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Post #297926

Author
Johnboy3434
Parent topic
Some questions concerning Bruce Lee's movies (aficionados needed!)
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297926/action/topic#297926
Date created
27-Sep-2007, 6:36 PM
While I'm sure people have asked these questions before, a rudimentary search turned up nothing. I've just recently gotten into the old school martial arts movies (up until now, my experience had been limited to Power Rangers and the Matrix), and it seems people are always ranting and raving about how Bruce is the best martial artist ever put to film (some say the best of all time, which I doubt). Anyway, so I looked up some information about the films he's done, and was surprised to see he was only ever acted for five martial arts films before his tragic demise. I figured that if he was such a superstar after only five films, he must have been really good, so I figured I'd pick up the DVDs. The five films I've turned up are:

The Big Boss (1971)
Fist of Fury (1972)
The Way of the Dragon (1972)
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Game of Death (1978)
Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000)

I threw that last one in there so I can see the rest of GoD's footage. However, there seem to have been a lot of films after these five that spliced in footage of him. I was going to pass these by (figuring I'd just see the same scenes over and over), until I read that Game of Death II (1981) actually had new footage of Bruce (filmed for Enter the Dragon, of course, but the footage itself had been cut and not shown before). My questions (yes, I'm finally going to ask them):

1.) Do any of these "Bruceploitation" films (including GoD2) have previously unseen footage spliced in (even though the footage would obviously be shot for something else)? If so, which ones?

2.) Are there any earlier martial arts films that Lee has a fighting role in? While I know the knee-jerk response is "go check IMDb," the plot of Lee's movies prior to The Big Boss (or even the size of his roles in said movies) are very poorly explained there.

3.) Which Region 1 DVDs of his movies have the fewest cuts/censorings and the most special features? The "DVD Details" pages are pretty sparse on useful information. Just judging from what I can find on Amazon, I was thinking of these two items:

Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection
Enter the Dragon: Two-Disc Special Edition

The first item has four of the five above-mentioned movies plus GoD2. The second has the remaining film plus A Warrior's Journey. If the reviews are correct, you can watch them in their original languages, as well (BONUS QUESTION: What are their original languages? Weren't the first three in Mandarin and the rest in English?). I don't know how they fared in the censorship department, though.

Well, I think that about covers all my curiosities. Thanks in advance!