Sadly Over-hyped

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

GOODBYE BRUCE LEE: HIS LAST GAME OF DEATH is a fun and fast-paced Bruceploitation film that comes across as a blatant rip-off of the movie featured in the title, GAME OF DEATH. It sees Bruce Li (always my favourite Bruce Lee imitator) playing an ordinary guy who gets involved with gangsters and has to go up a crime syndicate when his girlfriend is kidnapped.The film opens on a strong note with Bruce beating up a pack of thugs in his local park before moving into a surprisingly densely-plotted storyline with lots of sub-plots that don't really go anywhere but make the film watchable nonetheless. Li is an energetic presence as the lead and the dubbed-in noises when he fights make this a classic slice of Bruceploitation. GOODBYE BRUCE LEE is also a highly funky movie in which Bruce shows off his sharp sartorial style throughout and a recurring theme tune ('King of Kung Fu') keeps popping up. There's a playground fight later borrowed by Jackie in POLICE STORY 2 and the whole thing feels surprisingly bright and colourful.Around the halfway mark the main plot is done away with when Bruce enters yet another 'tower of death', strips to his yellow jump suit, and tackles different fighters on every level. It's cheap and cheerful stuff, with opponents including Japanese and Korean fighters, an Indian nunchuck expert, a Russian wrestler, and a black boxer from America. Weapon play includes the aforementioned nunchucks as well as whip and sword fights. Some of the jump cut editing is quite annoying but not enough to spoil the flow of action overall. This film goes hand in hand with ENTER THE GAME OF DEATH as an entertaining rip-off of Bruce's GAME OF DEATH, and is occasionally more fun than the original film.

Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death (1975)** (out of 4) Bruce Lee suddenly and tragically dies so Bruce Li is asked by some movie producers to film new scenes so that they can finish GAME OF DEATH. It turns out that these are actually criminals trying to get Li to transfer some money and after refusing to give the money back Li has his girlfriend kidnapped. She's forced into a tower where Li must battle people on various floors to reach her.GOODBYE BRUCE LEE: HIS LAST GAME OF DEATH is another Bruceploitation picture and I must admit that I was actually entertained by this one. If you're looking for a "good" movie then you're certainly not going to find it here but if you enjoy this Bruce Lee wannabe movies then you should be able to get a couple kicks out of this one. It certainly doesn't help that we get an opening song, which is a rip-off of the one heard in SHAFT so things get off to a fun start.The entire story is rather bizarre and silly but it makes for a decent exploitation picture. The film contains various rip-offs including Li going up against a large black basketball player. The final thirty minutes of the movie is pretty much non-stop martial arts as Li has to go from one floor to the next and battling various people. There's certainly nothing ground-breaking with these scenes but they are slightly entertaining in their own way.Again, this isn't a "good" movie by any stretch of the imagination but at the same time I thought the film was fairly well-made considering the budget. The cinematography was actually decent and there's a fairly good flow to the picture. GOODBYE BRUCE LEE: HIS LAST GAME OF DEATH isn't a masterpiece but it's entertaining.

Making a quick buck on the death of the great Bruce Lee? This is it. I've seen Bruce-exploitation movies that were worse. At least this one has some kind of a story. The movie starts about a guy who is asked to finish a Bruce Lee movie. They show him the movie. But this movie is a complete movie and after that movie-within-the-movie the whole movie is done. It's disturbing. The most boring part of the film is when the main character has to climb a tower and fight some martial arts experts on every floor. Really, really boring. The scriptwriters didn't do a lot of effort here. A lot of story lines are being started up, just to be forgotten about afterward. What happens to the money? What happens to the brother and his girlfriend? Who called the police? Who's that other bad guy (the one from Korea) and what becomes of him? I would have been a lot better if they'd make a kung fu movie without trying to jump on the Bruce Lee wagon and get the screenplay right.

Atlas International's (a German production company) Goodbye, Bruce Lee His Last Game of Death would neither be the last Brucexplotation on Bruce Lee's unfinished movie (Game of Death, Tower of Death) and neither his worst (the horrible dross that is known as Game of Death.) Not that it means that this is a good film – it is not. It just shows how much Hong Kong filmmakers wanted to reproduce the inimitable magic of Bruce Lee. The most famous of the Lee imitators was Bruce Li (James Ho Chung Tao who earlier starred in the awful Bruce Lee: A Dragon's Story and later starred in many more Lee wannabe films) a part-time movie actor and Taiwanese high-school physical education teacher, who does not like to be called Bruce Li -- a name given to him by Jimmy Shaw.The film starts with Bruce Li and his stunt double performing gymnastics quite atrociously. Later, after he films a fight scene he is asked by producers Mr. Lin and Mr. Cho if he would consider completing an unfinished work by Bruce Lee. They then show him the film. It is funny that the film within a film appears to be complete as well as stars the same actor who is asked to portray Bruce Lee in the film (sounds like something Luis Bunuel would do.) They probably added the superfluous scenes to give the film extra time so it would not be 83 minutes instead of about 70.The film within a film starts with Mr. Lee, as he is walking home, coming upon a gruesome fight of a Gweilo stabbing a man. Lee beats him easily (at least he beats them up in this film instead of getting beat up constantly ala Game of Death) and the supposedly dying man gives him a purse to give to his wife and get a package to give to his son. He gives the purse to the grieving supposed widow who gives him a package to give to his son. As he is going to deliver the package he is accosted by a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar imitation that is easily disposed by the fighting skills of Mr. Lee. Even when Lee clearly misses his opponents they react to the powerful wind of his fists of fury. After this fight he suspects that something is up so he heads home. He gives the package, which is full of money, to his brother to give to the police – a big mistake.This package is the target of two separate triads, the Far East Export Company led by Fei Lung (don't call me Betty, who looks groovy in his red turtleneck) and the boss of his fiancé Lu Ping. For some unknown reason they get together, kidnap Lu Ping and take her to the top of the Tower of Death. This is actually the Chung Hsing Tower in exterior scenes and one horribly decorated room that a high school production of Hamlet could put to shame was used for each of the 7 towers.Now the fighting in this film is a bit flaccid with the exception of one fight scene. It takes place in a concrete playground and must have been directed by a separate person it is actually good. The rest of the fight scenes, not counting the seven towers scenes, are rather nasty to look at. The seven tower martial art fights differ in quality. Lee puts on the famous yellow and black striped jump suit before he attacks the tower, but it seems to have been made for someone larger. The first level is two kung fu artists who are easily beat by Lee. The second level scenes are weird. He fights a samurai (Lee Keung who has played a Japanese before but does not even look close to being Japanese) and wins by transporting his body behind him over and over again while the samurai goes crazy swinging his sword and you can still hear him as he enters the third level. This is supposed to be a Korean fighter named Mr. Kim but the style of fighting is Karate with a linear attack. The fourth level he fights a wrestler with no muscle content whatsoever. The fifth level is semi-interesting with an Indian fighter (I think) who bounces around in a cross-legged position until he uses nun-chucks (he is horrible with them) and, of course, Lee gets a hold of them (he is slightly better with them) and wins that fight. The sixth level he fights a boxer in the Muhammad Ali mode, though with semi-flabby physique (this was included because of the rumor that Ali was going to be in Game of Death) who is no match for the speed that is Lee (slower than Bruce Lee, faster than Bruce Willis). The seventh level is a let-down fight with Lung Fei (equipped with whip and tacky 70's clothing) who phoned in his performance for this film.Now is there any reason to watch this film? If you are interested in every bad Brucexplotation film then yeah you could enjoy this. It is definitely better than Bruce Lee: A Dragon's Story and Bruce Li has a better presence than Bruce Le. Li is actually a decent actor with decent martial art skills. It was unfortunate that he kept getting put into these roles where he was not comfortable being in (nor should anyone since Bruce Lee was an iconoclast that was irreplaceable.) Unfortunately the second biggest problem with this film is that it is slow, pedantic and uninteresting. The worst part of the film is the song "King of Kung Fu" by Candy which is played ad nauseum with repeated refrain "He's the King of Kung Fu." It makes me ill thinking about the late nights that song has insinuated itself into my conscious.