The Game Of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection, Vol.1 (Limited Edition Website Exclusive)

Everyone knows Bruce Lee. The man is a legend in Martial Arts action cinema. Even if you’ve just been born and haven’t even seen one of his movies, you know who Bruce Lee is. Even fifty years after he died in 1973 he’s that much of a cultural icon. While he was an undisputed master in his craft, part of the reason his legendary exploits endure is because of the legacy of knockoffs that sprouted like so many weeds in the wake of his unfortunate demise. Thanks to some rather unscrupulous filmmakers and promoters feeding fan demand, a whole cottage industry of Bruce Lee fakes took off in Martial Arts cinema creating the exhilaratingly daffy sub-genre Brucesploitation. 

Fist of Fury Part II. The Big Boss Part II. Fistful of the Dragon… all sound like convincing continuations of Bruce Lee’s iconic career right? Well, you wouldn’t be the first or last fan that these films duped into thinking you’d discovered a lost Bruce Lee gem. As filmmaker and expert Michael Worth will detail through numerous essays, commentaries, and introductions in this set, the history of Brucesploitation is decidedly murky. Much like Worth's first visit to a theater in Oakland to see a “new” Bruce Lee film, I too had a frustrating first experience with this odd-ball sub-genre. I grew up in the 80s so finding Bruce Lee films was as simple as going to the local video store. Sadly, so was finding the glut of poorly dubbed and edited Bruce Le, Bruce Li, and Dragon Lee movies all marketed in such a way to convince you it was a true Lee film. 

It’s odd to talk about these films with love knowing that on some level they were designed to exploit Bruce Lee’s legacy in one way or another. That said, there’s little denying their entertainment value and impact on the industry. While often made on the cheap, sometimes multinational productions, they showcased an incredible range of talented martial artists who would rise in the world of Martial Arts cinema and kept people employed while also feeding a fanbase that was rabid for more high-impact exhilarating content. So in that way, they’re at least enduring and worthwhile. And again they’re pretty damn entertaining! 

These are B-level actioners at their best and worst. Low budget, thinly plotted, strangely paced, with dialog so confusing I’m amazed anyone was able to dub them at all. Thanks to the incredible documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce we get to witness an enjoyable history of this sub-genre unfold. As we meet many of the actors and behind-the-scenes personalities, we learn that Brucesploitation movies weren’t made with malice (at least not overtly). Exploitative without a doubt, but not malicious. At 94 minutes, this documentary is an incredible introduction to the world of Bruceploitation that is about to smack you in the face with the films to follow. 

Director David Gregory (of Lost Souls fame, among some of the best disc bonus features) dives deep into this wild sub-genre. What is so incredible about this journey is that it feels like we’re peering behind a long closed curtain of cinema history for the first time. We meet up with some of the martial artists and hear how these films impacted their lives and careers and it’s a wonderful series of stories. What I particularly loved about this doc is how it set the tone. It gives plenty of time to the real true Bruce Lee and his career interviewing the people who were there when he was just getting going in Hong Kong pictures after leaving the U.S., potentially working with the Shaw Brothers and ending up with Golden Harvest. It establishes the legend of Bruce Lee so that you can fully understand and appreciate the Brucesploitation genre - and that’s just in the first ten minutes before the opening credits!

I rarely feel the need or want to rewatch documentaries; I just feel they’re often a one-and-done event for me. In the case of Enter the Clones of Bruce, I gave it two viewings before I even dug into the collection of feature films in this set. My brain was so saturated with new information I felt like I wasn’t taking everything in, so don’t be surprised if you feel the need to start this doc from frame one all over again. It’s worth it and it'll prime you for the Bruceploitation epics to follow in this insane box set. 

The insanity starts with a swift kick to the noggin with the phenomenal 1980 epic The Clones of Bruce Lee. In his introduction, Michael Worth describes this film as “The Plan 9 from Outer Space of Brucesploitation films” and that’s a very accurate description. In many ways, it’s the culmination of everything that’s so right and wrong about the sub-genre rolled into one. Dragon Lee is Bruce Lee One. Bruce Le is Bruce Lee Two. Bruce Lai is Bruce Lee Three. The film opens with the supposed “real” Bruce Lee being rushed to hospital where he dies. Soon after, a brilliant doctor (Jon T. Benn) is able to create three new Bruce Lee clones to help fight crime throughout Southeast Asia. But the good doctor has other plans for his creations with ambitions for total world domination! This wasn’t the first Brucesploitation film, it wasn’t the last, but it’s arguably one of the best. It’s exciting, action-packed, strangely plotted, with the right amount of sleaze and bizarrely placed nudity. 

But that’s just the beginning - within the Severin website exclusive edition, you get the fascinating documentary with Fourteen Brucesploitation classics to dig into. These movies run the full range of quality, so don’t expect high art. Nonetheless, they’re all incredibly entertaining. And if you feel like some of these films look pretty familiar, chances are pretty good you saw pieces of them cannibalized into other films. 

The  Bruceploitation films include…

Disc Two:

• The Clones of Bruce Lee 
• Enter Three Dragons

Disc Three:

• Enter the Game of Death
• Goodbye, Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death

Disc Four:

• The Dragon Lives Again
• Bruce and the Iron Finger

Disc Five:

• Challenge of the Tiger
• Cameroon Connection

Disc Six:

• Super Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
• The Dragon Lives

Disc Seven:

• The Dragon, The Hero
• Rage of the Dragon

Disc Eight - Severin Website Exclusive Bonus

• The Big Boss Part II
• The Black Dragon vs The Yellow Tiger

That is a LOT of movies! Basically, the best way I can describe this set is: you come for Enter the Clones of Bruce and you stay for the quattuordecim-feature after. Some of these I’ve seen, some were brand new. The Big Boss Part II is such a rarity that only one dubbed print is known to exist - so it's something of a miracle we get to enjoy it. Enter the Game of Death is another solid entry that’s quite entertaining for a range of reasons. Possibly the best disc pairing would rest with The Dragon Lives Again and Bruce and the Iron Finger - they are something, to say the least. Then of course there’s the incredible Bull Fight of Challenge of the Tiger to catch your attention!

“Quality” is a subjective term for each of these films. In normal circumstances, they often make little to no sense and can feel quite amateurish. But they are each wildly entertaining. There's an infectious energy to them that grabs your attention. Some moments you're on the edge of your seat witnessing some incredible action sequences. The next moment you might be on the floor laughing in disbelief. Each film is roughly 90 minutes long so at about three hours (add time for the excellent introductions) to each disc, you’ve got seven amazing nights of kick-ass double features ahead of you! 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray  

One of the craziest and coolest box sets of the year kicks you in the face! Severin’s The Game of Clones: Brucesploitation Collection Vol 1. delivers eight discs of Blu-ray fury in a nice and tight box set. All eight discs are housed in a sturdy book with slip pages for each disc. The disc slides in and out of the pages with ease, but held firmly enough that they won’t slide about. The pages are well pressed, no glue or gunk sticking to the discs. The packaging is thankfully not so secure that you risk ripping the pages trying to get the disc out. The feature film discs open to a title-select menu before offering a main menu with its title-specific features. Capping off the box set is a 100-page book featuring new and very entertaining/informative essays as well as photos from the films and tons of cool posters and marketing artwork featured throughout.

For the feature documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce we have what amounts to a pretty standard documentary-style feature. We get the classic mix of archival footage in decent to rough shape. We get some snippets from television. We get some still photos thrown in for that classic Ken Burns effect. All of these elements are intercut with some fantastic brand-new interview sequences. So while it may not be the flashiest-looking film, the 1080p transfer shines with crystal clarity. Some of the intercuts and animations are made to look like they came out of a 1970s grunge theater house and that fits the overall aesthetic given the topic. It never looks flat or boring, there’s enough history and footage from films and key real-life events that we’re not treated to a stale “guy talking behind desk” for 90 minutes. Swift editing with a keen attention to detail makes for a highly engaging, exciting, and educational experience. 

Now for the following fourteen feature films. These films are a bit difficult to grade on standard metrics simply because of what they are. As detailed in the documentary, particularly in the deleted scenes in the bonus features, most of the original negative or early generation duplicate elements just flat don’t exist anymore. Like old silent films, these materials weren’t preserved, or the ones that did see some measure of preservation sadly weren’t cared for well and are effectively lost. So a number of these transfers are 2K or 4K scans of archival prints, personal collection prints, and in cases like The Clones of Bruce Lee, 4K scans of two prints Frankensteined together for the best possible version. In cases like The Black Dragon vs The Yellow Tiger and The Big Boss Part II on the website-exclusive bonus disc, frankly, we’re lucky any film elements exist at all - but they both look pretty damn good. 

So why am I giving this section a full 5/5 when each film is sourced from a multitude of sources and presented in such disparate conditions? Namely - A: Because we have them on film at all, and B: They actually do look quite impressive. Now the standard amount of middling-to-heavy speckling and print scratches are still present. Without a massive and expensive restoration undertaking, most of these films are in the best condition we’ll likely ever see. In the instances where multiple print sources are used, you can clearly see the effort was made to give fans not only a watchable experience but one worth preserving. 

I have to say that I actually appreciate these films aren’t in tip-top shape simply because it gives you that feeling you’re watching a print that’s been run through too many times at an old-time grunge theater with broken seats. Turning out the lights, the condition of the elements gives this set some measure of authentic character. While some films are in better shape than others, I was particularly impressed with the healthy color saturation through most of these flicks. I’ve seen some of these features before with horribly faded colors and I was excited to see them looking this vibrant. 

Likewise, it’s amazing to see them in their original aspect ratios and not cut and cropped down for shitty VHS tapes (where I got my first taste for some of these features). In short, I hadn’t seen all of these films before, but the ones I did, they look better than ever. Unless someone opens a random unknown vault someplace and by some miracle old negatives are stored there, it’s not likely these films could ever look any better than they do in this set. So that effort on Severin’s part is worth celebrating. 

• The Clones of Bruce Lee 4K scan of two 35mm archival release prints from Italy and Germany
• Enter Three Dragons 2K scan of 35mm Internegatrive from The Televentures Archive.
• Enter the Game of Death 2K scan of 35mm German Internegative from The Spectacular Films Archive. 
• Goodbye, Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death 2K scan of 35mm CRI of the U.S. cut from The Aquarius Releasing Archive. 
• The Dragon Lives Again 2K scan of U.S. 35mm release printing from AGFA.
• Bruce and the Iron Finger 2K scan of U.S. 35mm release print from private collection.
• Challenge of the Tiger 4K scan of the Original Negative from The Spectacular Films Archive
• Cameroon Connection 4K scan of the original Negative. 
• Super Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story HD Master from the release print supervised by licensor Multicom. 
• The Dragon Lives 4K Scan of the U.S. Interpositive. 
• The Dragon, The Hero 2K Scan of the 35mm Interpositive from the Trans-Continental Archive.
• Rage of the Dragon 2K Scan of the 35mm Interpositive from the Trans-Continental Archive. 
• The Big Boss Part II Sourced from the only known personally-owned print. 
• The Black Dragon vs The Yellow Tiger Sourced from two American prints to create the best possible version.

Jumping into the set with Enter the Clones of Bruce we have a rocking DTS-HD MA 2.0 track. Filled with music cues, film cuts, and wild Kung Fu sound effects, these audio elements never conflict with whomever is speaking. While there’s no call for a big 5.1 surround mix, the soundscape for this doc is active and fully engaging. For film segments, there’s plenty of imaging to the mix while layering in voice-over or narration to move the documentary along. The primary language spoken is English, but depending on which actor or personality worked on whichever feature is speaking, there are some Chinese with English Subs - so it’s not a doc you can simply listen to and glean the gist of the piece. You do have to pay attention, which you should be doing anyway because it’s a fascinating doc.

And for the fourteen features, like the video transfers, we have the best possible DTS-HD MA 1.0 English-dubbed tracks available, which sit about right for these features. Dubbing can sound a bit ridiculous, about as nutty as expected given some of the translations. There are more than a few WTF dialog exchanges that are quite hilarious or outright confusing as all get out. But that's extra flavor for the film.

Again like the transfers, we have what the best we can expect to hope for. There can be some hiss, pops, and crackle. Occasionally, we get the odd dropout but it’s not distracting or intrusive. Like the video, it feels like there’s been a notable effort to mitigate any problem spots and give us the best audio possible. Any imperfection is all character and adds to the viewing flavor! Fans of the Brucesploitation genre (hell even most classic Martial Arts flicks) know what to expect so again that 5/5 score is judged on what we got, what we’re lucky to have, and then the effort to preserve the best possible presentation.

Befitting the absurdity of the genre explored in this box set is the massive volume of extra features present. "Trove" is too small a word, but it’s a fitting description. You’ve got hours upon hours of content to dive into. Enter the Clones of Bruce is packed with its own supplements but then each subsequent disc comes with film-specific extra content. Almost all of the films have an audio commentary - and most of those feature the encyclopedic knowledge of Michael Worth. Worth also does some excellent introductions to each film laying out volumes of information in just a couple of minutes. These intros prove to be invaluable for setting up each film, giving you a little bit of trivia while whetting your appetite for more Bruceploitation carnage. The roundtable discussions are a blast. I did my best to sample the audio commentaries when I couldn’t listen all the way through and they’re engaging and informative. Much like his introductions, Worth is a fountain of knowledge but also an obvious fan so he brings a nice energy to each track he rolls. Add in all of the new interviews and you’ve got one hell of a collection of extra features to get lost in.

Disc One Enter The Clones of Bruce Documentary

• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:35)
• Audio Commentary featuring David Gregory, Frank Djeng, Vivian Wong, Michael Worth, and Jim Kunz
• Working at Shaw Bros. - Outtakes (HD 19:21)
• Bruce Lee and I - Outtakes (HD 24:32)
• The Lost World of Kung Fu Film Negatives - Outtakes (HD 15:59)
• Bruce’s Hong Kong - Location Tour with Frank Djeng (HD 27:27)
• Trailers

Disc Two

• The Clones of Bruce Lee:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:54)
• Audio Commentary featuring Michael Worth, Frank Djeng, Brandon Bently, Chris Poggiali, Matthew Whitaker, Mike Leeder, John Kreng, Rick Benn
• The Big Boss Remembered - Interview with Jon T. Benn (HD 16:35)
• Trailer 
• Enter Three Dragons:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:59)
• Trailer

Disc Three

• Enter the Game of Death:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:24)
• Partial Audio Commentary featuring Michael Worth
• Scene-Specific Commentary featuring Chiu Chi Ling
• Kung Fu Movie Hustle - Interview with Chiu Chi Ling (HD 14:49)
• Talking A Good Game - Roundtable Discussion (HD 11:23)
• Trailer
• Goodbye, Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 2:08)
• Audio Commentary featuring Frank Djeng and Chris Poggiali
• The Last King Fu Picture Show (HD 12:28)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 11:46)
• Radio Spot
• Trailer

Disc Four

• The Dragon Lives Again:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 2:02)
• Audio Commentary featuring Michael Worth and Frank Djeng
• Deleted Scenes from the French Version (HD 6:53)
• Audio Essay by Lovely Jon (HD 1:31:09)
• Trailer
• Bruce and the Iron Finger:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:39)
• Audio Commentary featuring Michael Worth
• My First Bruceploitation Roundtable (HD 10:38)
• US Trailer
• Hong Kong Trailer

Disc Five

• Challenge of the Tiger: 
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:27)
• Audio Commentary featuring Michael Worth with C. Courtney Joyner
• Trailer
• Cameroon Connection:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:08)
• Audio Commentary featuring David Blakeslee
• Lights…Camera…Action! - The Life and Films of Alphonse Beni (HD 48:18) 
• 2022 Q&A with Alphonse Beni at Cine Club N’Kah (HD 11:08)

Disc Six

• Super Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:39)
• Partial Audio Commentary with Michael Worth
• TV Spot
• Trailer 
• The Dragon Lives:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:18)
• Audio Commentary with Caryn White Stedman and Michael Worth
• Audio Interview with Anders Gustav Nelsson; Played over the film (HD 1:27:33)
• The Taiwan Connection - Interview with Caryn White Stedman (HD 15:20)
• Bruce Biopics - Roundtable Discussion (HD 9:27)
• TV Spots

Disc Seven

• The Dragon, The Hero:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:54)
• Audio Commentary featuring Godfrey Ho and Michael Worth
• Godfrey, The Hero - Interview with Godfrey Ho (HD 18:06)
• Deleted Scenes (HD 23:14)
• Trailer
• Rage of the Dragon:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:36) 
• Audio Commentary featuring Michael Worth with Contributions from Chris Poggiali 
• Kun Fu Theaters - Roundtable Discussion (HD 8:12) 
• Trailer 

Disc Eight - Severin Website Exclusive Bonus

• The Big Boss Part II:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:51)
• Trailer
• The Black Dragon vs The Yellow Tiger:
• Severin’s Kung Fu Theater Introduction with Michael Worth (HD 1:35)
• Audio Commentary featuring Michael Worth with Contributions from Clint Robinson
• Trailer

I guess given their Nunsploitation box set or their commitment to delivering all of the Black Emmanuele films we really shouldn’t be shocked by Severin’s efforts for The Game of Clones: Brucesploitation Collection Vol. 1. Really, the thing that shocks and excites me is that this is only Volume One! What is Volume Two going to look like!?! With the terrific documentary, this set is reinforced by a collection of fourteen Bruceploitation heavy hitters. We have a great mix of fan favorites and very obscure features. It’s clear from the start that Severin and their partners did everything they could to secure and even create the very best possible A/V experiences for each film. Now these aren’t pristine, but more often than not they’re very good and better than expected. And for a couple of these films, we’re lucky to have them on anything other than a crap VHS tape. To that end, I have no trouble giving them full marks because I braced myself for far, far worse. But where there is no doubt or leniency, this set features one remarkable collection of extra features. Between commentary tracks, interviews, roundtable discussions, and introductions, we have a full day's worth of bonus content to dig into. Simply put, The Game of Clones: Brucesploitation Collection Vol. 1 is another Must Own piece of physical media from Severin. Specifically, get that website exclusive so you don’t lose out on two of the flicks that won’t be in the retail edition. 

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