Alternate versions for
Fists of Fury (1971) More at IMDbPro »Tang shan da xiong (original title)

• In the new 2005 DVD release the extended death of the boss is restored. Also of note the above mentioned 5 second deleted scene is omitted.
  
  
• In the Cantonese version, not only is Pink Floyd's "Time" used in several scenes, but in the scene where Hsiu Chien and Ah Pei leave Hsiao Mi's mansion, the music becomes a mix of both "Time" and Pink Floyd's earlier work, "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party (Entertainment)".
  
  
• The Italian theatrical release, under the name of "Il Furore Della Cina Colpisce Ancora", has somewhat of a "hybrid" music score. The majority of the music is actually from Peter Thomas's English dubbed score, however, a lot of the Thomas tracks are extended from what was originally heard in the English dubbed versions. For example, in the American version, when Cheng is sitting by the river before the finale, the music cue does not begin until he runs from the river to Mi's mansion. However, in the Italian version, an additional portion of the music begins playing when it first cuts to the close up of Cheng sitting by the river and then syncs back up when he runs off. Aside from the extended Peter Thomas music cues, there are a couple of instances when Wang Fu Ling's original Mandarin score plays. The most notable is when Cheng kills Mi. While it does not show his fingers in Mi's chest, it uses the alternate shot from the American version. However, this also means this is currently the only version available that has the audio from the uncut Mandarin version for this shot. As of now, the only version of this that has been released outside of theaters has been a PAL video release by Futurama video.
  
  
• For the original 1974 UK cinema release cuts were made by the BBFC to heavily edit the chain fight, shots of ice picks and knives being thrown into chests, and kicks and blows during fight scenes. The 1986 Rank video featured the same cinema print and all BBFC cuts were fully restored in the 2000 Hong Kong Legends release.
  
  
• In the Hong Kong version, the scene where Cheng Chao-On stabs the "Big Boss" with his own fingers is much more explicit. Instead of the two staring at each other with mean glares, the camera is shown at the bottom of the boss' torso showing blood running down from beneath his shirt and down on his pants. The camera then pans up showing the knife that Cheng kicked at the boss sticking out of the boss' chest. We then see Cheng's fingers puncturing the ribcage of the boss. Finally, the camera shows the two giving the mean glares. This scene was cut from the American version because it would have been released with an X rating. Also, when this scene was cut, it confused people about what did Cheng do after he kicked the knife and ran towards the Boss. The only thing that gave a clue was the puncturing sound effect when Cheng stopped.
  
  
• In the 20TH Century Fox Selections , and "Master Collection" versions of "Fists of Fury", there is a short 5-second deleted scene in the middle of the film. This scene takes place right after the scene when cousins Wong and Chan are "silenced". In the scene, Cheng, Hsu, and the other 4 cousins run to the ice factory to see if Wong and Chan have returned. It originally cuts to showing Hsu Chien asking the other workers if the two cousins have returned yet. Now we actually see them run through the entrance of the factory. This scene was cut possibly because of bad quality.
  
  
• The infamous "saw in the head" scene in which Bruce Lee visibly slams a handsaw into a villain's head has been rumored to have appeared in the first releases of the Mexican and German prints. But when released on video, the scene was expurgated. Even a Mexican lobby card showed the near non-existent scene in full color. -It has been rumored that the Middle Eastern prints of the film have all deleted footage mentioned above with the exception of the "saw-in- the-head" scene.
  
  
• On the British DVD version there is a feature-length commentary that states that the "handsaw-in-the-head scene" was included in the final cut of the Hong Kong version of the film, but the censors ordered it removed along with an extended scene of Bruce seeing the severed body parts in the ice and the family murdered. At the time the film was made, archiving footage was difficult and expensive, so the scenes do not exist any more.
  
  
• When also been released on DVD by Front Row entertainment, the film is shows the rarely seen brief shot of Bruce Lee's character and other's rushing to the ice factory after the first two of the relatives had been "silenced".
  
  
• An "unofficial" DVD release has begun to circulate the Internet entitled "The Big Boss: REDUX". While it does not feature any of the aforementioned deleted scene, there are other additions:
  • Completely new music track using scores from various films such as 28 Days Later, Mortal Kombat, The One, and Highlander: Endgame.
  • Title cards in between each day in the film, such as "Day 1: The Beginning", "Day 2: The First Day", etc.
  • It is also the first version of the film to feature a "hybrid language track" in which all of Cheng's dialog is dubbed in proper Cantonese (which Bruce Lee spoke on the set) while the other characters are dubbed in proper Mandarin (which all the other Chinese actors spoke on the set). This is the most synced version of the film, with only the Thai actors remaining slightly out of sync.
  
  
  
• There are four main music scores for this film, every cut varying with a different score. The first score was made for the 1971 Mandarin dub by Wang Fu-Ling and was also going to be used in the first English dub as well as all European language dubs (French, Spanish, etc). The second score was made especially for the re-dubbed English print in the U.K. and the U.S. by German musician Peter Thomas. The third score was about the same as the second, but had additional music created by Joseph Koo especially for the Japanese print. The fourth (and supposedly final) score was comprised of music that was made for the Japanese print, Golden Harvest stock music, and a couple of Pink Floyd tracks. This fourth score was arranged especially for the 1980s Cantonese dub.
  
  
• It is said that the fully uncut version was shown in London, England in 1979, which was approximately 105 to 110 minutes long. This means, about 5 to 10 minutes of additional footage was shown. Footage included:
  • Longer fight between Cheng Chao-An (Bruce Lee)/Hsiu Chien (James Tien) against the casino bouncers, in which the bouncers try to run the two over with a burning cart of coals.
  • A scene of dialog with Hsiu bragging about the above fight to the other cousins once they've returned home.
  • A scene with Chiao Mei (Maria Yi) seeing Cheng and their uncle off before going back to the ferry dock with a couple of small glasses of tea.
  • A scene of dialog between Bruce Lee and Nora Miao after Bruce sees his uncle off at the ferry docks.
  • Longer and more graphic scene of the first two cousins' deaths via large circular saws.
  • Longer fight between Hsiu and Hsiao Chiun (Tony Liu) featuring a shot of Hsiu with blood literally squirting out of his head due to a knife attack.
  • More bodies shown in the ice blocks when Bruce is "investigating" at the ice factory.
  • Slightly extended scene with Cheng finding his cousins murdered.
  • Additional shots of the murdered cousins superimposed over the river as Cheng contemplates what to do next.
  • After Cheng throws his last possessions into the riverside, he screams in Mandarin three times (with Bruce Lee being dubbed since he was actually speaking Cantonese), "I'll get revenge" while shaking his fist. It is noticeable, before he runs to the boss' mansion, that he can been seen him holding his fist up in the air in the regular cut.
  • Between the time Cheng runs from the river to the boss' mansion, he stops at the brothel one last time. He picks a girl (who is actually visible in the background the previous time Cheng visits the brothel), pays for her, and they go to her room. They both completely strip down, and the scene fades out. When it fades back in, Cheng is completely clothed again, while the girl is still asleep. While she's sleeping, Cheng takes out his remaining money, and lays it down on her stomach, even though he already paid to be with her. He does this since he realizes that he will not need it anymore if he dies. He also then sees a bag of prawn crackers and decides to take them as a "last meal". This explains why he has the crackers when he shows up at the boss' mansion. This scene, with Cheng at the brothel, was supposed to explain that if he knew he was going to die while trying to seek revenge, he might as well have his last desires with this girl, and eat the crackers as his last supper. However, many people would've thought of Cheng as "I'll get revenge...after I have some sex." They may not have understood the message trying to be sent across, so the scene was cut, only to be in this version as well as the version that premiered in Hong Kong.
  • A second "blood tasting" shot, in which Cheng tastes the blood from his stomach when he's been cut with a knife by The Boss. This was most likely trimmed as not to seem repetitive after a similar shot the night before. In current prints, the scene is re-edited by cutting out the blood tasting portion of the scene and replacing with the first part of the dollying back shot of The Boss. It is most likely that the shot played out with Cheng ripping off the remnants of his shirt, tasting his blood, and then having the look of anger on his face. After this, the entire dollying shot of The Boss about to attack Cheng would be shown.
  • The extended death scene of the boss, which is only partially shown in different parts in different cuts. The Hong Kong version shows the "aftermath" in which blood is shown running down The Boss' pant legs and Cheng's fingers visibly buried in The Boss' chest. However, once the camera has fully panned up and the two begin to rotate around one another, the scene cuts to a wide shot of the two. The censored versions, however, show the second half of the original scene, cutting out the explicit footage of what Cheng did to The Boss, but replacing it with the full shot of the two of them slowly walking around one another. No current wide-release print shows the scene in its entirety, but the two halves of this full scene do exist separately. 90% of the above mentioned scenes have some type of solid proof to back up their existence, whether it be through old first release movie trailers (the scene with Hsiu bragging about the fight, additional Nora Miao scene, Hsiu's "battle damage", more bodies in ice, final brothel scene) or still photos (extended fight with casino bouncers, Chiao Mei seeing off Cheng and Uncle, Cheng vowing revenge by the river). However, a couple of scenes are only known through people who saw the extended print, either in 1979, or through private collectors, such as the extended scene of the two cousins being cut up by the circular saws.
  
  
  
• In the Japanese Print, there are several revisions:
  • The film is dubbed in English.
  • The soundtrack is a mix between the English dubbed version, the Hong Kong re-release version and music made especially for the Japanese print. While this cut came out before the re-release in Hong Kong, it is most likely that veteran Golden Harvest composer Joseph Koo was called in to create new music tracks for the Japanese version, which would later be reused in the Cantonese re-release.
  • Instead of playing the end of the theme song for the ending like in the U.S. version, the song "To Be A Man" is performed by James Wong and instrumentals by Joseph Koo.
  
  
  
• A rare Director's Cut is rumored to exist, with new material including:
  • Additional scenes of dialog including more with Nora Miao.
  • An additional bedroom scene cut due to the fact that it was too out of place for a martial arts film.
  • More blood and gore in some of the fight scenes to the death including the scene where Bruce Lee slams a saw into a villain's head.
  
  
  
• In the 1980s Hong Kong re-release of "The Big Boss" there are a couple of revisions:
  • A completely new music score arranged by Joseph Koo, which also features tracks by Pink Floyd and King Crimson.
  • All of Bruce Lee's fighting yells were dubbed over the original dubbing voice actor's fighting yells.
  
  
  

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