Tower of Death (1981)
September 4th, 2011 by Mr. C
Director: Ng See Yuen
Actors: Kim Tai Chung,Hwang Jang Lee,Yuen Biao,Roy Chiao,Roy Horan,Lee Hoi San,Bruce Lee(Archives)
Fight choreographer: Yuen Wo Ping
Producer: Raymond Chow & Golden Harvest
Genre: brucesploitation
Tower of Death aka Game of Death 2 was one hell of a train wreck! No survivors indeed, but it does have certain elements in it that are quite appealing even for a Brucesploitation film. First off, R.I.P. to Kim Tai Chung who recently left us way too early. He notably starred in this film as well as Miss Please Be Patient, No Retreat No Surrender, and Game of Death. He was an excellent martial artist in the Tae Kwan Do realm and did a great job as a Bruce Lee clone/shadow. Game of Death 2 also contained a great deal of archived footage of Bruce Lee, edited and spliced on the screen to enhance the clone of Bruce as much as possible. The usual suspects of camera angle trickery, dark lighting, & zoomed out shots were all in effect! The editing in this film is no where near as ‘frankensteined’ as Game of Death 1 but old footage transitioned with the new will still make it look quite obvious to even the most novice of the “Little Dragon” fans that Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde have been working overtime in the labs splicing & dicing film. Scenes of Bruce Lee from Enter The Dragon, Return of the Dragon, & the Chinese Connection are rather abundant in the first quarter of the movie. However, I must admit that there were a few neat archives of film with the real Bruce Lee as a 6 yr old and teenager blended into this movie that made it very interesting. The most odd & creepy of the authentic footage includes clips of Bruce Lee’s funeral in real life with him in the open casket. Exclusive real life images of the little dragon were also on display in the film.
I’ll give a quick understated synopsis of the film before writing about the main stars of the movie, the fight scenes! Billy Lo (archived footage of Bruce Lee + Kim Tai Chung) is back again accompanied by his Master martial art friend Chin Koo (the great Hwang Jang Lee) as he demolishes challengers with his left and right foot while casually sipping tea. Everybody is having fun until suddenly Chin Koo is mysteriously murdered? Billy Lo then goes on a CSI hunt in Tokyo to find out what had happened. At the gravesite, a helicopter appears during the burial and hovers over the coffin to suddenly dropping down a lift with claws to take it up to the sky! Tragically, Billy will lose his life while attempting to hold onto this lift. Talk about dramatic! Who, what, & why would someone whisk away the coffin? Conspiracy? Fake death? Bobby Lo (also played by Kim Tai Chung?) is Billy’s brother and he will certainly have revenge on his mind!!
Now to the more important parts of the film! Hwang Jang Lee puts on a grave display of dynamic TKD kicks onto his unfortunate opponents! His leg combinations, control, flow, & execution is really something to behold! HJL is probably the most skilled kicker onscreen and probably off screen as well of ALL TIME! He plays such a great villain in all of his movies! The end fight between him and Bobby Lo is tremendous! The great Yuen Biao (Jackie Chan’s kung fu brother) makes a fighting cameo with him battling a fellow shaolin monk with a bamboo pole! Good scene which basically left me wanting to see more of Biao in the movie! Roy Horan plays a crazy ‘gwai-lo’ who is the master of his domain known as the palace of death. Horan greatly admires the fierceness of the Tiger while adoring the swiftness of a peacock! He definitely would put that on display while he ripped apart one of his Hung Kuen (Tiger-Crane fist) foes! Bobby Lo (Kim Tai Chung) would exchange fists with an enraged chinese tarzan before moving on to the more formidable Shaolin monk opponent played by the great Lee Hoi San! The end fight between Kim and Hwang Jang Lee left me salivating for a Game of Death 3, no just kidding! Like I said earlier, the fight scenes in this movie were the clear stars of the film as the story was just pure WTF! Trust me, I didn’t even scratch the surface with some of the other silly scenes! It makes you want to scratch your head and ask, did Raymond Chow really approve of all these edits? The Godfather of Golden Harvest Studios? You’ll just have to see it to believe it! The Tower of Death definitely qualifies for the it’s so bad that maybe this could be pretty good scale!
The fight choreographer of the film was the venerable YUEN WO PING! No wonder there was an overflow of great fight scenes! I’ve also heard through reliable sources that Cory Yuen Kwai and Sammo Hung also had a hand in this dance! Is this a good movie? NO! Was this a good tribute to Bruce Lee? HELL NO! Should you see this film if you are a fan of martial arts? Hells Yeah!
Tags: action, bruce lee, brucesploitation, hong kong, mr c
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