Cynical Cinema

Bruce Lee is one of the most revered actors in history, mostly because of a continuing cult following that keeps his name alive. And certainly he was a major movie star while he was here on this Earth. But in point of fact, he really only did one movie that was a classic. Enter the Dragon is justifiably called the greatest martial arts movie of all time. But the rest of his career was full of misfires and fairly bad films like Fists of Fury, and The Chinese Connection. Lee’s charisma and toughness and charm came through loud and clear in these films, but that was about all they had going for them. And there was no greater affront to the movie-going public than Game of Death. This is a film which Lee had begun when he suddenly died in 1973.

The idea was to make this movie a showcase for the martial art that Lee had just invented, Jeet Kune Do. And it remains kinda cool, if only because it features an amazing fight scene between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But there were only twelve minutes of Game of Death filmed when Lee died, and they went ahead and made the movie anyway. So it was a bunch of out-takes from Lee’s career, scenes from other movies spliced in, and then culminated with the big fight with Abdul-Jabbar, among others. Which made for an absolutely dreadful jumble of a mishmash of a collage of a movie. With a pretty cool fight to end it all.

Finishing the Game is a DVD that imagines a search for Bruce Lee’s replacement in 1973. It’s a mockumentary about a bunch of wannabe martial arts actors who are trying out for the part replacing the action hero in the film. There are aspiring actors, doctors, porn stars, and children’s mascots who try out for the role. There is also an action star named “Breeze Loo”, who is clearly the equivalent of “Bruce Li” in the 70s - a guy who basically mimicked Bruce Lee in every single way, and changed his name to a similar one in order to capitalize on Lee’s popularity. There are some funny moments, like the one involving the actor from a fictional 70s show called “Golden Gate Guns” who is now a vacuum salesman. But it goes on way too long.

The premise is funny, the set up is good, but then this movie does absolutely nothing for an hour. It just follows a bunch of characters around, and while there are some slightly humorous moments, the characters are not interesting enough to make this movie go. It does involve Ron Jeremy, and it does a decent job of sending up the B-movie film industry, it just doesn’t make for a good movie. But it’s still certainly better than Game of Death.