Game of Death II (aka Tower of Death) is a dichotomy of a film. It is a
Bruceploitation film (though it is one of the better ones) and it is an
exiting revenge flick. Raymond Chow had apparently not made enough
money off of the insipid Game of Death and was slowly leaking "newly
found" footage of Bruce so it was bound that he would create another
film with spliced in footage, redubbed dialog and, of course, Bruce's
namesake. A lot of people were using Lee's name to promote their own
productions, but Golden Harvest (who Bruce worked for; though
technically this was a Seasonal production) was the worst of these
offenders.
The first act of the movie is the least interesting and worst part of
the film. Bruce Lee stars (posthumously edited in) as Billy Lo (Bruce
Lee) who visits his friend Chin Ku (Hwang Jang Lee) who is currently
beating up an under-classed challenger. After an reestablishment of
friendship between the two (never a good sign in a Kung Fu film), he
visits an abbot (Roy Chiao revisiting his role from Enter the Dragon so
they can reuse and redub footage) to discuss about his contumacious
brother Bobby Lo (Tong Lung who also starred in Game of Death).
I'm back from another movie but hey! it's something!
Billy Lo's master.
Of course, the scenes that compromise the first act are not only
exploitative of Bruce Lee they are also poorly done. The most obvious
is that the backgrounds do not match between Bruce's footage and the
new footage. Also check out the sculpted back muscles of Bruce and
compare them to his double. It is not even close. The fight scenes with
Bruce (and his double) do not flow well. However, anytime you see a
fight scene and that Bruce (or his double) does a difficult move such
as a flip you will notice that it is the incomparable Yuen Biao (he
even has a small role toward the beginning.) Bruce later visits the
funeral of his friend Chin Ku and he is prevented from examining the
body (this must mean something to the plot.) When the ceremony takes
place a helicopter comes by and snags the coffin. For some strange
reason, well to dispose of the fake Bruce character, he jumps on the
coffin as it is flying away and is hit with a dart and falls to his
death. This is absolutely absurd. Though this is not as bad as the 70s
clothes at the funeral or the tacky real funeral footage of Bruce Lee
that would come next.
Now the movie gets more interesting and less exploitative. Bobby learns
of his brother's death from his father who tells him to meet Sherman
Lan. Sherman tells him to go to the Palace of Death. Now this is an
interesting place. It is owned by Lewis, played by Roy Horan who has
been an executive at Seasonal, an actor who also acted in Snake in the
Eagle's Shadow, a student of Hwang Jang Lee and currently a lecturer at
HK Polytechnic University; obviously his life is more interesting than
this film. Bobby suspects Lewis as the culprit behind his brother's
death. Lewis likes to eat raw meat, is surrounded by lions (who are fed
the fighters that he defeats), Killer Peacocks and a one-armed valet
(oh my). The one-armed assistant, a monk from the Fan Yu temple, does
not seem that he could be of great use to Lewis, but Lewis says that he
is faithful and he has known him for a long time (do not dwell on this
fact because the absurdity of what happens later is quite hilarious). I
really do not trust one-armed people in Hong Kong films unless they are
played by Jimmy Wang Yu.
After Billy Lo's death revenge is the only way.
Flying kick!
Lewis tells Bobby of a tower built by abbot Hung Kuang. However, it
cannot be found above ground. The abbot had it built underground (this
is a nice twist until you see how much they spent on the set design and
how many levels there actually are). Obviously there is going to be a
show down there with Bobby fighting however is behind all of this
madness. I will not give it away (or tell what happens at the Palace of
Death) but it is fairly obvious who it will be.
The final act of the film leads to some good fighting scenes, obviously
with the help of action director Yuen Wo-Ping, as Bobby makes his way
down the tower (try to see how many times Yuen Biao is used as a stunt
double; hint check every other move Bobby makes). Most of the film is
entertaining (not counting the irritating and unnecessary flashbacks).
There is always going to be tackiness involved anytime you invoke Bruce
Lee's inimitable name; but once the movie gets past that it is fun to
watch. In fact it is the best Bruceploitation film out there -- though
that does not necessarily mean that much.
All kinds of fights wil be faced by Bobby Lo.
The signature kick Bruce Lee uses in Way of the Dragon.
Game of Death II trivia:
Bruce Lee had filmed over 30 minutes of fight scenes for the original concept of Game of Death when work was suspended to allow Lee to work on Enter the Dragon. However, Lee died before he could return. Six years later, director Robert Clouse
fleshed out a feature around the original footage with a new cast,
including two stand-ins for Lee. After the success of Game of Death in
Japan(!), there was high demand for a new Bruce Lee movie there. As a result, much of the movie is filmed in and takes place in Japan.
Both the English dubbed and original Chinese versions (not the version
on the Hong Kong Universe DVD) feature music scores from other films.
The English dubbed versions feature a large number of Denny Zeitlin's
music cues from the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
while the original Chinese versions features a large number of Les
Baxter's music cues from The Dunwich Horror.
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