Game of Death II (1981)

Tagline: Carrying on the legend.

Curiosity: It’s the last film included in my Bruce Lee box set. And given that Game of Death used up all unreleased fight footage of Lee, part of me wanted to see how they could possibly justify another film.

Plot: Billy Lo (Lee… sort of) is hanging out with his awesomely coiffed friend Chin Ku (Jang Lee Hwang, rocking both a pedo-stache and long flowing black hair) when the pair get attacked. Billy tries investigating the matter, but he does a shitty job since Chin ends up dead. He also does a crappy job recovering his friend’s casket when it’s stolen by a helicopter and takes a poison dart to the neck. After a funeral montage that recycles footage from Lee’s actual funeral (Really, Game of Death series? Really?), Billy’s porn-addicted brother Bobby (Tai Chung Kim) steps in to find the truth about this GAME OF DEATH… II.

Thoughts: Game of Death II is a better film than its predecessor. It’s just not a Bruce Lee film. It recycles the occasional reaction shot from Enter the Dragon, and even works in footage from Lee’s early career as a child actor, but most of Billy Lo’s scenes consist of the character being shot from the back and in the dark. For 50 minutes. That’s too much of a commitment to a dead actor, but the film picks up once Kim takes over. I mean, that guy was capable of being filmed from the front.

Game of Death II would actually be an OK martial arts film if its creators weren’t trying to cash in on Lee’s legacy. The fight choreography is a little too rehearsed for my tastes – the moves look cool on the surface but don’t look particularly realistic – but the film moves a brisk enough pace. And man does it get weird along the way. Bobby fights a lion in on scene (Well, an actor dressed up in a lion suit) for no particular reason. It just happens, and is never commented on again. He has to climb a ceiling to avoid being roasted by microwaves. He defeats a dude with Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s signature move, the Sharpshooter. That shit is awesome.

Director See-Yuen-Ng managed to make Lee’s absence from the film both more and less obvious than the original Game of Death. He never pulls the “All Asians look alike, right?” bullshit that Robert Clouse did, but you only see the main character from behind for 50 minutes, it starts to get noticeable.

Still, there are some great mustaches in this movie.

Reflection: Bobby is disconcertingly obsessed with pornography. That’s weird.