Bruce Lee’s Original Game Of Death Plan Explained

Bruce Lee had a plan for Game of Death that was never realized on the big screen. The martial arts icon died before filming could be completed. Years later, the unfinished movie was edited with additional footage and released in theaters.

After directing and starring in Way of the Dragon for Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest, the actor was contracted to make his fourth kung fu movie, Game of Death. Similar to the work he did on Way of the Dragon, Lee was put in charge of not only playing the lead, but also writing and directing the film. However, this plan hit a complication when Lee was contacted by Warner Bros. to star in Robert Clouse’s Enter the Dragon. Enthused by the idea of making his first Hollywood movie, Lee took a break from Game of Death and headed off to film Enter the Dragon. However, the filming process never resumed. Lee died on July 20, 1973.

Game of Death ultimately did get made, with Golden Harvest using stunt doubles, footage from previous Bruce Lee movies, and more. To cover up that its lead actor in several of its scenes wasn’t really Bruce Lee, the movie explained that he’s a martial arts movie star who fakes his death and now has to hide his face. After his fiancé is kidnapped, the main character has to enter a tower filled with skilled martial artists to get her back. This wasn’t the story that Lee wanted to tell with Game of Death though. Bruce Lee’s death made his original plan — which was laid out in an outline — impossible.

Bruce Lee’s Game of Death plan did center around the fighting in the tower, but the setup was different. Based on what is known about the story, the sister of Lee’s character was to be kidnapped by Korean gangsters. They used her to force the hero to enter a five-level tower and retrieve a particular item, though what this was has never been revealed. To retrieve it, he had to progress through all five levels of the tower, with each one being guarded by a martial artist of a different style. It’s not clear what would have happened once he got the item, but it can be assumed that the movie would have ended with him beating the Korean crime boss and saving his sister.

His fights on the third, fourth, and fifth floors (including his now iconic showdown with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) were all shot, but he had plans to fight at least two other martial artists. Korean actor and Hapkido expert Hwang In-shik, who fought Lee in Way of the Dragon, was expected to appear in Game of Death as a guardian of one of the five floors, but this fight was never filmed. This was also the case for his fight scene with Taky Kimura, one of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do students. Lee wanted Kimura to represent Praying Mantis Kung Fu. The fight with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played the last guardian, presumably would have been one of the movie’s last fights. Based on the footage that Lee did shoot and what’s known of the script, many Bruce Lee fans feel that Game of Death would have been yet another kung fu masterpiece.

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