The story of Lee's original 1972 film involves Lee's character, in order to save his younger sister and brother, joining a group of martial artists who are hired to retrieve a stolen Chinese national treasure[need quotation to verify] from the top floor of a five-story pagoda in South Korea, with each floor guarded by martial artists who must be defeated while ascending the tower.
The original version's concept of ascending a tower while defeating enemies on each level was highly influential, inspiring numerous action films and video games.
The film is also known for Lee's iconic yellow-and-black jumpsuit as well as his fight scene with NBA player and student Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, both of which have been referenced in numerous media.
The original plot involves Lee playing the role of Hai Tien (海天), a retired champion martial artist who is confronted by Korean underworld gangs.
The pagoda is under heavy guard by highly skilled martial artists; they are protecting a stolen Chinese national treasure (which is not identified at all in any surviving material) held on its top level.
As originally scripted by Lee, Hai and company enter the temple grounds, where at the pagoda's base, they fight 10 Karate black belts.
Because of the guardian's great size and strength, in addition to his potent martial artistry, he can only be defeated when Hai recognizes and exploits his greatest weakness: an unusually high sensitivity to light.
The film stars Bruce Lee, with Kim Tai-jong and Yuen Biao as his stunt doubles, along with Gig Young, Dean Jagger, Colleen Camp, Robert Wall, Hugh O'Brian, Dan Inosanto, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Mel Novak, Sammo Hung, Ji Han-jae and Casanova Wong.
The 1978 version uses portions of the original footage married to an entirely new plot involving a new character, Billy Lo (盧比利), struggling against a racketeering "syndicate" after gaining international success as a martial arts movie star.
A fragment of the bullet passes through Billy's face, leaving him alive but in need of plastic surgery which alters his facial features.
In the revised but chopped footage, Bruce Lee's fight scenes inside the pagoda are assumed to take place in the upper floors of the Red Pepper restaurant: Dr. Land (Dean Jagger) and his thugs have laid an ambush, but in the end, Billy survives the ambush, rescues Ann, and destroys each of the main mobsters one-by-one.
At one point in the movie, real footage of Lee's corpse in his open-topped casket is used to show the character Billy Lo faking his death.
[14] In South Korea (May 1978 release), it sold 281,591 tickets in the capital city of Seoul,[15] equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately ₩337,909,200[16] (US$698,160).
[29] Criticism of the revised version included the inclusion of scenes that could be considered in bad taste, such as the incorporation of footage of Lee's actual funeral.
[30] Upon its North American release, Cecilia Blanchfield in The Calgary Herald rated it three stars, praising the climactic fight scenes as "Bruce Lee at his best" while criticizing the "abysmal" writing and "clumsily executed" production up until then, calling the film a "poor tribute to a remarkably talented man.
Compared to other Bruce Lee films like The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, and The Way of the Dragon, Game of Death has more Western characters and the story structure is more straightforward and less culturally specific to Asia.
[32][33] On 19 July 2019, timed with the 46th death anniversary of Bruce Lee, producer Alan Canvan premiered a newly edited version of Lee's Game of Death at the Asian American/Asian Research Institute in New York City, with biographer Matthew Polly joining Canvan in discussing the film and answering audience questions.
Jackie Chan as Ryu Saeba takes on two tall black men, and the film uses clips of Lee's fight scene against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to get the better of the two.
These "arcade movies" have three characteristic elements: the achievement of a goal, passing a series of levels, and ascending through a path (whether physical or symbolic).
It has a similar plot structure, set in a single main location, a grungy high-rise building, with grunts at the bottom and the big boss at the top.
[46] The Keanu Reeves film John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) pays homage in a scene featuring NBA basketball player Boban Marjanović.
[47] The French film La Tour Montparnasse Infernale (2001) parodies the scene when Ramzy Bedia fights with Bô Gaultier de Kermoal, wearing the same costumes as Lee and Abdul-Jabbar.
William Zabka referenced Game of Death during his audition for the role of Johnny Lawrence in The Karate Kid (1984), when the director John Avildsen asked him "how old are you?
In the Clouse-directed remake, the filmmakers rationalised its presence by including a scene where Billy Lo disguises himself as one of Dr. Land's motorcycle-riding thugs, who all wear striped jumpsuits.
In the warehouse scene, Billy Lo wears a pair of yellow Adidas shoes with black stripes and white shelltoes.
As one of Bruce Lee's perennially popular handful of films to receive wide exposure to Western audiences, Game of Death has seen many reissues in every home video format.