Game of Death

Game of Death (《死亡遊戲》) was the film Bruce Lee had planned to be the demonstration piece of his martial art Jeet Kune Do. Around forty minutes of footage were shot before his death, some of which was later lost and has not yet been recovered. The remaining footage has been released with Bruce Lee's original English dubbing as part of the documentary entitled Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey. Most of the footage which was shot is from what was to be the centre piece of the film.

In the movie, Bruce Lee's character fights his way through three stories of a five-level pagoda (the first and second floors were not filmed before his death), encountering a different martial artist, each representing a different level of fighting on each floor from standard untrained guards on the bottom, through to ritualised martial arts each opponent being more challenging then the last. On the final floor, Bruce Lee encounters his greatest challenge in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar representing Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do, a form of Martial Arts which draws on all others, and has no set forms, insisting that there is no correct response to any situation, that true advantage is gained from being unpredictable. Lee is only able to finally defeat this opponent via a medical condition he has making his eyes vulnerable to light- his fighting style being utterly flawless.

After the death of Bruce Lee, Enter The Dragon director Robert Clouse was enlisted to direct additional scenes featuring a stand-in which, when pieced together with the original footage as well as other footage from earlier in Bruce Lee's career, would form a new film (also entitled Game of Death) which was released in 1978, five years after his death.

Bruce Lee fans generally disown the 1978 version as cashing in on Bruce Lee's image.

Kill Bill volume 1 pays a large homage to this film with Uma Thurman's character 'The Bride' wearing the same style of yellow and black striped tracksuit which Lee wore in the surviving footage. He wore this to show that he did not belong to the inferior styles of martial arts of the past shown by his opponents in their traditional martial arts uniforms but that he represented the present and superior form of fighting.