Good night, Cubao!

Watched the first third of Game of Death, a Westernized Raymond Chow. Bruce Lee plays Billy Lo, a young master who has written a manual for Jeet Kwan Do. He is constantly besieged with challengers, and so this third of the film is full of fight scenes. Another master and a family friend, Chin Ku, dies. Billy visits Chin Ku's stepdaughter, a night club singer, who entrusts to Billy a box of celluloid film that the deceased master bequeathed to her, asking her to keep it safe. A chase by Chin Ku's enemies begins. During Chin Ku's funeral, an enemy helicopter snatches the coffin into the sky. Billy jumps onto the coffin and is flown away with it.

Alas, it is at this point that Bruce Lee (the man) dies. A double is shown clinging to the flying coffin and being hit by a dart from a man inside the helicopter. The double falls to the ground and dies. Actual scenes from Bruce Lee's funeral are then shown.

Billy's brother, Bobby, is then tasked by their father to go to Japan and avenge his brother's death. This is where the second part begins, which I hope to view tomorrow even if it is minus Bruce Lee unless I am served flashbacks.

This movie is semi-documentary because it includes photos and home movie footage from Bruce Lee's own childhood. Aside from the fact that Bruce Lee DID write a Jeet Kwan Do manual, of course.

There are more bird cages in this movie, making me think that martial artists kept birds and spent hours studying their movements. Bruce Lee's muscles are also more prominent and more sculptured here. Quite sad to know that the giant died for real.

And I don't blame Raymond Chow for making this movie a tribute to B.L. for fans both in the East AND in the West.