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Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits, Part 3: GAME OF DEATH & Bruce Lee’s Legacy
In which Bruce Lee crosses over into myth and legend
This being my final piece of coverage on the Criterion Collection’s phenomenal box set Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits, it’s safe to say that this is the home video release of 2020. With each disc that highlights a particular feature film being packed to the gills with supplemental material, there are also two entire other discs (making a total 7) that feature nothing but incredible bonus content enough to satisfy even the most profoundly passionate Bruce Lee fan. I’ll go in depth on some of those features below after offering brief reviews on Game Of Death, Game Of Death Redux, and Game Of Death II.
Game Of Death (1978)
I hate Game Of Death ‘78.
It absolutely, 100%, without a shadow of a doubt HAD to be included in this exhaustive Bruce Lee box set, and Criterion was right to feature it as its own film with its own Blu-ray dedicated to it. After all, it became the second highest grossing “Bruce Lee” film behind only Enter The Dragon and features some of the most iconic imagery of Lee’s entire career.
But I’d argue that this is the worst single film to be given the Criterion Collection seal of approval. It’s simply unbearable to sit through after watching each Bruce Lee film get progressively better than the last, seeing Lee grow into a formidable, multi-threat talent before and behind the camera… and then to see his humanity absolutely desecrated in a cash-grab film produced by his own collaborators from Golden Harvest pictures and Enter The Dragon.
To clarify, Game Of Death is a film released many years after Bruce Lee’s tragic death that was retrofitted into a feature film in such a way as to use some of the real footage which Lee shot as writer/director/star of his own version of Game Of Death. Having passed away before he could finish the project, Golden Harvest caved to fan pressure and cashed in on the memory of their departed star and managed to piece together just about the most crass, disrespectful, and dubious major feature film I can recall.
Writer/Director Robert Clouse creates a character named Billy Lo, a rising movie star much like Lee himself was, only Lo is indebted to some weird organized crime group in Hong Kong that is inexplicably run by white people. Lo is played by multiple Bruce Lee lookalike actors throughout the film and frequently they are hidden behind giant sunglasses, surgical bandages, bad camera angles, inexcusably dark lighting, or in one instance just flat out hiding an actor’s face behind what appears to be a cardboard cutout of Bruce Lee’s face. It’s mind boggling. Clouse writes around his absent star by having hugely uninteresting villain characters deliver all the exposition and making all the major plot movements happen, which is pretty inexcusable in any movie that hopes to engage its audience. It’s laughable that the script involves Lo faking his own death after a facial injury and therefore needing to spend huge portions of the film in bandages or behind a “disguise”. And if Game Of Death had stopped there, perhaps it might have been just a wild curio for cynical audiences. It might even be enjoyed as the trashy exploitation it is. Except that Game Of Death goes even a step further into pure desecration territory when it includes real live footage from Bruce Lee’s actual funeral, even going so far as to show us the open casket of the fallen legend. And frankly that just turns my stomach. It’s not the visual of our fallen hero so much as it is the sheer disrespect of the entire enterprise. Don’t intercut your trashy exploitation film with real, vulnerable images of sobbing Hong Kongers mourning a fallen idol. Just don’t do that. Golden Harvest and Robert Clouse should have known better.
But then… against all odds, as Game Of Death reaches its climax, there appears the real Bruce Lee in his yellow track suit, working his way up a pagoda and fighting a few different martial arts masters, culminating in a battle with the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is over 7 feet tall and a real life student of Lee’s. It only lasts for about 12 minutes of the total film… but it’s so damn energizing as to convey an almost supernatural thrill. Here is our hero back from the grave displaying all the charisma and raw talent and deep philosophy which made us fall in love with him in the first place. I hate to admit it, but had I been alive and consenting in 1978… I probably would have shelled out the money to buy a ticket to this crass piece of shit JUST for those glorious 12 minutes of bursting vitality and singular poise.
Game Of Death can’t be excused or shrugged off as a silly or fun exploitation picture because if those with whom we collaborated and shared our dreams can’t resist selling out our memory for a quick buck, who can we trust? Game Of Death would be an unconscionable tragedy if it weren’t for those glorious moments when the true legend shines so brightly for one last fight.
Game Of Death Redux
Hands down the coolest piece of supplemental material on this entire box set loaded with supplemental material, Game Of Death Redux almost single handedly washes the taste of Game Of Death ’78 out of one’s mouth. Don’t miss my interview with Game Of Death Redux producer and editor Alan Canvan for a whole lot of background on how this project came to be and how it ended up being included in this box set.
Here is our best ever glimpse into the vision Bruce Lee truly had for Game Of Death. Here is an almost 40 minute short film that flows and fits and functions as a real movie. Golden Harvest would have done SO much better to have released something like what Canvan put together and ship it around the world to honor Bruce Lee’s legacy and give fans the footage they were clamoring for instead of the mockery that is Game Of Death ’78. But I digress.
Canvan makes a point here to tighten up the footage and really take into account both the filmmaking prowess Lee would have striven for in his final product, as well as the thematic elements of the lessons about life and Kung Fu that Lee would have wanted to convey. And most importantly… fans just get something special here, a resurrection of footage many of us had never seen before. It feels like we’re getting to watch a “new” Bruce Lee movie and it’s as charming and beguiling and utterly badass as Bruce intended. Game Of Death Redux cannot be missed, especially if you’ve always wondered what was going on with Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s sunglasses in that final battle.
Game Of Death II
Believe it or not, Golden Harvest doubled down on their shameful exploitation of Bruce Lee with an entire sequel to the ill-advised Game Of Death. And, against all odds… it’s a drastically better film than Game Of Death! As only Golden Harvest could do, with their vaults of real Bruce Lee footage ripe for, well, harvest… Game Of Death II follows the Billy Lo character as he tries to look out for his brother (using dubbing and shots from every Bruce Lee film under the sun), gets murdered, and then we abandon Billy completely and simply follow his brother, who gets vengeance for Billy by burrowing down, into the ground, fighting progressively more challenging villainous martial arts masters in an underground futuristic bunker.
While Game Of Death II ALSO briefly shows footage of the actual Bruce Lee funeral, the rest of the movie feels like the playful homage to Bruce Lee that perhaps Game Of Death thought it was. It’s not a great film by any stretch, but by spinning its own narrative and crafting its own “Shaw Brothers meets James Bond” style, it at least doesn’t feel like it has to hide its “not Bruce Lee” protagonist and kill any hope for a few fun martial arts scenes in a classic villainous lair.
The Package & Beyond
Criterion has outdone itself with Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits. You come to this because you want a beautifully put together box containing all of Bruce Lee’s major works in one set, a feat not widely available before. But you stay for a frankly expansive supplemental experience featuring new interviews, archival commentaries and behind-the-scenes features, classic interviews, and two entire discs worth of supplemental material on TOP of the discs featuring the primary films. One those bonus discs is where you’ll find Game Of Death II, and another feature length documentary called Bruce Lee: The Man And The Legend, which is perhaps where Golden Harvest pulled from for all that footage of Bruce Lee’s funeral which was so offensively used in Game Of Death. This documentary is less crass than Game Of Death, but not by much. There’s incredible footage inside of the Lee family home and following Linda, Brandon, and Shannon through their mourning. It’s worth a watch even if the narration is melodramatic.
On the final disc there’s a different cut of Enter The Dragon and a whole lot of great featurettes, perhaps most notably one featuring cinema expert Grady Hendrix talking about the phenomena of Brucesploitation films. It’s humorous and insightful and just plain wonderful.
Perhaps, most importantly, what Criterion is able to contribute to with the release of this set, is a collective remembrance and rediscovery of Bruce Lee. More than just a movie star, Bruce Lee was a global phenomenon, a Chinese American cultural tsunami, and a meaningful thinker, philosopher, and teacher. Through gathering so much of Bruce Lee’s most widely known achievements into one gorgeous package, Criterion makes it easy for new fans and devotees alike to have one definitive place to go when they want to become acquainted with Bruce Lee or sit at the feet of a legend and soak in something new from his legacy. For me, Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits isn’t just a slick new product to own, but more like a beloved novel that will stay with me for life and be revisited over the years with reverence and awe thanks to the indelible subject on whom it is focused. It’s not hyperbole to say that experiencing Bruce Lee as deeply as this box set allowed me to was something akin to standing on cinematic holy ground. Bruce’s story is one of tenacity. It’s also an immigrant story. A Chinese story. An American story. A triumph and a tragedy. There is so much to glean from both the human being that Bruce Lee was, and the iconic, legendary status which he now (and forever) occupies in our collective conscience. Sure, they’re just a bunch of slapdash kung fu exploitation films if that’s how you want to see them. But if you want to seek out why Bruce Lee has attained the legendary status he has, you’ll be able to find that here.
And I’m Out.
Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits is now available of Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection
Part 1 covered the first two discs in this box set: The Big Boss & Fist Of Fury
Part 2 covered the second two discs in this box set: The Way of the Dragon & Enter The Dragon
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SPINEMA Issue 44: Mondo Woos Hans Zimmer’s MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2 Score to Vinyl
Love or (foolishly) hate the movie, M:I-2 unquestionably boasts one of the coolest action scores of the 2000s
New from Mondo, one of the greatest action scores of all time finally makes its way to turntables in expanded form! Hans Zimmer’s Mission: Impossible 2, from the film by John Woo, is finally here and in vinyl form. Even if you dislike the film, a controversial entry in the M:I canon, please don’t extend those feelings toward the thrilling, varied, and evocative music which makes up its accompanying soundtrack.
Mission: Impossible 2 – Music From The Motion Picture Score Expanded Edition 2XLP
Unboxing the Package
Jacket
The LP jacket has a full tracklist on the back side. An informative U-card (spine cover), typical of Mondo releases, is also included.
The cover image comes from one of the film’s most iconic scenes, but the overall design feels flat and plain, especially compared to many Mondo editions with beautifully illustrated poster-style art. However, to put this into perspective, it is in perfect keeping with the theme established by the prior Mission: Impossible release. Viewing these side by side, you can immediately see where they’re going with this, and probably even map out the next four entries in your head. Big points for design consistency!
Anyway, here’s a better look at the packaging:
Insert
LPs
The records come in both standard black and an explosive “Fire” variant. No surprises on the black edition of course, but the Fire edition shows a lot of variety between the sides. Even the flipsides of the same records are quite different, and certainly not merely mirror images of each other. Sometimes colored vinyl choices are a stretch, but not this one — the explosive orange appearance perfectly captures John Woo’s aesthetic for the film.
Side 1A – Fire Variant 
Side 1A – Black Version 
Side 1B – Fire Variant 
Side 1B – Black Version 
Side 2A – Fire Variant 
Side 2A – Black Version 
Side 2B – Fire Variant 
Side 2B – Black Version Label include full Track Listings for all four sides.
Side 1A – Fire Variant 
Side 1A – Black Version 
Side 1B – Fire Variant 
Side 1B – Black Version 
Side 2A – Fire Variant 
Side 2A – Black Version 
Side 2B – Fire Variant 
Side 2B – Black Version 
The Music
Hans Zimmer’s score to Mission: Impossible 2 is a personal favorite of mine. The film incorporates Woo’s heightened sense of melodrama, and the score wholeheartedly embraces that choice, delivering a magnificent, opulent saga of pain and passion.
A great deal of variety is featured in the music. In keeping with the globetrotting nature of the narrative, the traditional orchestral themes are augmented with international flavors — swelling choruses, Spanish guitars and flamenco, crunchy guitar-driven rock, organic percussion, funk, and even a bit of electronic flair, not to mention what remains to date the heaviest version of Lalo Schifrin’s iconic Mission: Impossible theme, variations of which appear on a handful of different tracks.
The story and character of Nyah (Thandie Newtown) is very much at the center of much of the score, and the music does such a magnificent job of relating the turmoil of her inner state, from her conflicted romance with Ethan and fearfully dangerous espionage mission to her contemplation of suicide.
In its CD form, M:I-2 has already been one of my favorite film scores for the two decades since its release, and it’s immensely exciting that this new expanded edition, spanning across 2 LPs, brings much more to the table, “for the first time in any format… Hans Zimmer’s complete score sourced from the original master tapes”, including several new tracks. As a score that I know pretty well inside and out, it’s exciting to hear these new additions.
There are a couple casualties in the transition. The album’s cover image features an iconic rock climbing scene set at the film’s opening — an ironic choice, as this scene in the film is set to Zap Mama’s catchy rendition of Iko Iko, which does not appear on this album. That song is technically not part of Zimmer’s score so “no foul”, but it was included on the prior score album so in that context the omission is noteworthy.
A considerably bigger letdown is a change in the handling of the score’s single best composition, Bare Island, which accompanies one of the film’s biggest emotional climaxes. That piece is greatly expanded here, which is wonderful to have, but… the change-up rearranges the music in a fashion that eliminates its very best key moment, an epic choral crescendo that should immediately launch into a fist-pumping guitar riff of the M:I theme (which is how the piece unfolds in both the prior score album and in the film itself). Instead, the new reworking simply ends the piece precisely at that moment, depriving the listener of the payoff. It’s truly a regrettable choice.
To me, this one small but major caveat is really the only thing holding this back from being an ideal score album, because in all other ways, it’s excellent.
Tracklist
Disc One Side A
01. Hijack (5:32)+
02. Mission: Impossible Theme (0:36)
03. Seville — Part I & II (2:07)
04. The Heist (2:40)
05. Sunset Ride (0:38)*
06. Seville — Part III (1:52)
07. Nyah (Film Version) — Hans Zimmer feat. Heitor Pereira (2:42)
08. Nekhorvich’s Message (1:18)*
09. Nyah’s True Mission (2:27)*Disc One Side B
01. The Bait (2:51) +
02. Ambrose Welcomes Nyah (4:08)*
03. The Chimera Myth (1:30)*
04. Finger Cutting (0:47)*
05. At The Race Track (7:06)*
06. McCloy Gets Gas / Nyah Tries To Escape (5:21)*Disc Two Side A
01. McCloy In Hospital / Ambrose Knows (2:46)*
02. Breaking Into Biocyte (3:02)+
03. Chimera — Part I (3:25)+
04. Bio-Techno (1:51)
05. Injection (4:28)
06. Chimera — Part II (6:18)+Disc Two Side B
01. Bare Island — Part I (2:24)
02. Bare Island — Part II (3:02)
03. Mano A Mano — Part I (4:15)
04. Bare Island — Part III & IV (7:29)+
05. Mano A Mano — Part II (5:17)++ Expanded Tracks
* Previously Unreleased in any format
Verdict:
An incredible expanded release of one of the greatest and most underrated action scores of all time, unfortunately marred by a rearrangement that inadvertently neutralizes its greatest moment.
A/V Out.
Get it at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2BVjCCp
If you enjoy reading Cinapse, purchasing items through our affiliate links can tip us with a small commission at no additional cost to you.Mission: Impossible 2 – Music From The Motion Picture Score Expanded Edition 2XLP
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Two Cents Film Club: In Memory of John Saxon, ENTER THE DRAGON!
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick:
One of the most popular martial arts movies ever made, 1973’s Enter the Dragon has remained a major influence for virtually every form of media, from movies to comics to video games to music and on and on.
With its larger-than-life heroes and villains, its secret-island-tournament-to-the-death narrative hook, and its bevy of iconic fights from the Shaolin temple opening to the mirror maze climax, arguably no martial arts film has ever been so important to Western audiences until maybe Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000.
Enter the Dragon also firmly established Bruce Lee as an international icon, achieving what a long, often humiliating stretch in Hollywood failed to. Tragically, Lee suddenly and shockingly passed away at the age of only 32 right before the film was set to release. Lee’s legacy remains a major part of the cultural conversation, in everything from Quentin Tarantino’s controversial fictionalized version in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, to this summer’s massive Criterion box-set and a multi-part documentary about his life aired on ESPN.
While Lee would appear in numerous films in the years after his death, often utilizing out-takes, deleted scenes, or body doubles (of WILDLY varying quality levels) Enter the Dragon was his final completed movie.
Directed by Robert Gymkata Clouse, Enter the Dragon stars Lee as…um…“Lee”, a Shaolin master recruited by British intelligence to go undercover in an exclusive martial arts tournament hosted on the island lair of the mysterious criminal mastermind Han (Shih Kien, dubbed by Keye Luke).
Also competing in the tournament are cocky Vietnam vet Williams (Jim Kelly) and desperate gambler Roper (John Saxon). Across a series of duels, the men circle each other and draw closer to the evil Han and his sinister plans, heading towards a deadly confrontation.
While Lee was the film’s clear lead and center (a position he stridently protected) Kelly also exited Enter the Dragon as a movie star, credited as the first black martial arts movie star. He starred in a series of blaxploitation movies across the ’70s, including Black Belt Jones, before succumbing to cancer in 2013.
The last survivor of “the Deadly Three” was John Saxon, who passed away last week at the age of 83. Saxon was a veteran character actor with twenty years in the film industry under his belt before Enter the Dragon.
While never a leading man, Saxon continued to work steadily throughout the ’70s and ’80s, always bringing the best of his abilities to even the smallest roles. Many of his films enjoy ongoing popular and cult followings, including Black Christmas, Battle Beyond the Stars, and Dario Argento’s Tenebrae.
In 1984, thirty years into his career, he landed perhaps his most well-known role: Lt. Donald Thompson, the father of Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy in Wes Craven’s genre-redefining slasher classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Saxon appeared in a couple of the better Elm Street sequels and continued to pop up in genre fare, like From Dusk Til Dawn. Upon his passing, there was a massive outpouring of love and affection for his work across the decades as a character actor who brought legitimacy to every role he was tasked with.
And so we say goodbye to Mr. Saxon and prepare, once more, to Enter the Dragon.
Next Week’s Pick
For our next film club pick we’re both celebrating the life of Hollywood legend Oliva de Havilland and highlighting a film that’s a very beloved favorite among our film club regulars. Please join us for The Adventures of Robin Hood, available streaming on HBO Max!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
The Team
So, this week I’ve watched a few John Saxon films and I’ve got to say that I’m really happy he left us with a fun legacy of good roles in fun genre fare. While my favorite this week was my umpteenth rewatch of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, it’s safe to say that this was right behind it. And, as far as roles go, I think he does more and does it better here.
While this quarantine period started with me going heavy into the Shaw Brothers catalog and watching some other solid Kung Fu films, I haven’t watched many in the past month or two. Moreover, Bruce Lee is a pretty big blindspot for me. Enter the Dragon is definitely one of his most well known films, so it’s ridiculous that I have never properly watched it, though this viewing confirmed that there were many iconic scenes I’ve seen throughout the years and a few shots that emblazoned many a poster I saw at Sam Goody or Hot Topic.
I truly enjoyed watching this one and will make sure this is a jumpoff point into diving further into his filmography in the coming weeks and months. In other words, Kung Fu Quarantine is back, bitches! (@thepaintedman)
A lot of times when Hollywood slams together a bunch of disparate popular elements, the results are such a tangled, instantly-dated mess, that it’s hard to understand how anyone could have believed those flavors could go well together (or tasted good at all).
But Enter the Dragon is that rare programmer where all the elements gibe together and just straight-up work. The James Bond-y spy shenanigans provide a perfect cartoonish framing device for all the martial arts action, and Clouse delivers on the promise of his premise by giving Lee, Kelly, Saxon, and the myriad of stunt performers ample room to impress.
Lee was reportedly at least somewhat paranoid that the studio would try to snake his own movie out from under him and make the white guy the star (as they had with Kung Fu), but as is the duo balance each other perfectly. Lee is a blazing sun, a movie star coming fully into his own and operating at the height of his powers, while Saxon does a character actor’s busy-work and keeps what could have been the grinding scenes of plot advancement humming along with his charming low-life.
While Enter the Dragon isn’t one of my own personal favorites in the martial arts canon, its iconic status is well-earned and the movie stands the test of time as an engaging and exciting time. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
I didn’t realize it at the time, but my original viewing of Enter the Dragon many years ago wasn’t just a continuance through the amazing filmography of Bruce Lee. His costars also let a big impact. It was the perfect introduction for Jim Kelly, coinciding with my burgeoning interest in blaxploitation fare, and also to John Saxon, who became an actor I’d come to greatly appreciate and delight in seeing pop up in random movies, from mainstream appearances on Elm Street to oddball genre obscurities like The Glove.
The impact of Enter The Dragon is incalculable. Beyond all the Brucesploitaiton and parody, the film certainly paved the way for kung fu stars to command global audiences, and set the template for fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Tekken, which brazenly steal its plot. Few things can make be feel more robbed than to think that Bruce Lee exited this plane at the height of his powers, after his biggest breakthrough. It’s almost better not to imagine what could have been, a world where Enter the Dragon was simply “early Bruce Lee”. (@VforVashaw)
Iconic and record shattering in every way, there’s no doubt that Enter The Dragon is the film most Bruce Lee fans immediately associate with him and which largely introduced him as a superstar and cultural icon in the western world. In and of itself, I’d argue that Enter The Dragon lives up to that hype today and stands out on its own as a top notch action/martial arts film at just the right time in history to really push the envelope. Bruce Lee would never live to see the cultural impact the film would have, passing away from a shocking cerebral hematoma that simply took his life without warning. Bruce Lee has passed into legend; a star, a philosopher, a martial artist, a teacher. Would Enter The Dragon have become the film it did had Bruce Lee not passed away before its release? We’ll never know. But my point in bringing up Lee’s death at this time is simply to state that Enter The Dragon is a damn fun film and while it isn’t as distilled of a vision as The Way Of The Dragon was, this is the only time we get to see a Bruce Lee film with a pretty sizeable budget, in English, loaded with western stars and slick James Bond-like production value. (@Ed_Travis)
-Read Ed’s full breakdown of the Bruce Lee boxset from Criterion HERE.
Next week’s pick:
https://play.hbomax.com/feature/urn:hbo:feature:GXjS6Hg8UKo7CZgEAAAXd
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RADIOACTIVE Remains Stable
Marjane Satrapi’s biopic of Madame Curie doesn’t stray far from formula
Since their infamous discovery, Marie and Pierre Curie have retained their place in science history while inspiring a movie or two. Radioactive is the latest effort, loosely based off of Lauren Redniss’ graphic biography of the same name. As in Redniss’ book, the new film — now streaming on Amazon Prime — follows the Curies through marriage, experimentation, discovery, and awards, while also hitting upon the ramifications of their work.
Rosamund Pike stars as Polish scientist Maria Skłodowska, who moves to France for her scientific studies and later marries fellow scientist Pierre Curie (Sam Riley, Maleficent, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). She’s forthright in her demands for a laboratory and requests for better treatment. She’s reluctant to let her husband take full credit for the discoveries they made together. Pike doesn’t shy from playing such a complex character. Her performance is the strength of the film; it’s the construction and composition of the work where the flaws are far more visible.
Director Marjane Satrapi (Persopolis, Chicken with Plums) uses flashbacks within flashbacks (a confusing decision), frantic camerawork, and lighting that tends towards blurriness. While the inserts with 20th Century scenes involving radiation treatments, nuclear bombs and the breakdown of nuclear plants should add dimension to the overall work, they instead make Curie’s own story in Radioactive less cohesive and coherent. Anya Taylor-Joy is cast as Curie’s daughter, an illustrious scientist in her own right, but is barely given much to do except convince her mother to help French soldiers in WWI.
It’s unfortunate that the film falters so after a strong start, but eventually Radioactive loses its initial luster and becomes more formulaic in its storytelling style. Even with its inventive tendencies, the film turns out to be a typical biopic. And regardless of how well Pike takes on the character of Madame Curie or how invested the viewer is in her discovery and scientific work, I ended up wishing I had just read Redniss’ book again.
Radioactive is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Get it at Amazon: https://amzn.to/3hPFjmN
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Interview: How GAME OF DEATH REDUX Producer Alan Canvan Resurrected Bruce Lee’s Lost Footage
GAME OF DEATH REDUX can be found on Criterion’s “Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits” box set
Perhaps the most exciting piece of supplemental material on Criterion’s box set Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits is Game Of Death Redux. Infamously, Bruce Lee passed away before completing what was to be his second feature film as a director: Game Of Death. Having shot some 100 minutes of footage, only about 11 minutes of that footage ultimately made it into the (kind of awful) Game Of Death theatrical release directed by Robert Clouse and released in 1978. That film attempts to retrofit a screenplay that ultimately leads to a sequence near the end where we get to see the transcendent Bruce Lee fight a couple of masters in a pagoda. With the yellow tracksuit and the eternal dynamism of Bruce Lee, Game Of Death briefly alights from a dismal affair to an action film brimming with vitality.
But Game Of Death (1978) really isn’t about Bruce Lee’s vision. Game Of Death Redux clocks in at just under 40 minutes and simply does its best to use the footage we have to tell the story Bruce Lee was trying to tell. It’s vibrant, intriguing, and beguiling. It’s special. It gives us a little glimpse of what might have been. It’s got an element of magic in showing us something we’ve never gotten to really see before, and an element of melancholy that reminds us we’ll never see any other new work from Bruce Lee again.
I’m thrilled to get the chance to pick producer/editor/mastermind-of-this-project Alan Canvan’s brain about how this project came to be and what his vision for the project ultimately was.
Ed Travis: Alan, can you talk a little bit about the footage itself? It’s well known that Bruce Lee shot a bunch of footage, shut down production to make Enter The Dragon, and intended to pick back up on the other side. What’s the brief story of the life of this footage from the time of Lee’s death until you got your hands on it?
Alan Canvan: Game of Death was intended to be Bruce’s directorial sophomore effort. He did some principle shooting between August — October of 1972 and then put things on hold to film Enter the Dragon for Warner Bros, with plans to resume filming the following year. Tragically, Bruce passed away in the Summer of 1973 before resuming work on the project, leaving behind approximately 97 minutes worth of fight footage, 2/3rds of which were outtakes.
Four years later, his business partner Raymond Chow hired the director of Enter the Dragon, Robert Clouse, to build a story around the footage, resulting in a 1978 film entitled Game of Death, that bore no resemblance to Lee’s original premise. Only 12 minutes and 18 seconds of Bruce’s actual footage were used in this production. Jumping ahead a few years to the late ’90s, the full footage was rediscovered in the Golden Harvest vaults, and the film was re-edited to incorporate the additional 27 minutes and 42 seconds that were missing from the 1978 film. It was then repackaged as the centerpiece of 2 documentaries: Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey and its Japanese counterpart, Bruce Lee in G.O.D. (released in 2000 and 2001 respectively).
While I was initially thrilled to finally see the full footage, I wasn’t quite as jazzed by the presentation. Artistically, I disagreed with almost all the creative choices made in both productions. Much of what I thought was missing stemmed from the filmmakers’ need to incorporate every last drop of footage possible, which, while understandable in terms of fan service, is highly problematic for the overall structure and pacing of a film — and specifically for a narrative defined by its kinetic expression of a psychological landscape. Additionally, I didn’t feel either soundtrack delivered the most effective portrayal of the story. For the record, I sincerely appreciate both men’s efforts — believe me, it is no easy task.
Seventeen years later, in 2018, I attempted to convey the deeper story/subtext that I felt existed within the material.
Ed Travis: Can you talk about how you got involved in creating this project? Were you simply a fan who committed a ton of time to a passion project or were you commissioned? And as a follow up to that question, can you discuss how your completed project made its way to this incredible home on the Criterion Collection’s remarkable box set?
Alan Canvan: Criterion didn’t hire me to do the edit, it was independently financed and, indeed, a passion project that had been gestating in me for quite a while. I have a background in film and am a lifelong fan of both Bruce Lee and cinema, so this project was a natural evolution of my interests/obsessions.
My friend Matthew Polly, author of the stellar biography Bruce Lee: A Life, introduced me to Curtis Tsui, the Criterion producer responsible for the Bruce Lee box set. Curtis had learned about my edit (which had premiered in July 2019 at the Asian American Institute in New York City) and was interested in viewing it. Upon seeing Redux, Curtis immediately contacted me and asked if Criterion could include it as an extra feature on the box set. I was overwhelmed by his enthusiasm and praise for the film, and incredibly flattered that he deemed it worthy of Criterion.
I have Matthew to thank for the introduction to Curtis, and I have Curtis and Criterion to thank for recognizing my work on its own merit and showcasing it on such an honorable platform. It’s a dream come true.
Ed Travis: A personal question. Here you are, a lifelong fan of Bruce Lee’s, getting to make a passion project and see it to completion and have a chance for audiences around the world to see the fruit of your labor. I’d love to hear how you’ve felt about this opportunity both personally and professionally.
Alan Canvan: There is definitely a sense of things coming full circle. Game of Death has always been significant to me because it was my very first cinematic glimpse of Bruce Lee. I was 8 years old and absolutely in awe. Despite the ’78 film’s shortcomings, it worked for three reasons: the opening credit sequence (that swiped Lee’s fight with Chuck Norris from Way of the Dragon), the 11-minute finale that used Lee’s 1972 Game of Death footage and John Barry’s amazing soundtrack. Barry’s score, in my mind, is such an integral piece of the Game of Death jigsaw. With Redux, my aim was to honor both Bruce Lee’s unparalleled genius as well as John Barry’s phenomenal talent.
Regarding Bruce’s vision, it’s apparent that the pagoda segment was truly the story he was interested in telling. With that in mind, I chose to approach the sequence as its own short film with three distinct acts. The narrative itself was much more than just a Jeet Kune Do tutorial that stressed the importance of adaptability in combat. The deeper interpretation recognizes the pagoda motif as a metaphor for the psyche and the ascension of the temple as an allegory for the struggles that exist within the human condition, told through classical Jungian archetypes. For me, it was important to highlight these aspects, and give the fight scenes a psychological context.
To share my rendition of a film that I watched repeatedly as a child (on VHS tapes!) almost 40 years later is a huge milestone, and equally surreal. On a professional note, it was an amazing opportunity and, hopefully, a stepping stone to future projects that will find their place in the world.
I really appreciate Alan taking the time to dialog with me about his experience in creating Game Of Death Redux. And I believe fans of Bruce Lee the world over will feel that watching this cut of the Game Of Death footage is a unique privilege afforded to them through Alan’s passionate and informed work and Criterion’s presentation. Learn more about Game Of Death Redux in the below video, and don’t miss Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
And I’m Out.
Part 1 covers the first two discs in this box set: The Big Boss & Fist Of Fury
Part 2 covers the second two discs in this box set: The Way of the Dragon & Enter The Dragon
Part 3 covers the final discs in this box set: Game Of Death & Supplemental Material
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LEGACY OF LIES: Scott Adkins Heads Up a Ukrainian Political Thriller
It grew on me
Legacy of Lies grew on me.
When I’m reviewing a Scott Adkins film, that’s the lens through which I’m reviewing it. How kick ass is my main man? How thoroughly does he lay waste to his enemies? What new territory does this particular film trod in his overall filmography?
But Legacy Of Lies is a different kind of film from the average Scott Adkins joint. This was a Ukrainian political thriller long in the making, in search of an international star that could bring worldwide distribution to the finished product. And Scott Adkins became that star.
Initially, as the film played out, it felt like a fairly standard political thriller. Adkins plays Martin Baxter, a broken former MI6 agent who lost his wife in a shootout and is now raising his daughter (the fantastic Honor Kneafsey as pre-teen Lisa) whilst somewhat on the run due to the botched mission. The Russian files in question are 100%, grade-A macguffin territory, never really mattering at all beyond “proof that the Russian government is bad”. Baxter is going to have to face his past and finally get his hands on those files if he’s ever going to have hope for a normal life and safety for Lisa. In the end Legacy Of Lies is just a pretty basic airport paperback style thriller from writer-director Adrian Bol. But there are a few standout elements that warrant a mention.
The Raid is one of the most influential films of the last decade or so for me, and I’ll tell you why. That film became a calling card for Indonesian genre cinema in a profound way, and I’ve watched as one worldwide phenomena of a film has transformed the Indonesian cinematic output around the world. Since then there have been countless other “calling card” style films from the Philippines’ Buybust to Vietnam’s Furie, to Cambodia’s Jailbreak. And while I’ve enjoyed those films to varying degrees, I’ve certainly loved watching scrappy action cinema become the catalyst for the world to see the production capabilities and prowess of a certain nation’s film industry. I’m more than happy to sing the praises of Ukraine’s film crew that produced Legacy Of Lies. The movie looks and feels great. It’s a real-ass movie in a way that SO many DTV action films that emerge from nondescript eastern European countries just aren’t. There’s great lighting and clear picture quality. It feels more polished than many of its ilk.
I’d also argue that the onscreen talent, while all unfamiliar to me aside from Adkins, are turning in stronger work than is often seen in films where Scott Adkins is the ONLY marquee name in the bunch. The aforementioned Honor Kneafsey being chief among those — saddled with the precocious (and kidnapped) teen daughter role, she makes the most of it and becomes quite likeable. Yuliia Sobol is also striking as a foil/partner to Baxter. Her Sacha is an investigative journalist whose father was a former associate of Baxter’s and who has been killed for his knowledge of what was on the macguffin files. Her passion for the truth catalyzes Baxter to put an end to his running and face the lies of his past.
And while Legacy Of Lies is pretty decidedly NOT among the most pumped-up, action-heavy films of Scott Adkins’ oeuvre, Bol was smart enough to let Adkins have a say in the creation of the action sequences that are present, and fight choreographer (one of the best in the business) Tim Man got to flex his muscles on this production as well. That kind of thing matters because you have moments and sequences where the film races to life and shows you flashes of what makes Adkins the star he is.
In the end, I have to admit that I’m somewhat of a softie who loves to root for the underdog, and Ukraine has been the underdog under the shadow of the Russian government for decades now. So when, in the third act, Bol’s screenplay gets a little extra preachy and on the nose as it celebrates the value of investigative journalism, the importance of absolute truth, and accountability for despotic leaders, I found myself quite pleased. This here is a message movie, a genuine Ukrainian thumbing of the nose at Vladimir Putin, and it’s packaged as a Scott Adkins movie loaded with thrills and spills. I can get behind that.
And I’m Out.
Legacy Of Lies hits DVD, Digital, and On Demand 7/28/20 from Lionsgate
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GUNDALA: RISE OF A HERO, an Indonesian Superhero Universe Begins
Superhero cinema is global, after all
Apparently Gundala is a massively popular comic book hero in Indonesia, who is part of a much larger interconnected universe. And even if, like me, you were totally unaware of this fact, writer/director Joko Anwar will make sure you are very aware of this larger story by the time you finish watching his film adaptation of the beloved superhero.
I’m at a point in my life where I’m sold on any action cinema that’s coming out of Indonesia and am happy to seek out productions with these specific specs even if they don’t have much or any relation to the Raid films and the teams who made those. (Although there is at least one major talent involved in both the Raid films and this one: Raid 2 and John Wick 3’s Cecep Arif Rahman). Indonesia has simply broken out and their genre films are making waves around the world. I’m happy to give them a shot when I have the chance. Unfortunately Gundala didn’t really land for me personally, though it has a number of strong qualities.
Perhaps most importantly, the action really is on point in Gundala. The film isn’t really given a traditional American rating, but it would probably port over to an R rating due to the strong violence. There’s some real down and dirty street brawls as our protagonist (played quite well by Muzakki Ramdhan as a boy) learns to fight on the streets and then as he gains powers and goes up against virtual armies of foes. It’s slick and stylish just like the film’s trailer promises.
It’s also got a solid “origin story” vibe which I assume comes from the source material. Our protagonist Sancaka (Abimana Aryasatya) loses his parents and becomes a tough and hardened street urchin. His father was a crusader who died violently before Sancaka’s eyes as he fought for workers’ rights as a union leader. Then Sancaka’s mother tragically disappears one day as she seeks out better paying work in a nearby city. Our villain, Pengkor (Bront Palarae), is also an orphan, though one who bears burn scarring all over his body from a tragic event in his childhood. Pengkor is somewhat of an orphan king, working in the background and shadows while raising an army of sleeper orphan assassins who are loyal to him for taking them under his wing. That part feels sufficiently melodramatic for a comic book sized morality play, for sure.
After the solid initial set up, however, the film began to lose me ever so slightly more the longer it went on. It was challenging to understand exactly what Sancaka/Gundala’s powers really were, or why he had them in the first place. He’s perpetually haunted by lightning as a child, having been struck by it repeatedly. It’s a cool motif that end up leading to him having some kind of ability to channel lightning. But while I may have lost the details in translation, I just never really understood the “rules” of Gundala’s powers or the origins of them, and this made for a frustrating viewing experience as his abilities seemed to wax and wane indiscriminately.
There also are simply SO many superhero movies and tv shows being created now that it really is hard to stand out from the pack. While slick and well choreographed Indonesian martial arts sequences sure do help in that department, the rest of the film feels very familiar to anyone who’s seen even a handful of superhero movies. And Gundala falls prey to perhaps two of the most frustrating tropes in all of superhero cinema: those of the “way too complex” villain plan, and the “ characters introduced solely to build an interconnected universe”. It’s actually been weeks since I sat down to watch the film, and what fleeting grasp I had of what the villain’s plan was has now left me. But suffice it to say it involved many twists and turns that just didn’t make a whole lot of sense… something to do with a poisoned water supply that would make babies be born without morals, and then a counter-plan to trick-force a vaccine on society? It was implausible and oddly troublesome to watch amidst a global pandemic in which public trust in vaccines is troublingly low.
And far be it from me to deny Indonesia their superhero cinematic universe. I wish this series the best and hope many sequels and side-quels are born out of it. But I’ll probably step off this train, myself, after this first installment. While I love a good superhero yarn I am occasionally finding myself exhausted by America’s own Marvel Cinematic Universe and frustrated by some of the tropes and wheel spinning I find there. Gundala is reaching for a similar vibe, and the very fantastical elements that make it unique to Indonesian cinema make it feel all too familiar for me.
The Package
While Gundala doesn’t look terribly “cool” to me from a costume design perspective, it is a pretty good looking movie overall and is every bit the sweeping comic book Indonesian epic it set out to be. So those interested may indeed want to seek out the Blu-ray. There are a small handful of bonus features that did help give me a little context on the history of the Gundala property and Joko Anwar’s approach to bringing the film to life which I found insightful and which helped increase my appreciation for the film even if I didn’t ultimately come to love it.
And I’m Out
Gundala: Rise Of A Hero hits Digital and Blu-ray/DVD July 28th, 2020 from Well Go USA Entertainment
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Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits, Part 2: THE WAY OF THE DRAGON & ENTER THE DRAGON
The Criterion Collection’s box set honors a legend
Part 1 covered the first two discs in this box set: The Big Boss & Fist Of Fury
As I continue to work my way through Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits, I find myself having the best kind of home video experience imaginable. There’s nothing quite like a deep dive into the work of a cinematic hero. All of these films are revisits for me, having watched Lee’s “greatest hits” on VHS growing up. But not only do we get beautiful new high definition transfers of five of Bruce Lee’s most famous films, we also get enormous amounts of supplemental material on each disc as well. Criterion is known to take me to school, and the most exciting thing about ripping through this box set is how inspirational Bruce Lee truly was and is. A man singularly dedicated to seeing his dreams fulfilled (and whose dreams were magnanimous) is a righteous thing to behold. So much of why Lee has remained an uncontested legend and inspiration to generations long past his death has to do with the excellence he strove for, and the philosophy which he both lived and imbued into his work.
2019 and 2020 have, for whatever reason, been watershed years for the legacy of Bruce Lee. He’s been portrayed on the big screen in both Ip Man 4 and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (to varying degrees of… respect), a martial arts show he inspired and had been developing called Warrior is airing on Showtime, there’s an excellent ESPN documentary about Lee called Be Water available now, and then there’s this unprecedented box set. It’s a great time to be a Bruce Lee fan.
The Way Of The Dragon (1972)
I had complaints in my review of The Big Boss about how the plotting was repetitive and how the escalation of stakes really wasn’t quite there. Somehow, The Way Of The Dragon manages to have almost the same exact problems as The Big Boss and yet simultaneously explode off the screen in such a way as to not bother me at all.
Set in contemporary Rome with Bruce Lee playing the fish out of water Tang Lung, The Way Of The Dragon retains some Hong Kong kung fu movie tropes but mixes in more of a western action cinema sensibility that (at least to my taste) makes this film feel a bit more modern than the previous two. As the new arrival who can’t speak the language, Tang Lung must navigate a world he’s unfamiliar with and win over the respect of his fellow Chinese expats whom he has come to support and defend as their restaurant is being threatened by “the syndicate”. Bruce Lee, incredibly, got producer Raymond Chow’s blessing to to direct, write, choreograph, and star in this picture. As such, there’s at least a case to be made that it’s the ultimate Bruce Lee film. It’s certainly my personal favorite of the three films covered so far.
Thanks to Criterion’s incredibly robust supplemental material, audiences who are paying attention will understand that Bruce Lee was obsessed with working his own philosophy and choreography into his films. With the ability to write, direct, and perform, The Way Of The Dragon gave Lee his greatest opportunity to distill his essence down into a motion picture, and the results are absolute dynamite.
Sure, there’s a case to be made that there’s a repetitive element, as well as simple male stupidity on display. Over and over again we see The Syndicate show up, harass guests at the restaurant, and spar with Tang Lung and his fellow restaurant workers. We switch between a back alley set and a restaurant set almost ad nauseum as the stakes escalate. But those escalating stakes result in highly enjoyable fight sequences that just get to show off Bruce Lee’s various skills and talents. Between proving his skills to his fellow workers and earning their adulation, to wailing on villains until they recognize his skills, there’s a cockiness to Tang Lung and a playfulness to the events of The Way Of The Dragon that I just find amusing and more in line with modern action cinema sensibilities than old school kung fu films.
Besides the unprecedented step of shooting a Hong Kong funded film in Rome, the most remarkable element of The Way Of The Dragon is clearly the epic final showdown between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. One of Bruce Lee’s defining passions was for his own martial art called Jeet Kune Do, “the way of the intercepting fist”. Lee believed in adaptability, flexibility, and a willingness to eschew rigid ways of fighting and thinking in order to prevail. This would go on to be the central philosophy on display in his unfinished masterwork Game Of Death. But here in this historic fight between two big screen (and real world) martial arts legends, we get to see Tang Lung struggle, adapt, and ultimately prevail against Norris’ enforcer. The fact that it’s set in the Roman colosseum (even if much of it was actually filmed on a soundstage) heightens the stakes and makes it clear that this is a battle for the ages.
There are silly bits, dated stereotypes, odd comedic moments, and a nonsensical loyalty twist that serve to perhaps date the movie or tag it as a burgeoning filmmakers’ work. But what’s there on the screen so fully entertains and so clearly informs the action cinema that comes in its wake, one can’t help but to fall in love with The Way Of The Dragon.
Enter The Dragon (1973)
Iconic and record shattering in every way, there’s no doubt that Enter The Dragon is the film most Bruce Lee fans immediately associate with him and which largely introduced him as a superstar and cultural icon in the western world. In and of itself, I’d argue that Enter The Dragon lives up to that hype today and stands out on its own as a top notch action/martial arts film at just the right time in history to really push the envelope. Bruce Lee would never live to see the cultural impact the film would have, passing away from a shocking cerebral hematoma that simply took his life without warning. Bruce Lee has passed into legend; a star, a philosopher, a martial artist, a teacher. Would Enter The Dragon have become the film it did had Bruce Lee not passed away before its release? We’ll never know. But my point in bringing up Lee’s death at this time is simply to state that Enter The Dragon is a damn fun film and while it isn’t as distilled of a vision as The Way Of The Dragon was, this is the only time we get to see a Bruce Lee film with a pretty sizeable budget, in English, loaded with western stars and slick James Bond-like production value.
Aside from Bruce Lee, there’s a lot to love here. The studio’s requirement to pad the cast with other leads reeks of a lack of confidence in their Asian lead, (something that has remained a problem in Hollywood and is only now potentially changing after a series of such hits as Crazy Rich Asians and The Farewell, among others) but having John Saxon and Jim Kelly in the film does actually broaden the appeal and reach of Enter The Dragon in a way that possibly couldn’t have been predicted. Bruce Lee is beloved in the African American community and Kelly would go on to do quite a few Black martial arts films carried by his charisma alone. It’s almost a bummer that the cast had to be padded, but at least it was done with loveable leads. There’s also appearances from Chinese action legends Sammo Hung and Bolo Yeung, which is exciting for martial arts film nerds.
In terms of plotting, Lee’s character (named uh… Lee), is called on to infiltrate a martial arts tournament hosted on a mysterious island by disgraced Shaolin monk and criminal mastermind Han (Shih Kien). It’s a James Bond film wrapped around a martial arts tournament. Which… let’s be honest… is cool as shit. The world had seen all the James Bond tropes by 1973. But Bruce Lee was the wild card and the martial arts tournament was what you couldn’t get anywhere else in American cinemas at that time. Western martial arts films will now eternally riff on the tournament motif, thanks in large part to Enter The Dragon.
Importantly, though Robert Clouse was the director and Michael Allin the credited screenwriter, Bruce Lee was able to have a large amount of influence over the film. Sometimes this kind of star interference in a director’s vision can play out badly. But here it’s a relief and breath of fresh air that, even though the studio shoehorned some extra leads in, Lee was able to do fight choreography for Enter The Dragon and even filmed some early sequences of the film on his own (the aforementioned Sammo Hung fight). It’s so important that we’ll always have some of Lee’s philosophy and god level martial arts choreography on a western, English language studio film that will act as an eternal gateway drug for those who are curious about Bruce Lee.
With visuals that will live forever, a tragic fairy tale of a rising legend cut short from seeing his wildest dreams realized, and a badass final film that appeals to a broad cross section of cultures, Enter The Dragon’s place in history is unassailable, and rightly so.
And I’m Out.
Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits is now available of Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection
Part 1 covers the first two discs in this box set: The Big Boss & Fist Of Fury
Part 3 covers the final discs in this box set: Game Of Death & Supplemental Material
This interview highlights Game Of Death Redux producer/editor Alan Canvan
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THE RENTAL: Fun Summer Suspense that Never Outstays its Welcome
Dave Franco’s debut feature is sharp, short, and satisfying–perfect for our stay-at-home Summer
One of the things I love so much about horror films is the open promise they make with their audience: “come, and you’ll be scared.” The best tension — and others’ failure — comes from how that promise is fulfilled, with that anticipated terrifying release delightfully dangling over our heads like a coming storm. The latest spread of meta-horror like Ready or Not or You’re Next have taken that further, acknowledging our expectations right out the gate only to damn them to hell.
As alien as vacationing during COVID-19 may seem, The Rental asks its audience to recognize how we place a similar kind of trust in vacation properties. From hotel rooms to random listings on AirBNB, rentals are places where we trust we can rest our head for a night far from home — they’re places we can be just as vulnerable. With a legacy stretching from Psycho to Vacancy, they’re naturally the perfect place to stage a horror flick. The Rental continues that tradition wholeheartedly — and while it may not wholly escape the shadow of its predecessors, director and co-writer Franco uses those influences to create a debut feature that’s satisfying and subversive.
The Rental follows Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Mina (Sheila Vand), who decide to book a couples’ weekend away with their significant others after their startup is successfully funded. Charlie’s girlfriend, Michelle (Alison Brie), is excited for his success — but with Mina joining, so will her boyfriend…Charlie’s brother, Josh (Jeremy Allen White). Fresh from a prison stint after a frat night gone wrong, Josh’s paroled life turned around after Charlie introduced him to Mina. It’s a match made in heaven, it seems, through Charlie and Michelle are skeptical of just how long they’ll last. The four head to their rental, a stunning cliffside bungalow off the Pacific Coast. It isn’t long, though, tensions rise between our group and the creepy property caretaker — who might just be spying on them from afar as deeper rifts between the four slowly come to light.
Much like similar outings by Joe Swanberg (who co-wrote the film with Easy collaborator Franco), The Rental packs an organically flowing yet taut and compelling story into a breathlessly brief runtime. We’re dropped into the titular rental beach house before the 10-minute marker, and even before then Franco and Swanberg have packed in enough seeds for relationship tension that will take root over the course of the film. There’s Charlie and Josh’s animus, potential workplace romance between Charlie and Mina, even called-out discrimination when Iranian Mina confronts rental owner Taylor for cancelling her reservation in favor of white, affluent-looking Charlie’s. These storylines are strong enough in their own right to power the mumblecore drama its creators are known for, long before the film eventually steps into genre territory.
The descent of The Rental is wholly in the control of its ensemble cast, all who relish their opportunity to dance along a spectrum of secrets and questionable morality. Dan Stevens’ regular charm takes a wonderfully toxic turn here, one that easily exploits the weaknesses of the other characters in such a smug Silicon Valley way. Alison Brie’s Michelle has an innocence that simmers into anger as she’s forced further out of the other characters’ orbits. Sheila Vand’s Mina struggles with a regret she must keep silent so that she doesn’t blow the dynamics of the group apart. The surprise of the four, though, is Jeremy Allen White’s Josh — he feels like even more of an outsider given everyone else’s wild success during his time in jail, and his earnestness to fit in betrays his own growing insecurities about life passing him by.
The Rental’s greatest strength is in how Franco plays all of these buried anxieties against each other, creating a horror movie out of their social interactions before it actually becomes one. What’s more, it’s these moments that dance around each other’s secrets that lay the foundation for later genre trappings — making classic tropes as refusing to call the cops or an inability to flee to safety feel like organic decisions rather than obligations.
As mentioned, The Rental is a film about trust — and what makes Franco’s film so memorable is how much value he places in the trust his audience gives him. There’s admittedly nothing too unique about The Rental’s premise — but as the film soldiers on and secrets are laid bare, Franco eagerly takes the opportunity to build upon that familiarity to create something truly new and rewarding. Franco’s direction notably grows more confident as The Rental progresses, playing into a patient dread that’s soaked into each moment along with an excitement to cut away just when a gasp is lodged in your throat. From deliberately undercut reveals to sudden left-field shocks, Franco’s eager to play with his audience but never chooses to betray them.
With a sharp story that delightfully remixes all-too-familiar slasher elements, anchored by four compelling performances, The Rental is a strong debut from Dave Franco that makes for satisfying summer viewing.
The Rental hits theaters, drive-ins, and VOD rental July 24th courtesy of IFC Films.
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Two Cents Tracks Down a LOST BULLET
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick:
Netflix puts out such a constant stream of movies and shows that it’s easy for anything that isn’t one of their big blockbusters or Oscar plays to get lost in the shuffle, especially on the international cinema side.
But when our fearless leader Ed Travis declares something the best action film of the year, we stop and we take notice.
Lost Bullet, from first time feature director Guillaume Pierret, stars Alban Lenoir as Lino, a lousy criminal and genius mechanic who bungles the film’s opening heist by making a car so powerful that it drives through the building he’s trying to rob. It’s not long into his prison sentence that Lino is approached by detective Charas (Ramzy Bedia), who is currently leading a squad to intercept ‘go fast’ (criminals who use high-octane driving skills to transport drugs/guns/etc.).
Lino agrees to soup up the squad’s cars in exchange for a more lenient sentence and his eventual freedom. And after a little while, he even finds the situation to his liking: Charas takes a genuine shine to the decent heart of the young criminal, and Lino starts up a relationship with the beautiful, badass Julia (Stéfi Celma). Slowly but surely there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
A series of wrong turns places all of this in jeopardy, and over the course of a very long, very bad day, Lino finds himself transformed into the most wanted man in the country. Through a series of epic brawls and stunning car chases, he’ll have to claw his (somewhat) good name back from the deadly forces hot on his heels.
Ordinarily I’d do some kind of play-on-words to lead us into the article proper, but some of our contributors already ran the pun-game into the end-zone. Truly off-the-charts Dad Energy this week, folks. Let’s get to it.
Next Week’s Pick:
With a fun ensemble cast, a story inspired by Seven Samurai as adapted by John Sayles, and an aesthetic that rips off Star Wars (thanks in part to the effects work of a young James Cameron), Roger Corman’s production Battle Beyond the Stars is a corny but brilliant science fiction favorite that we suspect many of you somehow haven’t seen yet. You don’t want to miss this one! Available streaming on Prime and Tubi.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
Our Guest
Brendan Aggro (The Norman Nerd):
I guess I’m not the only one who missed heroic bloodshed movies.
There’s a sequence in Lost Bullet where Lino, the mechanically-gifted main character, is working overnight inside a barn, and it’s not only a clever callback to said character’s established penchant for pulling all-nighters on a project, but it’s basically a metaphor for the movie itself. This is a pared-down, all killer/no filler “guy out to clear his name” movie that decides to focus on a handful of Specific Action Things (primarily Car Chase with a side of Beatdown), but plants a flag saying “This is our lane, and we are gonna freakin’ OWN it”. It knows what it can do, and then goes the extra mile to add elements and gags you might not have even known you’d desperately wanted to see.
Come for the righteous car chases where police cars get gloriously thrashed, stay for the genuine emotional root in a small but meticulously-built (sorry, had to) characters who are given just the right amount of time and space to inhabit surprisingly genuine roles. Director Guillaume Pierret has an impressive knack for visual storytelling for a first feature film, and captures his actors filling in those spaces where the words they don’t say should be. This movie is a machine (okay, I’m done now — promise) that literally bursts through the door in the opening scene and wastes none of your time being the best possible version of exactly what’s on the box.
This will doubtless be a common refrain from fans of this film, but if the yearlong delay of the next Fast and Furious film has you down and you need a quick fix (okay, NOW I’m done for real), Lost Bullet has your back. (@BLCAgnew)
The Team
Gearhead Travis (@Ed Travis)
Look. I love everything about Lost Bullet and it might just hold my top slot for the best action film of 2020. So my little contribution here isn’t going to be anything but a straight up love fest. At 20,000 feet, French action cinema doesn’t get the respect it deserves. There are dozens of badass French filmmakers, stars, and gems of movies sprinkled throughout my lifetime that deserve more international acclaim. Lost Bullet has shot (ahem) right up into the top tier of that canon (ahem).
Then we’ve got director Guillaume Pierre, who knocks this movie out of the park and becomes a name I need to follow from this single movie and, oh… this is his first feature film! Astonishing. While the same isn’t true of star Alban Lenoir who plays Lino (IMDb lists 73 acting credits and 8 stunt credits, among others), this was my own personal discovery of him and he’ll also be a name I pay attention to from now on.
Lino is a guy who’s extremely talented and resourceful, especially with cars, but he just can’t get a break. While Lost Bullet is certainly super charged and action packed, it succeeds precisely because of the masterful execution of the action combined with the flawless escalation of tension and stakes. Lino is on the run and trying to clear his name for the majority of this film, and even though you know he’s the hero…you really genuinely feel like he’s GOING to get caught constantly. Only pure, thrilling, ingenuity always seems to come through at the last second to spring Lino out of his present frying pan and into his next fire.
But that execution really does matter. And in a world where we’ve seen cars flying between skyscrapers on our big screens, Lost Bullet brings viewers to their feet cheering at the creative fight sequences and inspired car-chase shenanigans that Lino is able to improvise. Lost Bullet is slick, breezy, and virtually a flawless execution of a type of man on the run film we’ve seen dozens of times, but never quite remixed into a gearhead/French/Mad Max/Fast & Furious vibe like this. (@Ed_Travis)
Blendin’ Petrolly (Brendan Foley):
Lost Bullet is an absolute out-of-nowhere blast. A rollicking, 90 minute crime film that carefully but steadily lays down a track of set-ups, then proceeds to blow up the tracks, then 360-corkscrew spin over the fireball, then nail and landing and keep right on driving.
Pierret’s shoots action with an aim for clarity and impact. This is (happily) a universe where every character is capable of holding their own in a multi-person brawl, and where cars always crash in just such a way that they spin and explode in the air. It all looks completely practical, and the human scale of the story and stunts make everything land with that much punch. You feel the impact as bodies slam into desks and floors, and you believe the stunned-drunk stagger of characters as they wobble clear of the latest spectacular wreck.
But credit also to Pierret, and leading man Lenoir, for keeping a firm handle of the film’s emotional throughline. It would be easy for that element to get lost in the shuffle, or pared down into nothingness in Lost Bullet’s pursuit of ruthless efficiency. Yet even within that efficeincy, Pierret allows time for his hero to hurt and grieve, and Lenoir proves to be a wildly empathetic screen presence when he isn’t clobbering skulls or conducting demolition derbies on major highways. Lost Bullet will make you cheer and wince, but it’s also interested in making you feel something, something sincere and earned, and that may be this thriller’s most striking twist. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Guzz’line Crasher (Austin Vashaw):
When Ed Travis says “here’s an action movie to take note of”, well, we take note. If you have a Transporter or Taxi-shaped hole in your heart these last few years, Lost Bullet may be exactly what you need to fill that void of a gruff, buzz-headed antihero playing both sides of the law while doing cool action shit with cars on the streets of France.
Running on a lean mixture of straightforward and well-paced storytelling, the film soon careens into its primary conflict in which the bad guys have infiltrated the police — and the traditional “bad guy”, now fighting for both justice and vengeance, is going to take them down. Sure, some of the story beats predictably go exactly as you expect them to, but the payoff, in the form of Lino returning the hastily modified car (itself the evidence to clear his name because of the bullet lodged inside it), is an incredible action sequence that absolutely delivers. (@VforVashaw)
Next week’s pick:
