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Game of Death is a 1978 Hong Kong action film co-written (under the pseudonym Jan Spears along with Raymond Chow) and directed by Robert Clouse, with action directed by Sammo Hung. The film stars Bruce Lee, with Kim Tai-jong and Yuen Biao as his doubles, along with Gig Young, Dean Jagger, Colleen Camp, Robert Wall, Hugh O’Brian, Dan Inosanto, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mel Novak, Sammo Hung, Ji Han-jae and Casanova Wong.

Plot

The 1978 version uses portions of the original footage married to an entirely new plot involving a new character, Billy Lo (盧比利), struggling against a racketeering “syndicate” after gaining international success as a martial arts movie star. When Billy refuses to be intimidated by syndicate henchman Steiner (Hugh O’Brian) and his gangs of thugs, syndicate owner Dr. Land (Dean Jagger) orders his assassination to serve as an example to others.

Disguised as a stuntman, Land’s assassin, Stick (Mel Novak), sneaks onto the set of Billy’s new film, and shoots Billy during filming. A fragment of the bullet passes through Billy’s face, leaving him alive but in need of plastic surgery which alters his facial features. Billy takes the opportunity to fake his death and disguise himself, exacting revenge against those who wronged him one at a time. When the syndicate threatens and kidnaps his fiancée, Ann Morris (Colleen Camp), Billy is forced to come out of hiding to save her. In the revised film, Bruce Lee’s fight scenes inside the pagoda are assumed to take place in the upper floors of the Red Pepper restaurant, where Dr. Land and his thugs have laid an ambush. In the end, Billy survives the ambush, rescues Ann, and destroys each of the main mobsters one-by-one.

Production

The revised version of the film uses only 11 minutes and 7 seconds of the footage from the original The Game of Death, and for the vast majority of the film, the role of Billy Lo was shared by Korean taekwondo master Kim Tai-jong and Hong Kong martial arts actor Yuen Biao, and was voiced by Chris Kent. The plot of the film allowed Kim and Yuen to spend much of the film in disguises, usually involving false beards and large, dark sunglasses that obscured the fact that they bore little resemblance to Lee. Many scenes, including fight scenes, also included brief close-up bits of stock footage of the real Bruce Lee from his pre-Enter the Dragon films, often only lasting a second or two. These clips are easily recognisable due to the difference in film quality between the old and new footage. At one point in the movie, real footage of Lee’s corpse in his open-topped casket is used to show the character Billy Lo faking his death. There is even a scene, taken place in Billy’s dressing room, where a cut-out of Lee’s face was taped to a mirror, covering the stand-in’s own face.

Several actors associated with previous Lee movies were included in the re-shoot for the final 1978 film. For example, Robert Wall, a villain in both Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon, plays a kickboxer named Carl Miller who must battle with Billy Lo. Sammo Hung, who appeared in Enter the Dragon, served as the fight coordinator for the film, and also appears in the scene as ring opponent Lo Chen for Miller. To maintain continuity with the fight footage taken from the original film, Dan Inosanto (renamed Pasqual) and Ji Han-jae (whose character was unnamed and was not shown until near the end of the film) were given small parts as additional enforcers for the syndicate. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar refused to participate in the re-shoot, with another tall African-American stand-in (renamed Hakim) included instead. Although Chuck Norris is credited as starring in the film, his role is limited to clips from Way of the Dragon inserted into the film.

The film quality of the Clouse-directed footage is noticeably higher than that of Lee’s earlier Hong Kong films, and John Barry provided an original soundtrack. The film also featured performances by experienced actors as well as up-and-coming stars, including two recipients of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Dean Jagger and Gig Young) and several who have been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, including Bruce Lee, Dean Jagger, Chuck Norris, Hugh O’Brian, and Gig Young (in his final film).

For Chinese-speaking audiences, the film was dubbed into Cantonese and Mandarin, and had significant changes, such as the inclusion of a fight in a greenhouse with Casanova Wong and a different opening and closing credits sequence, featuring a new theme song, plus a couple of minor scenes. Unlike the English version, these versions use Lee’s actual battle sounds. Several scenes were removed as well, including the fight in the opera house dressing room.

In the original Hong Kong version, the fight with Ji Han-jae is included (although it occurs in the middle of the film), while the ending does not show Billy Lo being arrested. Instead, both he and Ann share their good-byes to Jim as they appear to depart Hong Kong on a boat. The Singaporean version ends with Billy’s arrest, and it does not feature the Ji Han-jae fight. This is the version commonly found in Chinese.

The Mandarin-dubbed version of the film features a different theme song from that of the Cantonese version. The theme song sounds similar to the main theme of Way of the Dragon. This version also includes the scene where Billy and Ann share their good-byes to Jim. The Cantonese-dubbed version shows the commonly found scene where Billy is arrested by the police.

Soundtrack

The American score was composed by John Barry. The vocal theme song “Will This Be The Song I’ll Be Singing Tomorrow?” was sung by Colleen Camp.

0:00 – Main Title / Set Fight With Chuck Norris

3:44 – Will This Be The Song I’ll Be Singing Tomorrow (Instrumental)

6:09 – Three Motorcycles / Stick Fight With Santo

10:11 – Billy’s Funeral Dirge

13:13 – Garden Fight

16:05 – Billy & Ann’s Love Theme

18:45 – The Big Motorcycle Fight

24:34 – Goodbye Dr. Land

26:34 – Will This Be The Song I’ll Be Singing Tomorrow (by Colleen Camp)

28:58 – Game of Death End Title

31:46 – Stick Fight (with Sound Effects) / Main Title (Reprise)

Theme song

“Game of Death” (死亡遊戲)

• Lyrics: James Wong
• Composition and Arrangement: Joseph Koo
• Performance: Roman Tam

Release

Game of Death was released in Hong Kong on 23 March 1978. In the United States, the film was released by Columbia Pictures on 9 June 1979. The film was released in the Philippines by Asia Films on 15 December 1988.

Box office

The film was successful at the Hong Kong box office, grossing HK$3,436,169 (US$734,224). In the United States, the film earned about US$5 million in theatrical rentals, equivalent to estimated box office gross receipts of approximately US$13 million.

In Japan, it was the eighth highest-grossing film of 1978, earning a distribution rental income of ¥1.45 billion, equivalent to estimated box office gross receipts of approximately ¥3.52 billion (US$16.7 million). In South Korea, it sold 281,591 tickets in the capital city of Seoul, equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately ₩337,909,200 (US$698,160).

In France, it was the 14th highest-grossing film of 1978, with 2,256,892 ticket sales, equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately €6,093,608 (US$8,264,929). In Germany, the film sold 750,513 tickets (575,000 tickets in 1978 and 175,513 tickets in 1981), equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately €1,876,283 (US$2,544,854). In Spain, the film sold 1,112,793 tickets, equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately €1,446,631 (US$1,962,106).

Combined, the film grossed a total estimated worldwide box office revenue of approximately US$43,054,960, equivalent to about $170 million adjusted for inflation.

Critical reception

This version of the film received a mixed critical reception, holding a 46% Rotten Tomatoes score. Criticism of the revised version included the inclusion of scenes that could be considered in bad taste, such as the incorporation of footage of Lee’s actual funeral. Another scene, often pointed out by critics of the film, involved a shot of Kim looking at himself in the mirror, with an obvious cardboard cut-out of Lee’s face pasted onto the mirror’s surface.

Bey Logan points out a few logic issues with the 1978 film. In order for the henchmen to remain low key, they should be wearing more casual clothes instead of the multicolored tracksuits seen at various parts of the film. But as a rationale, this explains why Lee wears the yellow tracksuit. Also, during the fight between Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the scene near the vase in Logan’s opinion appears to look choppy, along with the short fight with Hugh O’Brian. In the first half of the English version, during the fight sequences, Lee is seen to be beaten down instead of making short work of the henchmen.

Game of Death could be considered more accessible to Western audiences than Lee’s previous films. Compared to other Bruce Lee films like The Big Boss, Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon, Game of Death has more Western characters and the story structure is more straightforward and less culturally specific to Asia.

Game of Death Redux (2019)

On July 19, 2019, timed with the 46th death anniversary of Bruce Lee, producer Alan Canvan premiered a newly edited version of Lee’s Game of Death at the Asian American/Asian Research Institute in New York City, with biographer Matthew Polly joining Canvan in discussing the film and answering audience questions. The Redux edit only uses footage shot during the original production, while combining the score composed by John Barry for the 1978 version. It also restores dialogues that were missing in the 1978 version of Game of Death.

The film was released as a special feature in The Criterion Collection‘s Blu-ray box set of Bruce Lee films, on July 14, 2020.

Legacy

Other Game of Death films

After the death of Bruce Lee, several studios exploited the situation by making their own versions of Game of Death based on what they had learned of the story from production stills and magazine articles. Some of these films pre-dated Robert Clouse’s official Game of Death (1978).

• Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death (1975)

• Enter the Game of Death (1978)

• The True Game of Death (1979)

• Game of Death II (Tower of Death) (1981)

Clouse’s film had a sequel in 1981, Game of Death II, a kung fu action mystery film directed by Ng See-yuen which used cut footage from Lee’s Enter the Dragon to have him make an appearance in the beginning of the film, only to be killed off midway, allowing his on-screen brother to take on the role of protagonist. Aside from the international English dub giving the “Bruce Lee” character the name Billy Lo, this movie appears to have no connection with Clouse’s film.

Wong Jing’s film City Hunter has a similar premise for a scene. Jackie Chan as Ryu Saeba takes on two tall black men, and the film uses clips of Lee’s fight scene against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to get the better of the two.

Influence

The original film’s concept of ascending a tower while defeating enemies on each level was highly influential, inspiring numerous action films and video games.

Film

Italian film scholars Simone Bedetti and Lorenzo De Luca identified Game of Death as an early example of what they call the “arcade movie” genre of action films. These “arcade movies” have three characteristic elements: the achievement of a goal, passing a series of levels, and ascending through a path (whether physical or symbolic). This is presented in Game of Death as Lee going up higher floors while facing increasingly dangerous opponents as he ascends the tower. Later examples of action films which Bedetti and De Luca identify as “arcade movies” include Bruce Lee’s own Enter the Dragon, the Bruce Willis movie Die Hard (1988), Steven Spielberg‘s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Paul W. S. Anderson‘s Mortal Kombat (1995), and the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Sudden Death (1995).

The Raid, a 2011 Indonesian film, was influenced by Game of Death. It has a similar plot structure, set in a single main location, a grungy high-rise building, with grunts at the bottom and the big boss at the top. This Game of Death formula was also used in the film Dredd (2012) and appeared in an episode of SpongeBob.

Several films pay homage to the fight scene between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The scene is parodied in the French film La Tour Montparnasse Infernale, when Ramzy Bedia fight with Bô Gaultier de Kermoal with the same costumes than Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jackie Chan film City Hunter (1993). The Keanu Reeves film John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) pays homage in a scene featuring NBA basketball player Boban Marjanović.

Yellow-and-black jumpsuit

The yellow-and-black jumpsuit which Lee wore in the film has come to be seen as something of a trademark for the actor, and is paid homage to in numerous other media. In the Clouse-directed remake, the filmmakers rationalised its presence by including a scene where Billy Lo disguises himself as one of Dr. Land’s motorcycle-riding thugs, who all wear striped jumpsuits.

In the warehouse scene, Billy Lo wears a pair of yellow Adidas shoes with black stripes and white shelltoes. Towards the end of the film, Billy wears a pair of yellow Moonstar Jaguar shoes, with black stripes. This is because the real Bruce Lee wore the latter when he was filming, and the double wore the former in the 1978 version to resemble his shoes.

In the Lee-directed unfinished version, the jumpsuit should portray personal freedom in the art of combat, without being bounded to a certain fighting style. The cinematic explanation for its presence was the nickname of Hai Tien, Yellow-Faced Tiger, because his fighting outfit and shoes resemble the colours of a Tiger. Over the years there were many speculations about the colour of the jumpsuit and its meaning. According to Andre Morgan from Golden Harvest, they had a yellow suit with black bars, and a black suit with yellow bars. Lee first chose the black suit, but changed it to the yellow because Abdul-Jabbar’s footprints were better visible on it.

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