Game of Death II

Game of Death 2 ... I see. Well I saw - I guess you know where I'm going with this joke. Now I think it's unfortunate that this went and tried to profit off of Bruce Lees name and death. Because the story and the action choreography especially could have worked - the latter does work, but the movie is sort of diminished by the blatant and obvious placement of either a Bruce Lee double or insertion of scenes of Lee from other movies.

Having said that and as stated above the movie has some very fine fight scenes. So if you are able to watch this without thinking too much about Bruce Lee there is entertainment to be had here ... just don't expect a masterpiece (especially in the dubbed version I saw)

A truly surreal piece of classic exploitation that's just so insane you feel you have to love it, a slice ‘n' dice treatment made on real Lee footage jumbled together to create yet another new `Bruce Lee movie', much in the same vein as its non-related predecessor, however this one's a lot more fun. Bruce Lee returns, so they say, as Billy Lo, eager to discover the reasoning behind his master's sudden death, which sure enough leads to his own end. Enter Billy's brother Bobby (Kim Tai Chong, or rather Lee-alike ‘Tong Lung') and the second half of this crazy charade begins, with Bobby continuing the investigations into both the deaths. When the Lee footage runs out (by ludicrously killing off the character halfway using the classic ‘fall from the under carriage of a moving helicopter' trick), the movie is left to Kim who in actual fact does quite well with it, given the circumstance: events consist of visiting the palace of crazy fighter Horan, battling a man in a tarzan outfit in some underground sci-fi laboratory, before beautifully laying waste to a random monk (Lee Hoi San) and Hwang Jang Lee. It's complete madness, but like a cute family puppy it's just too difficult to put down. A shameful exercise that's just unashamedly entertaining.

Game of Death II (aka Tower of Death) is a dichotomy of a film. It is a Bruceploitation film (though it is one of the better ones) and it is an exiting revenge flick. Raymond Chow had apparently not made enough money off of the insipid Game of Death and was slowly leaking "newly found" footage of Bruce so it was bound that he would create another film with spliced in footage, redubbed dialog and, of course, Bruce's namesake. A lot of people were using Lee's name to promote their own productions, but Golden Harvest (who Bruce worked for; though technically this was a Seasonal production) was the worst of these offenders.

The first act of the movie is the least interesting and worst part of the film. Bruce Lee stars (posthumously edited in) as Billy Lo (Bruce Lee) who visits his friend Chin Ku (Hwang Jang Lee) who is currently beating up an under-classed challenger. After an reestablishment of friendship between the two (never a good sign in a Kung Fu film), he visits an abbot (Roy Chiao revisiting his role from Enter the Dragon so they can reuse and redub footage) to discuss about his contumacious brother Bobby Lo (Tong Lung who also starred in Game of Death).

Of course, the scenes that compromise the first act are not only exploitative of Bruce Lee they are also poorly done. The most obvious is that the backgrounds do not match between Bruce's footage and the new footage. Also check out the sculpted back muscles of Bruce and compare them to his double. It is not even close. The fight scenes with Bruce (and his double) do not flow well. However, anytime you see a fight scene and that Bruce (or his double) does a difficult move such as a flip you will notice that it is the incomparable Yuen Biao (he even has a small role toward the beginning.) Bruce later visits the funeral of his friend Chin Ku and he is prevented from examining the body (this must mean something to the plot.) When the ceremony takes place a helicopter comes by and snags the coffin. For some strange reason, well to dispose of the fake Bruce character, he jumps on the coffin as it is flying away and is hit with a dart and falls to his death. This is absolutely absurd. Though this is not as bad as the 70s clothes at the funeral or the tacky real funeral footage of Bruce Lee that would come next.

Now the movie gets more interesting and less exploitative. Bobby learns of his brother's death from his father who tells him to meet Sherman Lan. Sherman tells him to go to the Palace of Death. Now this is an interesting place. It is owned by Lewis, played by Roy Horan who has been an executive at Seasonal, an actor who also acted in Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, a student of Hwang Jang Lee and currently a lecturer at HK Polytechnic University; obviously his life is more interesting than this film. Bobby suspects Lewis as the culprit behind his brother's death. Lewis likes to eat raw meat, is surrounded by lions (who are fed the fighters that he defeats), Killer Peacocks and a one-armed valet (oh my). The one-armed assistant, a monk from the Fan Yu temple, does not seem that he could be of great use to Lewis, but Lewis says that he is faithful and he has known him for a long time (do not dwell on this fact because the absurdity of what happens later is quite hilarious). I really do not trust one-armed people in Hong Kong films unless they are played by Jimmy Wang Yu.

Lewis tells Bobby of a tower built by abbot Hung Kuang. However, it cannot be found above ground. The abbot had it built underground (this is a nice twist until you see how much they spent on the set design and how many levels there actually are). Obviously there is going to be a show down there with Bobby fighting however is behind all of this madness. I will not give it away (or tell what happens at the Palace of Death) but it is fairly obvious who it will be.

The final act of the film leads to some good fighting scenes, obviously with the help of action director Yuen Wo-Ping, as Bobby makes his way down the tower (try to see how many times Yuen Biao is used as a stunt double; hint check every other move Bobby makes). Most of the film is entertaining (not counting the irritating and unnecessary flashbacks). There is always going to be tackiness involved anytime you invoke Bruce Lee's inimitable name; but once the movie gets past that it is fun to watch. In fact it is the best Bruceploitation film out there -- though that does not necessarily mean that much.

Game of Death II was Golden Harvest's second attempt to cash in on Bruce Lee's name, but this sequel tries to do its own thing...eventually.

The first half of the film is pretty disrespectful. Footage of Bruce Lee is clumsily shoehorned in simply to get his name in the credits but it's so badly done that it's cringeworthy. For a start, the footage is clearly from Enter The Dragon, and it looks like they didn't even bother to match the film type as you can tell it's from totally different stocks when it cuts between the archive footage and the real film. They didn't even bother to get the make up and the outfit colour to match for the scenes with the Abbot. Add to the fact that Kim Tai-chung doubles for Bruce Lee PLUS plays his brother is totally obvious. They shoot Kim from behind most of the time in a really obvious way, but on a few occasions you see a full front shot of his face and can tell it's not Bruce.

All this is doubly sad because this is actually an incredible kung-fu film! The fight choreography by Yuen Woo Ping and Sammo Hung is superb, and if you disregard the Bruce Lee cash in it's actually a decent story as well (for this type of film) Having no less than three directors is a plus point and all are known names. Ng See Yuen and Corey Yuen later went on to make the martial arts triumph 'No Retreat No Surrender' and of course Sammo hung is a legend in the kung fu world.

I'm actually surprised that Raymond Chow, who was supposedly a family friend of the Lees, allowed such a foul cash grab to be made. Fair enough, the first Game Of Death had an excuse as they were finishing his work (even though they changed everything), but this really was a cheap effort to make money off the dead.

Regardless, if you can stomach the first half -hour of the film and it's really shameless flogging of Bruce Lee footage, then you are in for a treat!

The last hour is where it dumps the use of Bruce footage and becomes it's own film - and it's a damn good one too! The end fight is one of the very best in kung-fu history and that's saying something.

Kim Tai-Chung is a solid action star, and he can handle comedy too. He could have genuinely been the new face of Golden Harvest had they given him more projects of his own. However, he made only two more (non GH) films before retiring, and Jackie Chan become the new main star of Golden Harvest productions in the early 1980s.

If this film had been it's own thing then it would certainly be a classic, but most people won't watch past the first 30 minutes of shameless Brucesploitation to get to the good stuff.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs ..........well,if you come across this movie in the video shop or on TV,please don't miss it.There's not just lots and lots of it,but it's also incredibly entertaining ,especially the end showdown,which does however get a bit tiresome as it stretches out a fair bit.Also,this is the most convincing attempt at dubbing in a Lee movie,with you being practically unable to notice that the words aren't coming out the character's mouths properly as they speak.If only similar praise could be given to the plot and the acting which are,unfortunately,exceptionally bad in this film.Still,if you were expecting it to win a 1981 Academy Award (R) for either of these things,you don't really know your martial arts action films that well.***