Game of Death
1978 film Robert Clouse
The Game of Death is an incomplete Hong Kong martial arts film directed by, written by, and starring Bruce Lee. Produced by Concord Production and expected to be released in 1973, over 120 minutes of footage was shot between September and October 1972, mostly from the climax of the film.
During filming, Lee received an offer to star in Enter the Dragon, the first kung fu film to be produced by a Hollywood studio (Warner Bros.), and with a budget unprecedented for the genre ($850,000). Lee died of cerebral edema before the film's release. At the time of his death, he had made plans to resume the filming of The Game of Death. After Lee's death, Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse was enlisted to finish the film using two body doubles; it was released in 1978 as Game of Death, five years after Lee's death, by Golden Harvest. Surviving footage was also included as part of the documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey.
The story of Lee's original 1972 film involves Lee's character who, in order to save his siblings, is forced into joining a group of martial artists who have been hired to retrieve a stolen Chinese national treasure from the top floor of a five-story pagoda in South Korea, with each floor guarded by martial artists who must be defeated while ascending the tower. The 1978 film's plot was altered to a revenge story, where the mafia attempts to kill Lee's character, who fakes his death and seeks vengeance against those who tried to kill him. The final part of the film uses some of Lee's original film footage, but with the pagoda setting changed to a restaurant building, where he fights martial artists hired by the mafia in an attempt to rescue his fiancée Ann Morris (played by Colleen Camp).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Game of Death” is 1978 film Robert Clouse. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Game, Death and film, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1978 film Robert Clouse” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q854576. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1972 and 1978.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Game of Death”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Game of Death primary sources, Game of Death archive and Game research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Game of Death” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.