Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee

2007
5.8| 1h24m| en| More Info
Released: 21 January 2007 Released
Producted By: IFC Films
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

In 1973, martial arts great Bruce Lee died, his final film, Game of Death, left unfinished. With the public hungry for more Lee, movie execs decide to find a replacement. This outrageous satire looks at the entire process, from the oddball candidates to the greed and racial motivations that drive the final decision. There's big business in the movies, and Finishing the Game skewers it with an eye for '70s detail.

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Reviews

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Aslana dalMare I am not a particular fan of the martial arts genre or a Bruce Lee idolizer, but I absolutely loved this movie. The fact that it is billed as a comedy and is actually funny, and this one is very funny, underscored for me its subtle ridicule of Hollywood, their formula films and the entire assembly-line style of film making. Hollywood seems to treat Comedy as the Miscellaneous category - if you can't categorize it as a drama, a documentary, suspense, horror, action or history, then it must be a comedy. This one is genuinely funny, instead of yet another billed "comedy" that's really just one more money-grubber's yawn fest.This is also a wonderful but gentle poke at the entire 70's style of film and television, re-creating the tasteless idiocy of that decade's mainstream entertainment offerings, but in a manner that remains nostalgic, affectionate and respectful - like having an old hound dog that stinks just a bit and slobbers all over everyone but we still love him anyway.If you enjoy the Christopher Guest parody movies (I don't; I respect the effort but it's just not easy to get a laugh out of me - yet this movie got plenty) I think you will find this well worth seeing. Even the nudity is so blatantly gratuitous it qualifies as parody. If you're fed up with the standard crappy focus-group-oriented film-by-formula usually offered, you'll like this movie. If you want a good laugh, you'll like this movie. If you have a pulse and a sense of humor, you'll like this movie.
poe426 It was the worst of times: Bruce Lee had died under very mysterious circumstances and every movie studio in the world, it seemed, was dying to cash in on it. We the faithful found ourselves lining up for each and every two-bit knockoff that promised to unveil at long last the unseen footage from THE GAME OF DEATH. Frustrating? You bet your bippy it was. As bad as the charlatans were, the final straw turned out to be the "official" release of the footage itself: GAME OF DEATH has to be one of the cheesiest movies ever made. Bad enough that they used only a portion (12 minutes) of the missing footage (as John Little would later show, there was enough footage shot to comprise at least a full third of a feature length movie); the dummy (not "double") who postured his way through the rest of the movie seemed to have stepped straight out of one of the aforementioned knockoffs. Justin Lin and company have managed to capture the feel of the early '70s and there are some downright hilarious moments in FINISHING THE GAME. The bad news is that the "actual finished film" is even funnier- in a goofy sorta way.
hveckovics Just watched this movie in a company of friends and got extremely disappointed with it. I first saw a trailer a couple of months ago and though it was a great premise - yes, a little goofy and maybe too post-modern for it's own good, but at least it seemed that it was a fun thing to watch.The premise of the film is simple and is shown to you on the first minute of the movie - Bruce Lee dies while filming "Game of Death", he leaves behind 12 minutes of footage that a studio producer is willing to exploit. They start a nation-wide search for a double, so that they can film "the rest" of the movie. And so enter the bunch of hopefuls wishing to take the place of the master or just get a first acting job.The jokes are tongue-in-cheek, but the problem with them is that they are simply not funny. The whole movie is filmed in a pseudo-documentary style that has become a most overused technique in the last 10 years of independent movies. The situations and plot lines are sometimes cute, but mostly predictable and definitely not intelligent enough. The story actually looks like a long episode of "Office" (the US version), and you have a twitch to start channel surfing instead.I'm not sure how many Bruce Lee fans are still out there, but this film has very little to do with his work and just takes the premise and runs with it - unfortunately the end result is bland and devoid of any creative spark.
lancepeanene I just saw this up at Park City. i waited in line for two hours and i have to say it was worth it. The premise is incredibly strong and the film is filled with enough kooky characters to make Christopher Guest proud. It is a solid and smart film. I was laughing out loud consistently. the main thing i love about the film is that it deals with issues without hitting you in the face with it. ultimately it shows in an entertaining way that things haven't changed at all through time. the performances were all strong and the music rocked. the camera work was authentic and the colors just popped. overall, go see it when it comes out.