Game of Death
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Game of Death was the film Bruce Lee had planned to be the demonstration piece of his martial art Jeet Kune Do. Ninety plus minutes of footage was shot before his death, some of which was later misplaced in the Golden Harvest archives, and has not yet been recovered (such as one fighter attacking Dan Inosanto with a thin log). The remaining footage has been released with Bruce Lee's original English dubbing as part of the documentary entitled Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey. Most of the footage which was shot is from what was to be the centre piece of the film.
While in the middle of filming The Game of Death, Bruce Lee was given the offer to star in Enter the Dragon. The first kung fu film to be produced by a Hollywood studio, and with a budget unprecedented for the genre, it was an offer Lee couldn't refuse. Unfortunately, Lee died of cerebral edema before the film's release. At the time of his death, he had already made plans to resume the filming of The Game of Death.
After Lee's death, Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse was enlisted to direct additional scenes featuring a stand-in which, when pieced together with the original footage as well as other footage from earlier in Bruce Lee's career, would form a new film (entitled Game of Death which was released in 1978, five years after his death, by Columbia Pictures.
