Long lost fight scene from the Bruce Lee movie, ‘Game of Death’, to be released
A long-lost fight scene featuring Bruce Lee from the movie Game of Death will be unveiled in a new box set commemorating the 50th anniversary of the star’s death. Lee, a martial arts legend who soared to international fame following his 1973 film Enter the Dragon, passed away before the completion of Game of Death, resulting in a rewritten and reshot version released in 1978, incorporating snippets of the original footage.
This much-sought-after scene, named the ‘log fight’ for the large piece of timber wielded by an actor at the start, is part of around 100 minutes of raw footage Lee filmed in 1972. The production was momentarily stopped so Lee could take up Warner Bros’ offer to create Enter the Dragon.
The sequence showcases actor Chieh Yuan, one of Lee’s allies, battling with Dan Inosanto, who portrays a master of the Filipino martial art ‘eskrima’. Only photographs and short excerpts used in the 1978 version have served as the remnants of the log fight scene. After Lee’s death, the sequence seems to have been lost from the rest of the Game of Death footage.
However, in 2016, it was discovered within the Hong Kong archives of the film studio Fortune Star, which serves as the current holder of the Game of Death producer Golden Harvest’s catalogue.
James Flower, an Arrow Films producer who helmed the creation of the new box set, spoke of the scene’s importance. He said, “This scene has long been a holy grail for Bruce Lee fans. Its existence has been little more than a rumour for decades, so to have found the actual footage was amazing.”
In other Lee news, fans are still eagerly awaiting an update on the much anticipated Ang Lee-directed biopic of the martial arts hero.
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