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(#1) Most Of The Film Utilizes A Bruce Lee Double
Since Bruce Lee only completed about 40 minutes of filming, the filmmakers enlisted a stand-in to pose as Lee throughout the majority of the movie. To hide the fact that the actor is not Lee, filmmakers purposely lit sets poorly, filmed the double from behind, and shot with wide angles to make his face less visible.
The double also used disguises to create a faux Lee, such as a fake mustache and beard, giant sunglasses, and at one point, a motorcycle helmet with a dark visor.
One movie reviewer noted Lee's character changes his voice at least five times throughout the film. Adding to the cheapness of using a poor double, the actor randomly changes into the film's famous yellow jumpsuit to match Lee's costume in his completed scenes, but no explanation for this is given.
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(#2) Filmmakers Used A Bruce Lee Photo Cutout In One Shot
What do you do when your lead actor has passed on, you've used up all the footage left over from his other films, and the stand-in with the big sunglasses isn't fooling anyone? If you're the filmmakers behind Lee's infamous posthumous release, you use a cardboard cutout of the star.
In one scene, a photograph of Lee's face is layered over the actor in the scene. If you watch the video, you can see the obvious and cringe-inducing coverup around the 1:05 mark. Good thing the filmmakers only used this trick once.
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(#3) The Film Uses Real Footage From Bruce Lee's Funeral
In the movie, Bruce Lee's character, Billy Lo, is the victim of a targeted strike carried out by gangsters. To go undercover and save his girlfriend, Lo convinces everyone he didn't survive. This allowed the filmmakers to explain why "Bruce Lee" doesn't look like himself, but also gave them another way of bringing the real Lee back into the film - with actual footage from his burial service.
The movie shows Lee's casket, mourners, and even a closeup of the deceased Lee's face in a very twisted cameo. Whether this adds anything to the film is a matter of personal opinion, but many Lee fans believe the movie was only created to make money off the actor, and this footage serves as a metaphorical roundhouse kick to the face.
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(#4) The Filmmakers Recycled Shots From Other Bruce Lee Movies
Perhaps because they realized they'd only be able to get away with so many shots of Bruce Lee's stand-in, the filmmakers mined his other films for footage. Some shots come from the finished frames of other Lee movies, such as a stunt which originally appeared at the end of The Chinese Connection.
They also took reaction shots of Lee from his other movies so his real face can occasionally be seen in closeups sprinkled throughout the film.
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(#5) Filmmakers Used Plastic Surgery To Explain Why Lee Looks Different
The film follows Bruce Lee's character, Billy Lo, a Hong Kong movie star. Members of a syndicate threaten him for not joining their organization, assault his girlfriend, and try to off him on a movie set by shooting him in the face. Because of this, Lo gets plastic surgery to change his appearance.
Since the villains think he's kicked the bucket, Lo is able to fight them with his new face and not be recognized. It may be a weak plot, but it made a lot of sense to the filmmakers. They realized plastic surgery could easily explain why Lee doesn't quite look like himself through the majority of the film - at least during the times he's not wearing a fake beard or standing with his back to the camera.
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(#6) The Real Bruce Lee Fights Three Opponents For A Total Of 11 Minutes
If you subtract all the recycled footage and one strange cardboard cutout, the real Bruce Lee only appears in his final film for 11 minutes. Despite this short amount of time, many fans feel these scenes are some of Lee's best work. Of the five pagoda battles at the end of the movie, Lee fights three himself: against Filipino martial artist Dan Inosanto, Korean fighter Ji Han Jae, and the big boss, former basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The Abdul-Jabbar fight became one of Lee's most remembered, with Abdul-Jabbar playing a 7-foot-tall martial arts master who has a strong sensitivity to light. While this casting may seem strange to some, Abdul-Jabbar took up martial arts in college and studied under Lee at one point.
Lee's yellow jumpsuit from the fight also became a memorable image, with Quentin Tarantino homaging it in Kill Bill.
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(#7) Chuck Norris Appeared Without Against His Wishes
Golden Harvest approached several big name Hollywood actors to join the cast of Game, like Steven McQueen, Muhammad Ali, and James Coburn, but they all declined. Chuck Norris, on the other hand, didn't get a choice about appearing in the film.
Although he turned down the role of Steiner, the filmmakers included Norris in the movie anyway, thanks to discarded footage from Norris's fight with Lee in Return of the Dragon (AKA The Way of the Dragon). This upset Norris so much he threatened to sue if the producers didn't remove his name from the credits.
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(#8) Bruce Lee Never Wrote A Screenplay For The Movie
Bruce Lee never wrote a screenplay for the film before he passed. He did leave behind notes and a bare bones outline, however, which read, "The big fight. An arrest is made. The airport. The end." Lee did make it known he envisioned an evil syndicate as the villains of the story, and the hero would have to fight his way up through levels of their pagoda headquarters. Each floor would hold a different martial arts master, in ascending levels of power, requiring the hero to adapt and fight using several different styles.
To give Lee's story a plot, the filmmakers hired Michael Allin, the screenwriter of Enter the Dragon. Allin had a poor reputation in Hollywood, and lines like, "Let it go. What must be done is being done," certainly didn't help make Lee's final movie his best.
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(#9) It Came Out Five Years After Lee Passed
Bruce Lee only shot the fight scenes before his untimely passing. He was taken by cerebral edema in 1973, just before Enter the Dragon released, leaving his final film unfinished. Hong Kong martial arts movie studio Golden Harvest hired Enter the Dragon's director, Robert Clouse, to piece together Lee's footage, add his own, and turn Game into a completed film.
Clouse decided to only use 11 minutes of Lee's original footage, since his story leaked somehow and appeared in a 1975 Japanese novel of the same name. The book claimed to be based on Lee's story and included little details thought up by Lee, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's lizard eyes. Despite this, the studio pushed production forward, eager to take advantage of the Lee craze that followed his passing.
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(#10) Golden Harvest Made A Sequel Using More Recycled Footage
Trying to further capitalize on the public's love of Bruce Lee, Golden Harvest pushed out a sequel to Game in 1981. Because the original was a big hit in Japan, the filmmakers shot most of the sequel there. The movie gave a starring credit to Lee, though he only appears in recycled footage, including childhood home videos and more shots from his memorial.
Lee stand-in Kim Tai-chung took the main role in film, starring as Billy Lo's brother. Thankfully, he didn't have to hide behind sunglasses and motorcycle helmets this time.
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(#11) Lee's Stand-In Made A Career Out Of His Impersonation
When Bruce Lee passed in 1973, Hong Kong movie studios began making martial art movies featuring Lee lookalikes as quickly as they could. Movies with titles like Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger and Enter Another Dragon starred actors with names like Bruce Li and Dragon Lee. Lee's double, Kim Tai-chung, also took advantage of this and created an entire career out of mimicking the late actor.
Chung starred in Game of Death II and later appeared alongside a Jackie Chan double in Jackie vs. Bruce to the Rescue. He also managed to take his Lee likeness overseas, appearing with Jean-Claude Van Damme in No Retreat, No Surrender. This time, he plays the ghost of Lee, who appears and trains the hero in martial arts.
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(#12) Conspiracies About Unreleased Footage Exist
Because Bruce Lee never completed a screenplay and no one fully understood his ideas for the film, rumors about what his movie would have looked like still circle among fans. Some people think Lee's footage holds clues pointing to the existence of many more pagoda levels. Others believe more original footage featuring Lee exists somewhere, perhaps secretly held by Golden Harvest's Raymond Chow.
Several private collectors have also come forward claiming Chow gave them Lee's complete film to hold for safekeeping. Photos have even been attributed to the film's missing scenes, though at least some of these are allegedly from an unrelated photo shoot.
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About This Tool
More than 40 years ago, the 33-year-old Kung Fu superstar Bruce Lee suddenly passed away in Hong Kong. This news shocked the world. Regarding the cause of his death, although the court determined that it was a drug allergy, there are still many controversies and speculations about this, and they have been arguing for many years.
Bruce Lee died while shooting "Game of Death". The director had to change the plot of the movie, and the Korean star played Bruce Lee's stand-in. The frontal shots in the movie were all cuts from Bruce Lee's films before his death. The random tool shares 12 details of how they take advantage of his name, footage, and scenes.
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