Tower of Death
AKA: Game of Death 2
1981
Director: Ng See Yuen
Action director: Yuen Woo-Ping
Stars: Tang Lung, Hwang Jang Lee, Yuen Biao, Roy Chiao, Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee is one of the world's top fighters, but is killed under strange circumstances while attending his friend's (Hwang Jang Lee) funeral. Bruce's brother (Tang Lung) begins to investigate his death, and uncovers a strange scenario that eventually leads him to a climatic confrontation inside a "tower of death."
Out of all the attempts to cash in on Bruce Lee after his death, this is probably one of the more shameless because it actually tried to promote itself as a Bruce Lee movie. Lee's footage in the film consists of outtakes from Game of Death (which was only partially completed by Lee before his demise) and the rest is filled in by Tang Lung, which presents some problems as Tang has a longer haircut than Lee and is also a bit bigger than him. And for about the first 30 minutes of this movie, while it tries (painfully) to pretend that Bruce Lee particpated in the filming, the results are less than stellar. However, once the attempts to use Lee are dropped and the focus switches to Tang, Tower of Death turns into a good martial arts movie. The fights, expertly staged by Yuen Woo-Ping, are dramatic and action-packed. Both Tang Lung and Hwang Jang Lee are excellent fighters and their talents are put to good use here.
Bruce Lee fanatics often hate this movie, but if you can look beyond the obvious cheesiness of using a dead man to headline a film, there's some good stuff to be found in here.
RATING: 7
A review of the DVD for this movie can be found here
This DVD is available for purchase at www.hkflix.com
