Has GAME OF DEATH (1978) aged well?  

The music in the international cut has never left my head since I first heard it, absolutely fantastic

I couldn't agree more . With today's face swapping technology it would be quite easy to remake GOD as close to Bruce's vision as possible . If only

When I saw Game of Death in the cinema for the first time as a teenager, I liked the fight-scene with the motorcycles in the warehouse. The highlight was, of course, the real Bruce at the end of the movie.

Man I totally agree. The overuse of Bruce's war cries did my head in. 😅 I find it hard to watch. I think it actually distracts from the action. I'm certain Bruce's version would have exceeded enter the Dragon. Great review Stripey 👌

Way of the Dragon is my favourite. Game of Death we have the luxury of just skipping to the final fight scenes. When I went to Rome 5 years ago I visited the Colosseum and tour guide asked who knows when the last fight was here. Everyone scratch their heads but I knew straight away and got it right, Chuck and Bruce of course. Nice review. Hope you got your monetisation back.

The Game Of Death is a guilty pleasure. We all just watch it for the last footage of Bruce Lee

I first learned of Bruce Lee from watching Dragon the Bruce Lee story when I was 11 and was hooked. I saw the VHS tapes and the first Bruce Lee movie I ever saw was game of death, not fully knowing about the cut out used as my TV quality was low. Got to say though I still enjoy watching the Game of Death mainly for the fond memories of the start of my Bruce Lee journey. R.i.p Bruce

Last time I watched GAME OF DEATH we played a drinking game where you had to drink a finger every time it reused Bruce from other films. We were smashed 30mins in.

3:55 That's Kim Tai Chung as Bruce Lee's double.

Sorry to hear about your YT troubles, hope it's sorted soon. Great review of GOD 78. Loved it as a kid, via a rubbish VHS, not understanding the full story behind it. These days the music is good, the locker room fight and the Bruce footage is worth a watch, the rest leaves a very sour taste.

100% correct…any Bruce Lee fan would agree…if you like game of death you are not a Lee Sifu fan…I just watched this movie a few weeks ago…watched the whole movie just for the last 30 mins. But I will say this thank you I had no idea their were different versions thank you!!! ❤️❤️

every thing before Bruce appearing at the end is totally forgotten , change of face ,scars ,etc i was just blown away to see Bruce on screen . i remember going to see game of death with my mates , as we were to young we had to go with my mates mam, image sitting waiting for movie to start and curtains open then total shock, music starts , king of kung fu, the movie was Bruce's lee's last game of death , starring Bruce Li, we were gutted .

it makes sense because the reason he was wearing bandages was because he had plastic surgery done and it took time to heal. So by the end of the movie, there would be no scars due to the results of the plastic surgery. That’s the whole point of plastic surgery, it reconstructs your face to how it originally looked

I remember my Auntie Dawn peace be upon her soul. Went to see Game of Death in theater came home and told me about the cardboard cut on the mirror and that you didn’t see Bruce Lee until the end. But that’s what the entire audience was waiting for. I own an original Game of Death book from Golden Harvest only missing is the poster. It will always be a guilty pleasure. Had a Great One sheet poster.

I'll never willingly watch GOD again, though I eagerly awaited it's release in the 70s just to see the film of Bruce. 'The Final GOD' is another matter though, it's a masterpiece.

The Final Game of Death completely kicks this version to the curb now. Also I love Bob Wall but some of his stories were getting that outrageous it knocked the camera out of focus.😂

Used to love “Game Of Death” as a kid but now I see it in a totally different light…kind of tasteless what they did with the funeral footage to be honest. Still, the fight choreography is actually really good at times. You never know, Dan Inosanto may have been told it was going to be this amazing tribute movie to Bruce Lee’s legacy but it ended up more of an exploitation of Bruce just to milk the last remaining footage?

Hi Stripey, Game of Death was always to me something I had to defend growing up, I knew in my heart it was rubbish, but to get that footage in the late 1970s was fantastic, but friends who watched it with me could not grasp it when I said ..."That's Bruce, That's not, That's Bruce ..and so on! it was to me like the in-law you never liked, but they slipped you a few bob at the end when they were leaving, so it was worth sitting through!..as for Bob Wall, and the locker-room fight even I knew back then, Bruce had nothing to do with that!! the cut-too's with wallpaper from Way of the Dragon!!! -Anyway, up the good work Stripey

i am 25 years old and just started to watch bruce lee films. i didn't watch Game of Death (1978), and i just skipped to the Final Game of Death (2023) which is purely awesome!

Here is my 2nd Comment on Enter The Dragon , that movie was an Apology to Bruce Lee by WB , WB knew that they Blew it that TV show Kung Fu , was going to be starring Bruce Lee , a lot of the Story Lines in that show were some Ideals that were Bruce Lee's Ideals , originally the Part were Bruce Lee was talking with the Shaolin Temple's Master , most likely was supposed to been the Theater Released , but because of that TV show Kung Fu , i believed after Bruce Lee's death , they edited it out , and that director of Enter The Dragon i personally feel did the damage to the Game Of Death , so that it would not over Shadow Enter The Dragon , to me seemed like Bruce Lee betrayed both in life and death by some people in the Show Business world , but he did have some good friends that Loved Him .

Back in 1984 I payed £50 for a uncut VHS of Game Of Death just so I could actually watch the classic Bruce V Dan footage censored out of the UK version . Never has a shitty movie made me so happy as that old VHS did

Apparently James Coburn was offered the Newspaper reporter role and for the reasons described turned it down so Gig Young took the role same with Chuck Norris, Steve McQueen and George Lazenby for Steiner so Hugh O'Brian took that one

I didn't like this movie back in '78 so the answer is no, John Barry music notwithstanding. CGI face-swapping is the only way this movie can be saved, but it would also involve reshooting the missing segments from the orginal screenplay and reworking the movie as a whole.

Dean jagger fish scene love it 😂😂Well done stripey for showing that👍👍

My honest thoughts were and then of course given the timeline of things it doesn't make sense but I think if presented the opportunity with the Game of Death 1979 script Bruce Lee might be interested cuz it's actually a very similar International audience aimed story like Enter the dragon. Of course it would be a Bruce Lee starred in movie then his passion project like the original Game of Death. But I felt like it would be a pretty good movie starring Bruce Lee throughout obviously with certain rewrites cuz they don't need to to have those goofy reasons to hide his face or stick a picture of him in front of a mirror And Bruce Lee would have end up doing something else. I also got influenced by listening to an interview about the Game of Death redux. And I do agree since Bruce Lee originally shot the 40 minutes of footage but had trouble figuring out the beginning of the movie he might just scrap the idea and do start fresh after filming Enter the Dragon

I remember watching game of death when I was much younger and did not know they used all the fake Bruce Lee's in the movie. I really enjoyed the opening with Chuck, the locker room fight, and the last part with the real Bruce Lee. Oh and the Theme music was just fantastic. Everything else was just non sense. Like you said a cash grab. BTW Bruce would probably kick someone's ass over the release of this movie using his good name.

Game of death is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME and STUNNINGLY AMAZING Way much better than the so called Hollywood imitation and knockoffs

I agree totally with you reveiw bud I watched game of death once I hated it they totally disrespected Bruce in every way what a mess and what you said would enter the dragon been the same without Bruce Lee no enter the dragon is Bruce Lee

You say the nunchuck scene was missing from your VHS? I believe in the UK those scenes are banned because of nunchuck are banned there.

Thank you for the honest review.

We have the technology now, why not someone just fix all the problems?

The thing with Bob is one minute he's saying good things then in the next interview the complete opposite. I kinda take what he says with a pinch of salt. Maybe he was referring to the way of the dragon clips dropped in. That would be the only time Bruce was on screen in that scene. Have a great day Stripey 😊

Hey Stripey, I remember seeing it at the cinema, even the Dan Inosanto credit in the small circle as his name is cast was freeze framed so you couldn't see the nunchaku sequence used, on a sidenote, Fermann cut out a scene in one of the Teenage Turtles films because one of the Turtles is using sausages as nunchucks! Lol

It's one of those so bad it's good. Couldn't agree more with your review. I'm so glad you mentioned about the scars on his face. Shot in the face, reconstruct your face so the bad guys don't know who you are, turn up at the end with the same face. Sums up game of death...Bob Wall is great, but I have seen interviews with him, that, let's put it this way, 'don't let the truth get in the way of a good story'..😂. Great review..

I know what you mean with the titles which are a nod to Bond I have watched the all the versions of GOD With the Cantonese version being the one I return to in the future I like the theme in the titles and also end titles Sadly the funeral scenes should not have been allowed in the first place Take a break from GOD for a while I have watched the documentaries and they are worth reviewing Keep up the good work Look forward to your next one 👍

The final Game of Death was a wonderful tribute that i think Bruce would be happy with, done so well, and I really think Arrow have done an outstanding release on this. Yeah watching the theatrical version of Game of Death is terrible. I like the intro music bond like very much and of course the Bruce footage, but now this new Final Game of Death mini film blows everything else away . I do like the musical score when Bruce fights Kareem in the 98 version with the funky 70s music 😅

The Greenhouse fight in the extra’s is a real gem.

Most of my friends say the only Bruce Lee movie they have ever only seen is Game of Death …. what a crime!

Greetings again Darrin. Just wondered if you ordered or picked up any of the Tom Waits remasters. I ordered mine from the official store, and have to wait til next week before getting my copy of Rain Dogs. I’d love to hear your take on comparing the originals vs the remasters. Cheers, Curt

I love the lockerroom fight, that's the best Bruceploitation for that time, but the worst laziness voice and face closeup must be "wheea is da dactaaaaah!"

Great review. You had me cracking up with your reactions to some of the more BS aspects of the film and extras.

Hey mate davy from Edinburgh just watched your episode Great, gig young was alcoholic he murdered his wife of only a few days,she was stunning, I first saw bruce in a magazine my older brother had it scared the hell out of me,bruce was in his coffin, will never forget that I'm 61 I'm hoping if I come into money I will visit his and Brandon's grave.take care mate

Yes game of death love it or hate I wish he had finnish the whole film there's just not enough of him out there,longstreet cameos are really good.

I liked the added finale fight at the end of Game of the Death . There's a documentry of Bruce been added to Disney plus . I don't know if you have seen it before , or if it is on 4K boxset.

Enter the dragon without Bruce lee would have probably have been like god without Bruce lee same director but with no Bruce lee, Bruce should have got assistant director for enter the dragon nearly every photo footage there is of him on set he looks as if he’s directing the movie not just the fight scenes imagine what the movie would have been like if Bruce directed the whole movie with no Robert clouse.

Even back in 1978 when they did the face over scene...everybody in the movie theater let out a collective groan! But we waited till the last 13 minutes to see Bruce Lee! The funeral scene was distasteful as well! Cheers mate!!

Spot on Stripey. Nothing more needs to be said. Can only hope Brandon got to see all the footage his dad shot for GOD.

This has to be Robert Clouse’s worth picture next to Gymkata 😂

Hello Sir 👋 For me, Robert Clouse version of " Game of death " has always been a disastrous piece of s..t ! Low level cast, stupid story......but the worst thing was to discover only 20 minutes of Bruce Lee 's piece of work ! No need to say that I totally agree with Bob Wall's interview on this bluray. Thanks for this video Sir and take care

hi when I first saw game of death I was so excited but in to the movie my jaw was dropping of disappointment the first thing was the battle cries I actually felt embarrassed to hear that threw out the movie funny I believe that some of the bruce Lee exploitation films battle cries sound better anyway and of course the cut out of his face in mirror but the worst thing to me was a close up of the tennis shoes they look like old converse man that shot really did if for me but it was beautiful seeing bruce in his yellow jumpsuit for th first time.

Ok, I'll admit it, I can't argue when you say Game Of Death '78 is a bad, clearly exploitative movie. In hindsight I find the use of Bruce Lee's real funeral footage to be in particularly poor taste (& Raymond Chow used it in two other movies, as well!), it had to be disturbing for Linda, Brandon, & Shannon when they saw the movie on it's big opening night in Hollywood. But ... Game Of Death '78 was, for me, my very first exposure to Bruce Lee (& martial arts in general), my older brother took me to see it, I watched, awestruck, & my life was changed forever. So, for me, this movie will always have tons of nostalgic value, I basically can't hate it! And, as you mentioned, it's not all bad, I love the music, the locker room fight is great, Colleen Camp was babe-ilicious (& her song was nice, too), Billy versus the motorcycle baddies in the warehouse was fun, Dean Jagger was entertainingly campy, it wasn't Fist Of Fear Touch Of Death! Also, I don't actually think if Bruce had been able to complete Game Of Death that it would've been a masterpiece. I say this basically because, assuming it would've run the standard Hong Kong movie running time of 90 minutes or so, at least 45 minutes of it would have been fight scenes; while that might sound great to martial arts movie fans, how much time would that have left for story & character development? It seems like GOD would've basically been fu-nography (you know, all "action", no plot). Also, as much as Bruce may have wanted to teach lessons about things like being flexible, & adapting to new obstacles/different styles, as a writer he hadn't quite gotten to the point where he could do more subtle showing than telling, he was, in my opinion, being too direct, too "talkie" in sharing his philosophical points. Would general audiences have understood what he was trying to say, anyway? Sorry I'm being so long-winded & wordy myself, Stripey, I hope you won't take offense at this, but I wanted to point out that when you cut from the clip of Dean Jagger laughing maniacally at the fish, to the shot of your face, I couldn't help but think there were some striking similarities between those two faces! You look way younger, obviously, but still, the glasses, the, ahem, "hairstyle", the silver facial hair, well, maybe in 30 years or so you'll be doing a mean Dr.Evil impression, too! Anyway, I hope that observation was amusing for you, too!

I got the same feeling watching it so many times, the first part of the movie is the worst because of the awful ways they added real Bruce clips into something that don't match. Later on why did they have the fight in the heavy rain, then motorcycle to the restaurant totally dry for Bruce's footage 😅

3:19

What doesnt make sense why they killed him off after the enter the dragon movie. Plus he never got to fight bolo yeung onscreen either. His role in the movie felt more like a guest appearance and the English actor who fought bolo perhaps they had him as the main hero of enter the dragon. They even today haven't been able to give birth to another bruce lee. Maybe the Chinese only could give birth to only 1 and the west killed him off before he could be successful.

Are you planning to review GOD 2 or the alternate cuts of GOD 78? Be interested to hear your thoughts on the sequel. Great review as always.

Completely agree with all of your points regarding GOD 78 mate, although I still find myself watching it from time to time 😂 it's always been a guilty pleasure for me and I've never taken it too seriously. Makes you wonder why nobody even really cared about the quality of the movie they were making, after all a lot of the people involved knew Bruce personally, even Raymond Chow? The editing is just lazy and the funeral footage and cardboard cut out etc what on earth made them think that was a good idea. Still baffles me. If you get chance mate I would defo recommend watching the Cantonese alternate version, not a massive improvement but it does feel more like a "Bruce Lee" movie with the Chinese dialogue, alternate scenes and real battle cries etc.

Thank you Stripey.

Years ago I bought a super 8mm copy of the Bruce Lee GOD fight scenes to see the Dan Inosanto nunchuck footage. The quality was terrible you could hardly make it out 😂😂

I always felt Stripey that this is what the next big american film would have looked like had he gone on. I mean, it's not a bad movie had it been 100% Bruce.

the main thing that is redeemable for me with this was not , the take on the story , and the way i feel that was insulting to Bruce Lee and the story line , was the actors , I really like Dean Jager , i like Colleen Camp , and man who played that News Paper reporter , i thought he was very good , his life of his murder of his wife and suicide , it i found shocking i have never heard the reason why , but i really thought he was very talented .

I’m afraid (after the first time) I can’t watch this film at all anymore. I genuinely applaud the producers for trying to give us access to more Bruce. But, for me anyway, the incorporation of sections of real Bruce footage, and the very obvious superimposing of Bruce’s face from previous movies - complete with the just as obvious changing of different backgrounds (e.g. distant shot, very in your face wallpaper behind him / a second later, a quick zoom in on his face, a brick wall behind him / then back to distance shot and the wallpaper is back, etc.) - was so badly done it spoiled the fun for me and made it a somewhat laughable movie in places. If they had made the film completely using either of the two ‘clones’ of Bruce used in it (Yuen Biao & Kim Tai-chung), it would’ve (to me at least) have made for a good martial arts movie to be enjoyed. They could’ve just included the REAL gem footage Bruce left us as a separate ‘entity’ to enjoy at the end. But each to their own. I know many enjoy the film as is, and that’s great - it would be boring if we were all the same, wouldn’t it?

Hi Stripey a spot on review of Game of Death 1978 version. Two words come to mind when thinking of the film. Bloody awful. I used to rent the rank video and would sit through it with clenched teeth waiting for the real Bruce Lee footage to show up. Why was Jeet Kune Do instructor Chris Kent employed to do those awful war cries? And from what I gather, also do the Billy Lo lines as well. The lines come across so flat. I hate Bruces characters name as it sounds so weak. Billy Lo hardly sounds macho does it. He is beaten up twice in the film too!! Bruce Lee would be turning in his grave if he saw this rubbish. I think Raymond Chow and Golden Harvest saw it as a cash grab and Chow never cared for Bruce once he had gone. Bob Wall a great villain in Bruces films but also a great BS artist too. Arrow points this out as a word of caution that Bob did like to tell tall tales. Bob Clouse was a mediocre director. And to be fair Bruce did choose him to direct ETD on account of the fight scene he directed in 'Darker than amber' with Rod Taylor. Once Clouse got started on ETD the little Dragon took on a lot of the production to make up for Bob's short comings which are very evident in the 78 Game of Death. Give me the final Game of Death any day.

Cool video mate my take on game of death is the fights with Bruce are what we wanted to see the score by John Barry is excellent the opening titles are cool .the rest of the movie is a travesty using inserts from his other movies don't match the photo taped to a mirror but the worst is using Bruce's real funeral as Billy Los funeral that's is the ultimate disgrace.i saw this in cinema back 1980 double bill with big boss no nunchaku battle but I did see this scene at 2nd Bruce convention in London in 1980.your correct it is a cash grab chow and Clouse should be ashamed of themselves for what they did to Bruce's game of death .

The 1978 original version of Game Of Death is so bad it's...funny. It's a Bruce Lee exploitation movie that is, Bruce Lee. A twisted strange journey. Almost like John Waters did a Bruce Lee film. Only an appearance by Divine would have made it better.

I agree 100% with you on this review Stripey. The film is a mess, badly directed (Bob Wall spot on there) and just an insult to Bruce's memory. Total cash grab like you say.....But....I still find it to be very watchable! Kim Tai Chung's Taekwondo skills are actually pretty good, and Yuen Biao is great too. The dubbed "warcries" of Bruce by Chris Kent sure do grate though & are overused to the point of annoyance. I had the film on vhs back in the day (pretty sure it's in a box up in my loft somewhere) and yes, the entire Inosanto sequence was cut out. However, John Barry's score is up there with his best 007 work, Collen Camp looks really pretty (what the hell happened?! LOL) and Gig Young, Dean Jagger, etc do their best with a lousy script (hello Robert Clouse or Jan Spears, whichever!) Will I ever watch it again? Hmmmmm.....Cheers Pal!🤔

All the films from the 70s and 80s with using his name pretending it's him etc,,,what I find bad is that there were people out there actually thinking so this is bruce lee,,,should never have been any of these fakes allowed

I don't think it was really a bad movie however the part of using Lee's real funeral and also the Bily Lo seems be very weak sometimes the real Bruce lee was not like that

Some parts of Game Of Death 1978 are good but I agree with you that it is mostly a cash grab, very disrespectful to his name and nothing like his original vision.

I think Gig Young was an alcoholic and shortly after filming this he shot and killed his wife before killing himself. Sorry for the downbeat comment!!!

That’s because Bruce lee did the fight scenes in the pagoda first before they did anything else, no they really screwed up the game of death

To me Game of Death is unwatchable until the pagoda scenes at the end. I so wish he could have finished the movie.

Hi stripey. Good video. I watch game of death in 1978. I never liked it. And when I purchased it on VHS and DVD and laser discs I just watched the end part with Bruce Lee . That's it. This movie really suck! 👎😡 enjoy your day my friend.

This was the first Bruce Lee movie i ever saw (watched it at my aunt's when I was about 10) i remember enjoying it at the time. I think I watched it again in my teens and thought it was fine. I watched it the Sunday just gone and it's definitely not great. The story itself is ok and the soundtrack by John Barry is ace. But the editing is so shoddy. 5 minutes in and you can see shots of the Bruce Lee stand in plus the other times they're using stand ins (the guy pretending to be Kareem Abdul Jabbar) plus how shoddily they edit in pre existing Bruce Lee footage. Plus they don't get the yellow shoes right. Bruce is wearing some yellow/black sports shoes, they new footage has him wearing yellow/black converse. Plus you can see the bodies of James Tien and Chieh Yuan's characters in the background (obviously would have been hard to edit them out/round) It is exploitive to be fair. Sitting through stand ins, poor editing and clips of Bruce Lee's actual funeral for 11 minutes of original footage doesn't seem like a good payoff. Having said that, If they remade it and had an actual idea of what they were doing I think it would be fine

HI STRIPEY Watched game of death recently and agree this film is a complete mess. The effects are terrible the cut out face of BRUCE LEE by the mirror still makes me laugh. This is like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Interesting fact this was offered to BRUCE LI but he turned it down because he said it was disrespectful to the name of BRUCE LEE which tells you something. Cheers 👍😃

I don't understand how Raymond Chow didn't think let's just show all the footage and make it a documentary like WARRIOR'S JOURNEY turned out. Instead of this junk.

I stopped watching it about 10 or 15 minutes in because it just wasn’t the same as his previous films. The film was completely different to Bruce Lee’s original script. It was definitely exploitative of Lee’s legacy.

God it’s terrible the 78 version. I’ve watched all the versions on the set and the Cantonese version is the best cut of a horrendous project. Bob Wall talking absolute nonsense about the locker fight which even led Arrow to even highlight the same on the extra. Since the 72 footage appeared yes it’s even more horrendous. The funeral footage makes me angry to be honest. On a lighter note good to laugh at how bad the film is. The music score is the only thing I can say is good. Bruce would’ve been absolutely livid

SURELY IN THIS DAY AND AGE YOU THINK THEY COULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT HIS HEAD SUPERIMPOSED ON THE BODY.😅😡

I remember going to the cinema to see 'The Legend of Bruce Lee' (AKA Goodbye Bruce Lee). This was before game of death came out. TLOBL was sold on the poster as appearing to have the final GOD footage but was a total Bruceploitation film. I was so friggin angry when the end credits rolled. When I came out of the theatre I told everyone who was in the queue for the next showing that there was NO Bruce Lee in this movie and it was a rip-off. Nearly all of them went back and got a refund for their tickets. Then finally GOD came out.. within 30 seconds after the opeing credits I knew this was going to be really bad. They only left 2 edited Bruce Lee fights in the movie. I dare not watch GOD again as my blood pressure would go through the roof.

Aged well ?, No. it was a joke from the start. Just a cash grab for Raymond Chow.

the 1978 game of death of is rubbish and always was. The only people tolerated it is because we see a genuine bit of Briuce at the end. The final game of death has to be considered the definitive version of this incomplete film.

That robert cluse version 1978 is terrible, John Little "Game of Death" is the best version period.

The movie is garbage. One part that is just so bad is how they had "Bruce" kicking with Kareem's foot. So bad. They should have left it out. So temptingbto drop those discs and shive Enter the Dragon 4K in there to have the perfect set!

Game of Death is a disgusting insult to Bruce's name, what's your opinion of Game of Death 2?

The 1978 Game of Death is utter garbage and a disgusting disgraceful exploitation - I hate it hate it hate it…. every single participant should be f-ing ashamed. It’s absolutely insulting on every level to Bruce. Have said this for years. But the genuine Bruce Lee pagoda scenes are beautiful.

Come on get bloody serious apart from the solid gold Lee footage this has to be and is one of the worst rip offs ever put onto celoloid. The plan 9 from out of space of action cinama. One tha😢

Painful watch

3 different Bruce Lee replacements, real Bruce Lee funeral ⚰️ scene. Game of Death is unwatchable garbage in my opinion & Bruce Lee, Is turning over in his grave 🪦 Linda & Shannon Lee, disowned Game of Death 🤮

Awful film yet somehow very watchable 😂 music is epic 😊