Bruce Lee - My last fight

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Movie
German title Bruce Lee -
My last fight
Original title Game of Death
死亡 遊戲
Country of production USA , Hong Kong
original language English
Publishing year 1978
length 96 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Robert Clouse
script Bruce Lee,
Jan Spears
production Golden Harvest
music John Barry
camera Godfrey A. Godar
cut Alan Pattillo
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Bruce Lee - The Last Battle of the Death Claw

Movie
Original title The Game of Death
死亡 的 遊戲
original language English , Cantonese
Publishing year 1972
length 40 minutes
Rod
Director Bruce Lee
script Bruce Lee
production Bruce Lee
Raymond Chow
music Peter Thomas
camera Tadashi Nishimoto
cut Peter Cheung
occupation

Bruce Lee - My Last Fight (Original Title: Game of Death ) is an American - Hong Kongese martial arts film from 1978, which was directed by Robert Clouse . It should be the fifth film of Bruce Lee are, but which could not be completed as intended by him for his version of premature death. The film scenes that Lee had already shot in 1973 were added to the final version of My Last Struggle via footage .

Lee's decision to postpone his own film was because he had accepted a prestigious offer from Hollywood studio Warner Bros. for the film The Man with the Death Claw . He wanted to resume work on Game of Death after this film was over. This did not happen, however, as Lee died completely unexpectedly three weeks before the man with the death claw had its premiere in the cinema.

action

Dr. Land and his Handlager Steiner have set up a syndicate that acts, among other things, as an organizer of martial arts fights. Another big event that promises a huge profit is just around the corner. The martial arts film star Billy Lo was also built up by the syndicate. Since Billy's contract has just expired, he is put under massive pressure to sign another contract. Since Billy has been dissatisfied for a long time, he wants to end the collaboration.

While out with his girlfriend Ann Morris, he is followed and attacked by Syndicate people in order to extort his signature. At first he can defend himself against the attackers, but ultimately succumbs to them. Ann is also harassed because the Syndicate wants to sign her as a successful singer. After this incident, the couple meets with journalist friend Jim Marshall. He says it is known that the Syndicate members would walk over dead bodies if someone did not trace as expected. A few days later, when Billy goes to another friend for advice, members of the Syndicate show up and beat him up. You want to force your contractual signature at all costs.

Billy's decision is now clear that he doesn't want to continue working with these people under any circumstances. He makes an appointment with Ann at the ferry terminal and asks her to disappear from the scene for a while until he has done something important.

Shortly afterwards, he stands in front of the camera for the final filming, with several pistol shooters shooting at him in the scene. Instead of a blank cartridge, however, a real bullet hits him and seriously injures his head. The next day, the newspapers spread the news of the star's death while the journalist helped him to a rescue operation.

The general sympathy at the official funeral was huge. Ann, who was not told so as not to endanger her, is stunned. "Everyone knows what is being played here, but nobody dares to do anything against these pigs," she says before she collapses.

Three weeks later she is visited in a sanatorium by Jim, who is taught by him about the improved condition. Shortly afterwards, Dr. Country and company. They try to put Ann under pressure, but, to their great annoyance, are cursed by her after she has recognized one of the pistol shooters from the film scene in another companion.

Billy is now back after a successful operation and is starting to transform himself. The first thing he is looking for is Dr. Land that he brutally prosecutes and fights down numerous attackers there whom the syndicate chief has called for help. Then it disappears again. Land is puzzling who it could have been and what it was aiming at. The man looks somehow familiar, he lets Carl Miller, one of his loyal followers, know. Miller had to fight a boxing match that same evening, which he also won. Ann also appears in the fight to shoot the man she blames for Billy's death. Surprisingly, she hears a very familiar voice behind her saying: "Don't do it, what should happen, happens." Ann tells Jim about it and also that she is sure that it was Billy's voice, she knows this voice better than her own. For Miller, however, the evening ends fatally, he is not up to the fight against Billy, who appears in his locker room.

After Billy's grave was opened in secret, Land's suspicions were confirmed that he was still alive. So he kidnaps Ann so that she can lure Billy as bait. He sends him a message via Jim. Of course, Billy goes to the ordered meeting point, a warehouse, where he finds Ann gagged and tied up. While he frees them, the engines are already roaring in front of the hall, announcing their fellow countrymen, who will then be there within a short time. Billy grabs one of them and usurps his clothes and helmet. One by one, he incapacitates his opponents. When trying to get in touch with his henchmen, Dr. Country no response.

After Billy gets the hint from the dying stick where the head of the Syndicate is, he goes to the restaurant, which turns out to be a pagoda inside . There a different opponent awaits him at every level, who is defeated by him. On the penultimate level he meets fellow loyal Steiner, whom he also fights down. Finally he finds Dr. Land sitting at a desk with his wrists cut. However, Billy sees through that it is just a deceptively real doll and follows the fleeing country out into the open. While trying to escape over a roof, the syndicate chief slips and falls to his death.

Production and DVD

The film was shot in Hong Kong, Macau and in the Lou Lim Leoc Garden in Macau. Colleen Camp , who plays a singer in the film, sang the film song Will This Be the Song I'll Be Singing Tomorrow? himself. Text and music are from John Barry . The song Game of Death - Hong Kong Version only - will also be heard , music: Joseph Koo, text: James Wong , sung by Roman Tam.

The film premiered in Hong Kong on March 23, 1978. It was released in West German cinemas on April 27, 1978, and in the United States on June 8, 1979.

The film was released on DVD on May 7, 2010 (playing time 94 min.) And on September 9, 2011 on Blu-ray (100 min.), Published by Universum Film GmbH.

criticism

Cinema's conclusion was: "Sham: little leeward and a lot of doubling."

In Kino.de was read, the film was a "completed only with much good will as a Bruce Lee film to be designated martial arts production, four years after Lee's sudden death" was. It went on: “Before filming 'Enter the Dragon', Lee had shot fight scenes for his own film idea, about ten minutes of which are used towards the end, including the great fight against Karim Abdul Jabbar. Otherwise, director Robert Clouse ('Enter the Dragon') made do with rear views and sunglasses wearing doubles. "

The critic of the OFDb asked why the finished film could become a "catastrophe" "in which Bruce Lee would probably turn in his grave" despite the engagement of Robert Clouse, the action scenes choreographed by Sammo Hung and a great cast of cast members. . But one can state that “the attempt to construct a passable film around Bruce has failed phenomenally”. It went on to say: “The film is a real farce and for long stretches it was simply cobbled together in a bumbling manner. It hurts to see the cheap tricks that have been used here. Cardboard faces of Bruce were mounted in front of doubles, so bad that everyone recognizes the fake immediately. Images from previous films, especially close-ups, are used and cut whenever the opportunity arises. Often, however, the images used do not match the newly shot material, for example because the backgrounds are designed differently and that is very annoying. What is most noticeable is the miserable cut of the original footage from 'Game of Death'. "

concept

Lee's basic idea was to bring together the greatest athletes and fighters in the world in one film. The final scene of Game of Death takes place in a pagoda , the floors of which represent different martial arts styles, so that Bruce faces a new opponent on each floor. At the top level is Jeet Kune Do .

In order to realize this, from August to October 1972 he invited various martial artists to the shooting in Hong Kong. First he got his protégé and very good friend Dan Inosanto , with whom he has a nunchaku duel on the first floor . When Bruce found out that his friend and student Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , an American basketball star, was also in Hong Kong, Bruce Lee called him and suggested that he shoot a fight scene with him as it would be very impressive to to fight against an opponent who is almost half a meter taller than him. Bruce Lee invited the well-known South Korean martial artist and Sin Moo Hapkido founder Ji Han-jae to another scene . After completing these scenes, the project was initially interrupted when Lee received an offer from Warner Brothers for a film called Enter the Dragon . Because Lee finally wanted to be successful in the United States too , he accepted the offer. Since the shooting dragged on until May / June, he no longer had the opportunity to finish Game of Death .

In 1978 director Bob Clouse ( The Man with the Death Claw ) and producer Raymond Chow took charge of the completion of Game of Death (for which Lee wrote a screenplay, but was not found in the Golden Harvest archives until 1999). The result no longer looked much like Lee's original concept. Excerpts from Lee's earlier films and newly filmed scenes were added to the already existing recordings of Game of Death in order to create a life story, which sometimes deviates from reality.

In 2000, the documentary Bruce Lee: The Path of a Fighter (Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey) was released with new original excerpts believed to be lost (41 minutes + further documentary). There is also a follow-up film Game of Death II (1981) and other films such as Bruce Lee in GOD and Goodbye, Bruce Lee: His Last Game with Death (1975 with Bruce Li ).

There is also the film Bruce Lee - The Game of Death, in which Bruce Lee was not involved. The look and details of the films are very different from Lee's films.

The Game of Death 1973

Beopjusa Pagoda (Palsangjeon Hall)
Location of the original version with Bruce Lee in Chungcheongbuk-do , in the background the 5-storey Beopjusa Pagoda

On the DVD Bruce Lee: The Way of a Fighter there is also an exact description of the planned story, which was summarized with Korean actors in just under twenty minutes. Bruce Lee wanted to portray a man named Hai Tien in this film, a martial artist who has resigned unbeaten after a martial arts career and who is traveling through Southeast Asia with his sister ( Nora Miao was slated for the role) and little brother. During a stopover at Kimpo Airport in South Korea, his siblings get into the hands of a crime boss who wants to use them as bait so that Hai Tien can support him. His plan: He wants to regain a stolen Korean national treasure that is hidden in the top floor of a pagoda . Hai Tien is supposed to lead a group of six people in total, five martial artists including himself, and a lockcracker who was very likely to be portrayed by Lee Kwan, with whom Lee had already played in two of his previous three films. The boss reports about another group that tried to storm the pagoda (their leader was a student of Hai Tien) but the operation failed. The pagoda has been locked since then. Since the boss has Hai Tien's siblings under his control, he has no other option than to participate. When the six-person team reached the pagoda grounds, they were attacked by ten karate fighters. Rumor has it that Bolo Yeung was the performer for the leader of this group of ten. After the karate fighters are eliminated, the team reaches the pagoda. The lock picker opens the door and Hai Tien and his companions enter the pagoda to fight their way up. The first floor was to be guarded by Hwang In-shik, who had already reappeared with Lee in Death's Claw Strikes . He was a kick expert; very likely the style of the fighter he was supposed to portray should be taekwondo . Lee had designated his student Taky Kimura to be the guardian of the second floor; this should show elements of Wing Chun and praying mantis style ( Kung Fu ) mixed. In both martial arts the hands are predominantly used, and all kicks are below the belt. The scenes were filmed from the third floor. The guardian was portrayed by Dan Inosanto , he fights with Escrima and Nunchaku . On the fourth floor, the South Korean Ji Han-Jae came into action, who mainly works with lever and throwing techniques that come from Hapkido . The last and top corridor of the pagoda was guarded by a giant who has no fighting style. Its performer was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar . According to Lee's philosophy, this was the highest level of martial arts, a personal style of free fighting with no classical boundaries.

At the end of the film, an exhausted Hai Tien stumbles down the steps where the lock picker is waiting for him. Both leave the premises. According to Lee's script, the boss is arrested by the police and Hai Tien is able to continue the journey with his siblings. George Lazenby explained in several interviews that he made a brief appearance at the end of the film and should be something of a guru of Hai Tien.

The yellow tracksuit

In the filmed scenes of Game of Death , the character played by Lee wears very eye-catching clothing: a yellow, one-piece tracksuit with black stripes on the sides. Lee appeared in this suit to symbolize that he did not feel he belonged to any of the known and classic martial arts styles. He also wanted to express that you don't have to wear a classic outfit to be a good fighter.

In the film Kill Bill - Volume 1 , the leading actress Uma Thurman appears at the end in clothes that have exactly the colors of the suit Lee used in 1972. According to his own statement, director Quentin Tarantino wanted to remind of the Eastern films of the 70s. Tarantino is of the opinion that today's martial arts films like Tiger and Dragon live too much on camera tricks than on authentic performance.

In the Playstation game Tekken , the characters Marshall Law and Forest Law also wear this suit.

Adaptations

  • The computer game Kung-Fu Master is about the fight in the five-story pagoda.
  • The fight in the pagoda appears in a slightly modified version as a mini-game in Shadow Hearts: From The New World .
  • The Spongebob SquarePants episode The King of Karate parodies the pagoda fight.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The Game of Death ( 死亡 的 遊戲 ). Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  2. Bruce Lee biography at jkdcologne.de
  3. Bruce Lee - My Last Fight DVD
  4. Bruce Lee in My Last Fight Bluray
  5. Bruce Lee - My Last Fight (1973/78) - Kung-Fu-Action, only completed after the death of the martial arts legend. at cinema.de. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
  6. Bruce Lee - My last fight (1978) at kino.de. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
  7. My last fight (1978) at ofdb.de. Retrieved August 28, 2016.