Current Events > God, Game of Death is a dumpster fire

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So before I start, I want to acknowledge that I'm a total Bruce Lee newbie. I saw my first Bruce Lee thing tonight, and it was the final fight from Way of the Dragon - I don't know shit, and I'm probably going to be talking about stuff like I know what I mean, but I'm just going off of my gut here. I'm approaching this very much from an "internet expert" sort of angle, and I make no case for anything else.

With that being said, though - Game of Death is an exploitative dog turd of a movie.

While I was watching it, I looked up the story behind it. I was paying enough attention to the story to follow along, but it wasn't a great movie. There's roughly 42 minutes of material Bruce Lee shot in 1972, 11 minutes of which are in the 1978 movie, and the plot was Bruce Lee fighting his way up a pagoda using his signature style of martial arts to explain the flaws in his opponent's fighting style. It sounds like an author tract about how awesome his fighting style was, to the point that the movie was intended to be informational about Bruce Lee's martial art style - but you can see how awesome the fights were gonna be when you see three of them at the end of the movie.

And what I've heard is that the footage that exists features a lot of dialogue steeped in allegory and metaphor. Why is Bruce Lee fighting all of these Kung Fu masters to get to the top of the pagoda, outside of the excuse plot of a loved one in danger? Why does he have to fight his way up at all - why not just let him pass if even the guardians aren't that invested in what's at the top of the pagoda?

That's some classic Kung Fu movie shit. That sounds fucking awesome, like some 36th Chamber of Shaolin shit. And it only hurts all the more when the final product is this drawn out gangster movie with a slew of body doubles and unrelated characters acting out this dumb-ass plot.

The worst part about Game of Death is that they use footage from Bruce Lee's actual, real life funeral. The main character fakes his death, and the character has a public funeral, and they SHOW FOOTAGE OF BRUCE LEE'S ACTUAL FUCKING FUNERAL. And then later, they dig up the coffin to find out that the main character faked his death, and it has a ceramic bust of Bruce Lee's face - and they smash it apart on camera! They dig up Bruce Lee's grave and destroy his likeness in this shallow excuse to capitalise on his unfinished final movie!

The fight scene at the start with the motorbikes was probably the best non-Bruce Lee fight, the guy had a ton of swagger and it was pretty entertaining. But the love interest, the obvious attempts to obscure the main character's face and the bulk of this movie being between these old white guys just made the whole thing an unbearable slog. The whole thing feels so cheap and exploitative, like a cashgrab instead of a tribute.

We've really gotta stop making dead celebrity movies. The Inaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is one thing, that's a group of people rallying around to finish a movie in someone's memory. Killing the character off in a franchise is distinct yet again, because it is an attempt to honour the talent by putting the character to rest rather than have someone else fill those shoes.

Game of Death is more like dead guy CGI nowadays, except in the case of dead guy CGI there's at least been this attempt to reverently restore the characters and hold them in the highest regard. Even if the way Leia speaks in the Rise of Skywalker is like a malfunctioning smart fridge and arguably less dignified than just writing around it and letting her rest in peace, everything about that role is meant to elevate and deify both the character and the actress.

Game of Death only exists because the company that made it owned a handful of unreleased Bruce Lee footage, and they milked a feature-length production out of a cast of Bruce Lee body doubles, uncharismaric time wasting heroes and villains, and the coolest fucking costume of Bruce Lee's entire career if only he'd been able to make the sort of movie that would have done it justice. It's like if they turned John Wick into a midday TV movie.

Again, I only saw Bruce Lee act for one fight before this. But the man has this fucking aura around him, he exudes charisma. He's at the top of his game, his moves are awesome, but he also makes those whooping noises there are kind of funny? And his contorts his face into these fucking wild shapes, and it's like not only is he a god-tier fighter, he's a TROLL. He's playing grab-ass with Chuck Norris, and then he changes his stance and annihilates the guy. You see Bruce Lee like that, and you just fucking get it.

How often do you see a fight scene where the characters exude any sort of personality? Where you see the look on a guy's face as he's kicking someone's ass, and you fucking get what they're about? Bruce Lee is the man, and even in the few scenes of Game of Death he's in, he has a vibe about him where he's more and more affected the higher he climbs the building - not just from the fighting, but from the weight of what he's doing. None of which the final product is trying to convey, but which exists anyway.

Not only did they rip out those three fight scenes and put them out of context in a dogshit movie, they have the actual gall to show Bruce Lee's actual, real life funeral, then dig up the casket and defile his likeness. It really sums up what this dog turd of a movie really was. I'm new to the guy, but based on next to no frame of reference, Game of Death is a sleazy, exploitative failure, and it bothers me that such a GOAT actor and martial artist gets his legacy dragged through the mud like this.

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