It was the first of three films George Lazenby made for Golden Harvest, the others being The Man from Hong Kong (1975) and A Queen's Ransom (1976).

[2] When a tough Australian cop named Stoner (George Lazenby) discovers that his sister has overdosed on a deadly new drug called "The Happy Pill" (an aphrodisiac/hallucenogen mixture), he travels to Hong Kong to track down its creators.

The film was to pit Lee against "The Western Adversary" played by James Bond star George Lazenby.

[citation needed] George Lazenby had said that one of the main reasons that he quit the role of Bond was because he felt that he could gross more at the box office in other films.

The Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun (1974), ended up grossing $97,600,000 worldwide, so if not for Lee's sudden death, Lazenby's quite bold and now rather infamous prediction may have come true.

[editorializing] On 20 July 1973 Bruce Lee was meant to have dinner with George Lazenby and Raymond Chow to discuss Game of Death.

Second, upon hearing of Lee's death, Chiba refused to sign his contract for the film and promptly flew back to Japan.

(1972) had pushed him over the $100 million mark at the box office, which at that time established actor's as international super stars.

Even though Lazenby never got that label in the US or UK from the press, in reality it was true as he had tremendous box office success in Europe, Asia, and Australia (he actually outgrossed Steve McQueen in that time, as just one example).

Considering the film's cost and the fact that its initial theatrical release was very limited by number of countries and screens, that was an astonishing feat.

In fact, one UK production company wanted to co-produce Lazenby's next two films, just two months after Shrine's release.

So although The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss never turned out to be what it could have, it still was remarkably successful and it still holds firm as one of the all-time classic 1970s martial arts flicks.

[citation needed] On a side-note, Lazenby was reportedly paid (according to the Hong Kong and Australian presses at the time) $220,000 USD to make The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss.

[citation needed] The Monthly Film Bulletin said directed Huang Feng "fails to coax anything out of this stock saga beyond the most rudimentary yarn-spinning" saying the movie was overly reminiscent of Deadly China Doll and that Lazenby was "lumpish".