenes.

His best most rounded and emotionally engaging films were the big boss and fist of fury. I also like his performance and intensity in enter the dragon but as I said earlier it is not a good film.

[Josh Baker]

37 minutes ago, WangYu said:

I don’t like the footage of GoD that wasn’t used for the Clouse film. It is too much stop start in nature, Bruce talks too much, his adversaries pose little threat.  Bruce comes off as a know it all that can’t be touched. I consider them his worst filmed fight scenes.

His best most rounded and emotionally engaging films were the big boss and fist of fury. I also like his performance and intensity in enter the dragon but as I said earlier it is not a good film.

The critical and fan reception of Big Boss has been intriguing; I've heard some on this forum argue say that it is one of his best films, whilst others have said its his weakest, even Lo Wei himself is quoted as saying; "it really is a crap film." 

What's peoples opinions now? 

On the GOD footage, it wouldn't have been 39 minutes long in the completed film; the 2003 art port version is an edit intended to preserve every frame of usable footage from the filming; the three floors would've probably lasted a total of twenty eight minutes at most in the final product; there are rumours that George Lazenby was shown a rough cut of the three floors that lasted about that length.

They would've cut out a lot of the stop/start bits that you have issues with, even the Warriors Journey edit cuts out bits for that reason.

[Cognoscente]

1 hour ago, Josh Baker said:

That would've been amazing, but I guess he didnt want the hassle of trying to complete the film or was never asked.

When Brian flew to Hong Kong on July 20, 1973, he had something else in mind for Bruce as well. Brian said: "In my briefcase was a six-page outline I had written about a Chinese Dirty Harry-type cop sent to Sydney on a routine extradition, who then goes after the local crime lord, causing major mayhem. There was subtext poking fun at racist attitudes to Asia prevalent in Australia at the time. I had given it the ironic title Yellow Peril… One culture’s self-critical irony is another culture’s insult. What was I thinking?"

Imagine if Bruce had lived long enough to star in The Man from Hong Kong.

 

59 minutes ago, Josh Baker said:

On the GOD footage, it wouldn't have been 39 minutes long in the completed film; the 2003 art port version is an edit intended to preserve every frame of usable footage from the filming; the three floors would've probably lasted a total of twenty eight minutes at most in the final product; there are rumours that George Lazenby was shown a rough cut of the three floors that lasted about that length.

In his BL biography, Clouse claimed that the length was 25 minutes...but I'm assuming that he was shown an edit which removed the first part of Chieh Yuen's fight with Inosanto along with what was cut from James Tien's encounter with him (dialogue included).

Before Kill Bill, Hollywood had this rule that people who are not MA movie fans can't tolerate a MA fight scene if it reaches past five minutes. Bruce's problem is that he intended GOD to be an internationally released film, and the fight with Kareem would need to have been cut down.

[shukocarl1441996347]

7 minutes ago, Cognoscente said:

When Brian flew to Hong Kong on July 20, 1973, he had something else in mind for Bruce as well. Brian said: "In my briefcase was a six-page outline I had written about a Chinese Dirty Harry-type cop sent to Sydney on a routine extradition, who then goes after the local crime lord, causing major mayhem. There was subtext poking fun at racist attitudes to Asia prevalent in Australia at the time. I had given it the ironic title Yellow Peril… One culture’s self-critical irony is another culture’s insult. What was I thinking?"

Imagine if Bruce had lived long enough to star in The Man from Hong Kong.

 

In his BL biography, Clouse claimed that the length was 25 minutes...but I'm assuming that he was shown an edit which removed the first part of Chieh Yuen's fight with Inosanto along with what was cut from James Tien's encounter with him (dialogue included).

Before Kill Bill, Hollywood had this rule that people who are not MA movie fans can't tolerate a MA fight scene if it reaches past five minutes. Bruce's problem is that he intended GOD to be an internationally released film, and the fight with Kareem would need to have been cut down.

Lee would have been miscast in MFHK. He COULDN'T do the stuff Jimmy could do (climbing, dodging cars, flying kick at motorcycle, car stunts etc) and  therefore it would have been an altogether different film. Maybe the fights would have been Lee-style but all of the above would have been toned down or scrapped altogether.

[Josh Baker]

1 hour ago, shukocarl1441996347 said:

Lee would have been miscast in MFHK. He COULDN'T do the stuff Jimmy could do (climbing, dodging cars, flying kick at motorcycle, car stunts etc) and  therefore it would have been an altogether different film. Maybe the fights would have been Lee-style but all of the above would have been toned down or scrapped altogether.

I agree, Bruce wasn't as into stunts as Jimmy, and the film is fully into action and weirdness and Bruce probably considered it too superficial a concept. 

[Josh Baker]

1 hour ago, Cognoscente said:

 

Before Kill Bill, Hollywood had this rule that people who are not MA movie fans can't tolerate a MA fight scene if it reaches past five minutes. Bruce's problem is that he intended GOD to be an internationally released film, and the fight with Kareem would need to have been cut down.

Hopefully it wouldn't have been cut down as choppily as Clouse and co did in '78. They literally reuse the same sequence of movements twice to remove a bit of business at the start and reuse close ups of Bruce from earlier in the fight to paper up the cracks of cutting out the reptile eyes element of Kareems character.

[Cognoscente]

I dislike the reptile eyes effect. I like the albino one better. Maybe Bruce could have reshot it so that it was revealed that Kareem's character wore sunglasses because cocaine made him sensitive to sunlight. Also, Bruce could have reshot that broken vase moment so as to show that the vase contained cocaine.

[TheKungFuRobber]

It was shight.

[BornToDefense]

5 hours ago, Josh Baker said:

The critical and fan reception of Big Boss has been intriguing; I've heard some on this forum argue say that it is one of his best films, whilst others have said its his weakest, even Lo Wei himself is quoted as saying; "it really is a crap film." 

What's peoples opinions now?

I feel like that's true of Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon as well. Maybe I was living under a rock but I remember a wide consensus outside of hardcore fan circles that ETD was his best work, and now it seems like his HK work is held in much higher regard by the broader film dork crowd. When I was a kid I thought ETD was his best film because I didn't know the difference between good movie and high production values (I still like ETD don't get me wrong).

I think The Big Boss certainly has more subtext to chew on than ETD, and the contrast between Lee and Lo Wei/Han Ying-Chieh's styles gives it a lot of historical interest as a sort of transitional movie in the genre. I don't know who did what on the fight scenes in The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, but I do know Bruce Lee left to his own devices would never have all those trampolines.

Even Lo Wei as a director seems to have gone through a certain degree of critical re-evaluation. Though all of the HK film texts I've read seem to have taken him at least somewhat seriously in the first place, which is an interesting contrast to US/UK books I've read which tend to take for granted the idea that he was a hack (most recently Polly's).

[TheKungFuRobber]

Big Boss was shite and all

[saltysam]

1 hour ago, TheKungFuRobber said:

Big Boss was shite and all

ok

[Killer Meteor]

1 hour ago, TheKungFuRobber said:

Big Boss was shite and all

Blasphemy!

[Omni Dragon]

Out of the main 4 Bruce Lee movies, to me The Big Boss has the best character and story, yet the worst action and it's obvious that it was the cheapest to make.

[TheKungFuRobber]

4 hours ago, Killer Meteor said:

Blasphemy!

I know. I was just being a contrarian :3

[PandaPawPaw]

I'd say Tower of Death is waaaay more disrespectful to BL seeing as he had zero involvement in it and while you could say the same of GOD, he at least filmed scenes for it (even though the final film wasn't what he envisioned).

TOD was a pure money making cash in of the highest order.

[tomgray2404]

33 minutes ago, PandaPawPaw said:

I'd say Tower of Death is waaaay more disrespectful to BL seeing as he had zero involvement in it and while you could say the same of GOD, he at least filmed scenes for it (even though the final film wasn't what he envisioned).

TOD was a pure money making cash in of the highest order.

True, but Tower of Death was released solely for an Asian audience. And all they really did was cut in outtakes and unseen footage.

Game of Death had an LA premiere and it was an international release. Golden Harvest knew the number of eyeballs on it and still threw Bruce's corpse into the mix. 

I've watched GOD 100s of times, but the decision-making on the funeral stuff takes things to another level.

[Cognoscente]

I would like to know Andre Morgan's reaction to the funeral footage.

[TheKungFuRobber]

2 hours ago, PandaPawPaw said:

I'd say Tower of Death is waaaay more disrespectful to BL seeing as he had zero involvement in it and while you could say the same of GOD, he at least filmed scenes for it (even though the final film wasn't what he envisioned).

TOD was a pure money making cash in of the highest order.

Yeah but Tower of Death isn't full of annoying monotone gweilos who can't fight and had some of the best Yuen clan work I've ever seen.

[PandaPawPaw]

Yeah well.......well Tower of Death had some bush in it and I don't mean the Lion.

[Cognoscente]

I'm reminded of the '80s Transformers movie - Stan Bush and Lion contributed to the soundtrack.

[Josh Baker]

17 hours ago, BornToDefense said:

I don't know who did what on the fight scenes in The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, but I do know Bruce Lee left to his own devices would never have all those trampolines.

I think on Big Boss, Han Ching Yieh was the fight choreographer but Bruce had a heavy say in how his own fight scenes were choreographed 

In FOF Bruce choreographed his own fight scenes whilst Han Ching Yieh choreographed the non Bruce fights. 

WOTD, GOD and ETD it was all Bruce. (I believe Lam Ching Ying assisted Bruce with the big battle at the end of ETD.)

17 hours ago, BornToDefense said:

Even Lo Wei as a director seems to have gone through a certain degree of critical re-evaluation. Though all of the HK film texts I've read seem to have taken him at least somewhat seriously in the first place, which is an interesting contrast to US/UK books I've read which tend to take for granted the idea that he was a hack (most recently Polly's).

FOF has a lot of creative camerawork in it but I dont know if that was Bruce or Lo Wei's ideas. A telltale sign is every scene without Bruce in it is covered like a play in one long master shot with little close ups, whereas the scenes with Bruce are a little bit more dynamic. 

However left to his own devices Bruce's direction of actors is borderline student film- esque in WOTD but he was a first time director so it's understandable, and i still maintain the film generally works as a blend of action and comedy, and he improved a lot come GOD.

ETD also had a lot of creative camerawork in it, I think Clouse gets a hard time from fans, he had a good eye for composition and although some of  these ideas may have Bruce's, maybe he needed another director at the time to funnel those ideas through more successfully.