The True Game of Death
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| The True Game of Death | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Steve Chen Tien-Tai |
| Produced by | Tien Wai Cheung |
| Starring | Bruce Lee Hsao Lung Alice George Steve |
| Cinematography | Sing Lai Man |
| Running time | 83 min. |
| Language | Cantonese |
| IMDb profile | |
The True Game of Death, is a very low budget 1981 Bruceploitation film, starring a clone of Bruce Lee credited as Bruce Lee Hsao Lung. The film borrows heavily from Golden Harvest's 1979 Game of Death.
[edit] Story
The film begins with lengthy footage of Bruce Lee's funeral. The narrator then announces that there is a new actor "who looks quite like him" that will become Lee's successor. He is played by a man credited as "Bruce Lee Hsao Lung," and is introduced by a very, very long training montage.
The film proper begins with Hsao Lung filming a movie. On the set, he is approached by gangsters who want a piece of the Hsao Lung action. Hsao Lung doesn't bite, so they go after his girlfriend Alice, making her poison Hsao. During a lovemaking session, the poison takes action and Hsao dies.
Or does he? Actually, Hsao survives, and goes on a journey of vengeance that leads him to a tower of death not unlike the one seen in Bruce Lee's Game of Death. Along the way, there are a lot of stock clips of Bruce Lee.
[edit] Reaction
Very few people have anything nice to say about this, which is seen as a bottom-of-the-barrel item even by Bruceploitation standards. Says 'Keith' of the website Bruceploitation:
"The running time for this movie is 83 mintues and that's about 82 1/2 mintues too long. This movie is boorrriinnng...Alright I wasted enough time watching the movie, I'm not gonna waste anymore time writing about it."[1]
Another dreadful review comes from John Wallis of DVDTalk.com, who awarded the film a rare zero stars out of five:
"Not only is a bad film for its horrible story, and lack of any action worth noting, it tramples Bruce's name like no other, inserting stock footage of his press conferences, his funeral, newspapers reporting his death, and using Bruce film clips (under a horrible saturated, polarized color effect) as signs that the Bruce-clone daydreams and is inhabited by the spirit of the real Bruce. Unless you are the most die-hard of Bruceploitation fans/completists, its really not worth a second of your life."[2]
[edit] Trivia
- The song sung by the nightclub singer can also be heard in Bruce Lee: A Dragon Story
