Game of Death
The Six Degrees of Kill Bill, Part IV
That iconic yellow jumpsuit The Bride wears in KILL BILL VOL. 1? Bruce Lee wore it first.
Originally intended as Lee’s fifth film, GAME OF DEATH was meant to be his magnum opus—a culmination of his martial arts philosophy, Jeet Kune Do, and a bold new vision for what martial arts cinema could be. But after Lee’s untimely death in 1973, the project was left incomplete, with only a fraction of the original footage shot.
That didn’t stop the producers. In 1978, they cobbled together a finished film using doubles, trick photography, and just 11 minutes of Lee’s original footage—all in an effort to cash in on his global fame.
In this episode, we explore Bruce Lee’s life and career leading up to GAME OF DEATH, the bizarre rise of the Brucesploitation genre in the years after his death, and how the mishandling of his unfinished masterpiece ironically led to one of his most enduring visual legacies.
Theme Song: "There's Still a Little Bit of Time, If We Hurry and I Mean Hurry" by Slasher Film Festival Strategy.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Gary Horne, Justin Bishop, and Todd A. Davis.