Hollywood filmmaker Justin Lin – known for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Better Luck Tomorrow – brings back Bruce Lee and the whole tradition of "Bruceploitation" with his latest project, Finishing the Game, a hilarious homage to the kung fu king and the search for his replacement after an untimely death.
Bruce Lee died in 1973, midway through making Game of Death, the only film in which he was the writer, director, producer and lead. Rather than bag the project, Hollywood moviemakers continued filming with a cast of stand-ins – Asian men with only a passing resemblance to Lee. The film led to an entire genre of Bruce Lee films (sans Bruce Lee). For the next 10 years, actors with names like Bruce Li, Bruce Le and Lee Bruce starred in dozens of low-budget, badly dubbed kung fu flicks that mirrored many of Lee's original films.
For Lin, who first saw Game of Death on VHS in 1978 as a 12-year-old, the ever-changing face of Lee was confusing. "I had no concept of stand-ins or anything," he says. "I just didn't understand why they used different guys."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KkwSl6UvGU
Game of Death: Kim Tai Jung doubles for Lee in the fight scene against kickboxer Carl Miller in Game of Death*. Golden Harvest used footage and cardboard cutouts of Lee's face to mask Kim in close-ups.*
That bothered Lin for the next 29 years, until he wrote the script for Finishing the Game a few years ago. The film's gist? A fictional, behind-the-scenes look at the auditions for Game of Death. With Finishing the Game, Lin – who self-financed the film – handles the notion of Bruceploitation the way Quentin Tarantino pays tribute to blaxploitation in his 1997 cult favorite, Jackie Brown.
Finishing the Game pokes fun at the entertainment industry's relentless efforts to hold onto something great that, in reality, is gone forever. In a closing scene, Lin shows a casting director presenting the final candidates. There's a white guy, a guy in a wheelchair and a guy over 6 feet tall – it's all pretty absurd.
"If Bruce Lee ever saw this movie, I hope he would be laughing," Lin says. "He would realize that we see the ridiculousness of that situation."
The movie kicked off the 25th Annual International Asian Film Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area last week. Next week, Finishing the Game will be shown at the Chicago Asian American Showcase, and later this year, it's to be distributed to cinemas across the country.
Finishing the Game also leads what looks to be the next wave of Bruceploitation: A Chicago theater company is working with David Bowie and Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang on a Bruce Lee musical, and director Rob Cohen has been pushing to make a movie that features the real Bruce Lee in CG. (Don't hold your breath for this last one: The Lee family says they'll never back it.)
Here's a look at some exclusive footage from Finishing the Game, as well as a clip from the master and the best of his look-alikes. And remember: "Every Asian-American man has been called 'Bruce,' or has been taunted by the famous Bruce Lee yell," Lin writes in his filmmaker's notes. "He is a hero and a cliché at the same time."
Finishing the Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLO1YIWQuXE
Bruce Lee vs. Chuck Norris: Before looking at the moves of wannabe Bruce Lees, get an eyeful of the real kung fu king in action. In Return of the Dragon*, the Asian superstar fights Chuck Norris. Note the complete absence of decorative movement so common with the flashy fakes.*
Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xKhku4s2DQ
In 1976, a Hong Kong studio cast Bruce Li as "Bruce Lai" in a film about the original Lee's death. It includes a surreal scene in which the ersatz Lai names his successor. Li, who did several Bruceploitation flicks, now runs a gymnasium in his native Taiwan.
Dragon Lee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih2VJ0YdSMY
Soviet-born North Korean actor Dragon Lee is said to be one of the best imitators of the Bruceploitation era, but to most Bruce Lee fans, it's impossible to see why. Dragon's nunchaku act is at least 50 percent slower and less eloquent than the master's. Plus, his jump kick is exaggerated and he strikes too many poses. With the exception of Jackie Chan (who starred in the 1976 Bruceploitation flick New Fist of Fury*), no Lee doubles attained superstar status.*
