Enter the Game of Death

Bruce Lee is the greatest martial artist that had ever lived. He had the charisma and the fan base that will forever keep him immortalized in his movies, TV shows and his books. When Bruce Lee tragically died during the filming of Game of Death, the world lost a beloved icon and inspirational figure in the world of martial arts. With movie studios knowing that Bruce Lees' memory is still ingrained in the masses, it didn't take long for them to seek out and find martial artists that have a decent martial arts background but mostly resemble Bruce Lees' look and mannerisms. One of the actors that they got for the rise of “Bruceploitation” was Bruce Le. With the name very similar to Bruce Lee and having the look, it was a natural fit for him to fill in the vacant seat left right? Well, the easy answer is oh hell no. The easy answer is obvious but, let's talk about what this movie really offers us. The movie in question is called, Enter the Game of Death (oh dear lord, what the hell kind of title is that comparing his best movie and the last movie Bruce Lee did?). This movie is all over the place, so, the criteria will be judged differently. Instead of looking at the plot, action and another category, I'll describe what the plot and include descriptions of different scenes and we'll dissect the movie and offer my opinion on why this movie either works on its own or just fails on all fronts. Let's get into our yellow bike outfits, flex our muscles and sidekick our way as we delve into the movie Enter the Game of Death.

The main story of this movie is kind of all over the place. The opening scenes has an American, a Chinese and Japanese male discussing a piece of information that has been documented that will be worth a lot of money, The Chinese wants to sell it to the highest bidder. So, in the meantime, we see our hero walking in the woods when he's attacked by the Japanese. It's random and out of nowhere. Bruce is able to dispose of the Japanese and continues on his way through the woods. This movie is guilty with these out of nowhere fight scenes. Now, granted, the fighting scenes are fine. There is nothing overly special with the scenes but there's nothing horrible with them. They stand alone as being alright. However, being out of nowhere and unprovoked just gives the viewing audience a viewing just to showcase Bruce Le's fighting style with no reasoning. I assume it's just for eye candy purposes to have the audience thinking, “oh, well, he is very similar to Bruce Lee. I cannot tell the difference” (Though it is pretty obvious). The next scene cuts to a fighting ring where a guy is fighting random opponents of different races and ethnicity. The fighting goes on for about ten minutes until our hero enters the ring from out of nowhere (and why is he in the ring?). He beats the champion. He is now being recruited by the Chinese government to find the stolen document and return it to the Chinese authorities. Did I fail to mention this is on the eve before World War 2? Yeah, it's not really mentioned at all. You'd think an important fact like the eve before a high impact war would be a key reason for the espionage or something. Nope, it will be glossed over for more fighting scenes with Bruce Le doing his best Bruce Lee impressions. The secret document is in the Tower of Death (Game of Death much?) and it's up to Bruce to climb the tower, get the document and return it. That's the premise of the movie. It's a cheap man's version of Game of Death meets Fist of Fury. The story of the movie is pushed to the background for the fight scenes. So, since the story is focused so much on fighting, let's delve into the fighting scenes and whether they are entertaining or dull.

Since the opening credits, we see Bruce Le showcasing his talent at martial arts for the viewers. He breaks sandbags, clay jars, wood and does his best Bruce Lee impressions with the screams and the flexing of the muscles. The fighting scenes in the woods that come out of nowhere are similar to Bruce Lee movies with one on one attacks with utilizing hand to hand or hand to weapon style fighting scenes. I'm not sure if it was the dubbing of the movie, but, the Bruce Lee esq screams were amplified up to 11. They were annoying and over the top when they really didn't need to be. The fight scenes were fine though. They had the goons take a lot of the beatings and make Bruce Le look like a million bucks. Now, we'll talk about the fighting in the deadly tower, which is supposed to be similar to Game of Death.

Now, what makes Bruce Lee a special kind of talent is that we knew how good he is and he had this charisma about him that would make us invested into the fights. If he struggled in the fight, he would take a minute, rethink his strategy and beat his opponent. He never just wanted to always dominate his opponent because that would be boring. You need to showcase that he might be in trouble but use the cunning and smarts to find a weak point and take it to your target. Lee did this when fighting Kareem-Abdul-Jabar. He played a man who had light sensitivity. Bruce realized that and knocked the shades off and exposes Kareem to the light allowing the weakness to help Bruce. In this movie, Bruce Le is already the man and he doesn't need weaknesses to beat his opponents.

The first man we meet in the tower is a monk who is equipped with swords and throwing weapons. The fight scenes is good and it showcases the monk as a credible threat since he has throwing weapons as well as stabbing style. It was the best fighting in the tower. The second man uses poisonous snakes with his martial arts. It is weird, kind of creepy and definitely unorthodox. The sad thing is that it's not really entertaining. Besides the opening sequence where he throws snakes at Bruce (I found it funny but I don't think that was the overall intention), the fighting was lackluster and Bruce never really looks out of place and always has his composure. He never has to try and overcome the opponent. He just beats the crap out of him and the guy is defeated. The third guy was boring and lackluster that we will skip him. The last floor featured two men. One guy wears black and white wears white. There is no specific fighting style or weapon use in the fight scene that it is underwhelmed. The Game of Death had Kareem Jabar (the guy is over seven feet tall) and in this movie it ends on two older guys wearing different colors fighting. There is no wow factor and no suspense building up. It happens and that's just it. The fighting is fine but for the main boss of the movie, the big epic battle, it under performed and it is lackluster and ordinary. After he leaves the tower, Bruce finds the Japanese man and they fight. After that, the American fights him and after the fight, the movie ends with Bruce walking away. There was no buildup, there was no reason for me to care.

Enter the Game of Death is Bruceploitation at its regularity. It takes someone to imitate Bruce Lee. They even dressed Bruce Le in the yellow biker jumpsuit made famous from Bruce Lee. I don't have the problem with that but if this movie was set in 1939, there is no way that outfit would even exist and it makes no sense (though that's kind of the point they want. They want iconic images for the movie). The movie seems like it was a low budget movie just trying to capitalize on the recent death of a famous actor and try to replace him with a double. As a whole, I find the movie somewhat entertaining, although its for the wrong reasons. With the poor dubbing, the funny choppy editing, and an okay amount of fight scenes, it does have some enjoyment for a certain demographic but not the majority of movie viewers. What works for the movie is that it as the viewer I know they're trying to make the new Bruce Lee and ultimately failing and it's funny to see them trying hard. This movie tries to capitalize on a legends death, and I think it fitting that this movie is dead in the eyes of most people since they don't even know this movie exists. If you can find the movie, give it a watch and get a good laugh and see some moderately decent kung-fu.

I give this movie 1.5 yellow jumpsuits out of 5