If you look at it in total, this has to, objectively, be considered a pretty godawful excuse for a film. You probably already know all this, but to recap: Bruce Lee was directing a movie called 'Game of Death' (which, it must be noted, was not this movie) for which he had shot about 40 minutes (consisting entirely of one sequence of the film involving a series of fights but no 'plot' material). While in the midst of this, he accepted an offer to work on 'Enter the Dragon,' temporarily shelving 'Game...,' but just before 'Enter...' was released theatrically, he died leaving the 'Game...' footage incomplete. In the wake of the massive worldwide success of 'Enter....' various money-men decided to revive that earlier film, grafting a few minutes of Lee's footage into a story with a cast of random Americans and several people to impersonate Lee (mostly via shadows and oversized sunglasses, but also a couple of laughably terrible composite shots).
Despite their pedigree (two being previous Oscar winners), most of the American cast are really not good, though how much of this is their fault (the overacting is wild) or the fault of the seemingly tossed-together screenplay is probably up for debate. As for the Lee impersonators (there is no way they can be called body-doubles), they look, act, behave, and walk nothing like him. The footage of Lee's actual funeral procession is, frankly, ghoulish. And the whole thing is, arguably, a black mark on Lee's legacy that everyone could and should have avoided.
If one is able to set all of that aside however, it isn't a film without some merit -- though that merit rests on the shoulders of 1) Lee's original footage, 2) all the fight choreography involving Sammo Hung, and 3) some of the fights with Robert Wall (though not so much the scenes with his acting). I'm not sure what percentage of the film this consists of, but it'd be better with only them (and, luckily, 'Game of Death Redux' exists) as most of it is great.
As is though, it is bad film that, while I'd hesitate to call the worst of Lee's career (since he's only very marginally actually, you know, in it), certainly leaves a bitter aftertaste.
If you look at it in total, this has to, objectively, be considered a pretty godawful excuse for a film. You probably already know all this, but to recap: Bruce Lee was directing a movie called 'Game of Death' (which, it must be noted, was not this movie) for which he had shot about 40 minutes (consisting entirely of one sequence of the film involving a series of fights but no 'plot' material). While in the midst of this, he accepted an offer to work on 'Enter the Dragon,' temporarily shelving 'Game...,' but just before 'Enter...' was released theatrically, he died leaving the 'Game...' footage incomplete. In the wake of the massive worldwide success of 'Enter....' various money-men decided to revive that earlier film, grafting a few minutes of Lee's footage into a story with a cast of random Americans and several people to impersonate Lee (mostly via shadows and oversized sunglasses, but also a couple of laughably terrible composite shots).
Despite their pedigree (two being previous Oscar winners), most of the American cast are really not good, though how much of this is their fault (the overacting is wild) or the fault of the seemingly tossed-together screenplay is probably up for debate. As for the Lee impersonators (there is no way they can be called body-doubles), they look, act, behave, and walk nothing like him. The footage of Lee's actual funeral procession is, frankly, ghoulish. And the whole thing is, arguably, a black mark on Lee's legacy that everyone could and should have avoided.
If one is able to set all of that aside however, it isn't a film without some merit -- though that merit rests on the shoulders of 1) Lee's original footage, 2) all the fight choreography involving Sammo Hung, and 3) some of the fights with Robert Wall (though not so much the scenes with his acting). I'm not sure what percentage of the film this consists of, but it'd be better with only them (and, luckily, 'Game of Death Redux' exists) as most of it is great.
As is though, it is bad film that, while I'd hesitate to call the worst of Lee's career (since he's only very marginally actually, you know, in it), certainly leaves a bitter aftertaste.
