Bruce Lee - The Master Collection

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The documentary is okay, just a pretty standard look through his life and career (after starting out with coverage of his funeral), but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to finding Game of Death II, as stupid as it is, very entertaining, at least more so then the first film (though I will stress this movie is a sequel in name only).

Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits | The Criterion Collection

That leads into some deleted scenes which includes another alternate ending where Billy Lo gets arrested, and with a fight scene that would show up in Game of Death II. Andre Morgan talks about the impact Golden Harvest had on the Hong Kong film business, while Grady Hendrix talks about the “Bruceploitation” genre that exploded after Lee’s death (which he considers Game of Death to be a part of). While Enter the Dragon and Game of Death only offerEnglish audio in lossless PCM mono (the Special Edition offers an alternate 5. I was expecting all of the films to have a heavy yellow tint to their colours, and while it’s there to a certain extent, it varies from title to title. Enter the Dragon and The Way of the Dragon are probably neck in neck when trying to determine the grainiest looking film, with Game of Death offering a finer film grain (outside of the moments that actually incorporate Bruce Lee from other footage), but in all cases the grain is rendered well, not looking noisy or blocky.With his magnetic screen presence, tightly coiled intensity, and superhuman martial-arts prowess, Lee was an icon who conquered both Hong Kong and Hollywood cinema and transformed the art of the action film in the process. The context is missing, obviously, as it only shows three of the five planned fight scenes and is only able to explain the basic plot through a text intro, but it’s well put together all the same. Enter the Dragon (both versions) probably comes out looking the best of all of the films, but despite some issues with the colours and black levels I was quite pleased with all of the presentations. Also found here is an archival interview with martial arts instructor Gene LeBell, a short 2-minute essay by Bentley covering the western score created for the film by composer Peter Thomas, along with a collection of trailers and TV spots. Released just days after Lee’s tragic death, Enter the Dragon went on to become his greatest international success and one of the most influential action movies ever made, with its famed hall-of-mirrors finale bringing together the physical and intellectual dimensions of his artistry in one dazzling set piece.

Bruce Lee to Get Definitive Criterion Collection Blu-ray Box Set

Using stand-ins, doubles, and archival footage to compensate for Lee’s absence, Game of Death follows a martial-arts movie star who, when he is threatened by a cutthroat crime syndicate intent on controlling his career, must take his skills from the soundstage to the streets. This seven-disc set packs a lot of material over the discs, either specific to the film they’re housed with or more general in nature. Of course, there’s also loads of bonus material (brand-new interviews, rare footage and documentaries,) to tide over even the most insatiable of fans. This set also includes the Special Edition version of Enter the Dragon, and Game of Death II, each of which appear over the last two supplement discs.

Check out the trailer just below for Criterion Collection’s Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits, and get properly pumped. It gathers together a number of people around the film’s production (along with James Coburn) to talk about the film and Lee.

Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits Review :: Criterion Forum

The “original” Mandarin and English tracks mostly sound good, but still present weak dialogue and little fidelity. Not to be outdone by the tidal wave of ‘Bruceploitation’ films that followed, Golden Harvest completed two posthumous films using unreleased footage, 1978’s Game of Death and its 1981 sequel, as well as two official documentaries, the first of which hit cinemas only three months after Lee’s death. The added footage seems to only consist of an added temple sequence at the beginning and then a quick moment that references said scene during the final showdown. Reaching new heights of physical virtuosity, Lee unleashes an astonishing display of nunchaku-swinging, fly-kicking mayhem, all culminating in one of his most breathtaking fights: an epic gladiatorial death match with Chuck Norris in the Colosseum.

Audio for each of the five films will be presented in their original monaural soundtracks in addition to alternate audio options, notably their original English-dubbed tracks. Indeed, 1971’s The Big Boss successfully kicked off a new—though sadly short—era of cinematic collaborations in Hong Kong with producer Raymond Chow, followed up with 1972’s Fist of Fury (a. Criterion also includes a 2-minute archival interview with actor Tung Wai, who plays the young student at the beginning (this interview was found in some of the Shout! The other four films are sourced from 4K restorations, with The Big Boss and most of Fist of Fury scanned from the 35mm original camera negative (the opening credits for Fist of Fury come from the 35mm interpositive) and the other two films sourced from 35mm internegatives. The Criterion Collection presents their 7-disc Blu-ray box set, Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits, which, for the first time ever, brings together Lee’s five feature films The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon, the theatrical version of Enter the Dragon, and Game of Death.