In October 1972, martial arts icon Bruce Lee was in the midst of filming the most important picture of his brief career. He entitled it The Game of Death and described it as a multi-level film in which his personal philosophy of martial art was to be presented on film for the first time. Approached by Warner Brothers with an offer to finance and co-produce his first Hollywood vehicle Enter the Dragon, the project was shelved while production on the new film commenced. It was July 1973 before Lee was ready to take up the project again – just a week before his tragic death.

5 years after his death, the existing sequences from the Game of Death were edited into a film (of sorts) bearing the same name. The production utilised doubles and even cardboard cutouts of Lee to produce what is generally considered an exploitive joke on the great artists legacy. Of the 100 minutes of original footage recovered for the film, only 11 mins found their way into the final cut; the rest being unusable out-takes. Without any notion of Lee’s original storyline, the final film bears little resemblance to Lee’s vision.

In 1994, while researching material for a book on Lee, John Little recovered Lee’s original script and choreography writings, including all scene breakdowns for The Game of Death. The writings confirmed that considerably more footage had been shot than previously thought. In addition, it showed conclusively that the original storyline stood in sharp contrast to the released version. And so a search begin in earnest to locate the missing footage. After a 6 year search the footage was finally located in 1999.

Using Bruce Lee's own notes as his blue print, Little re-cut the original footage to Lee's original specifications, comprising 30 minutes of the film’s finale. The results have been combined with other footage of Lee’s life to create Little’s latest documentary film Bruce Lee – A Warriors Journey. The film comprises old television interviews with Lee, interviews with Lee’s widow and students (including Game of Death co-star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and never-before-seen private diary entries, personal papers, home movies and audio recordings. Additionally, Little enlisted the aid of a Korean crew to film some of the material detailed in Lee's script but not completed by Lee himself. This aim was not to complete the film, but to provide a back-story to the Lee's own footage.

Granted exclusive access to Lee’s personal material, Little presents Lee’s struggle to bring Game of Death to the big screen. It establishes Lee not just as a fighter and movie maker, but a citizen of the world who fought for civil liberty, and racial equality. Although a sensationalised version of his story can be found in Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story, you will find Lee’s true story here, and it really adds weight and meaning to the Game of Death footage when it is finally arrives.

At the end of the day though, you will purchase Bruce Lee – A Warriors Journey for it’s centrepiece. Although comprising only 30 minutes of a 100 minute documentary, the original Game of Death footage is classic Bruce Lee and comprises what would have been the most exciting part of the completed film. This is a must have for any Bruce Lee fan.

Bruce Lee - A Warriors Journey is presented in full frame, as the majority of the footage is shot for television. In contrast, the footage from The Game of Death was shot in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Attached to the documentary footage, it is not 16x9 enhanced. This is a real pitty since this will become the refence version of this material.

The documentary portion is comprised of many video sources, from ancient black and white home movie footage, black and white television footage from the 70s, modern footage shot in the last 2 years, to snippets from various Bruce Lee films. As you can imagine, the variation in video quality is substantial, ranging from poor (with accompanying film artefacts) to excellent. Throughout, the MPEG transfer itself is very good, with no discernable MPEG artefacts. Where possible, the transfer is sharp, and the colours bright.

The footage from The Game of Death (let's face it that's what we are really interested in) is also of variable quality, suffering from film artefacts of various types. In general the colours are a little washed out, and in a couple of places, the footage has been damaged and suffers from a green discolouration. But don't get me wrong, although i report these problems with the print, it still looks great. It is miracle we have this footage at all. The transfer is generally sharp, shadow detail is good, and the lack of MPEG artefacts carries over from the documentary footage. All in all, Warner have done a great job with the source material they were given.

In terms of audio we are presented with a Dolby Digital 5.1 English soundtrack, although I could not discern any surround or subwoofer activity outside the mixing of the score to the rear at the start and end of the feature. The documentary footage itself is basically naration over silent footage (with narration supplied by that American documentary narration guy - you know the one). As a result only the centre speaker is used for most of the presentation. The audio for The Game of Death has been constructed from the original audio from the takes, as well as a few foley effects added in post production. You can imagine that the results aren't startling, but it does a reasonable job and fits in with soundtracks of the time.

The disc provides static menus with the theme playing in the back ground. In terms of extras, we are provided with a surprising amount given the material.

Commentary - John Little: A commentary to a narrated documentary?? Unbelievable but true! John Little provides a pasionate, yet disorganised discussion of Bruce's life, the unearthing of the footage and the making of the documentary. He does not comment over the footage of The Game of Death itself, which I found a little dissapointing.

Featurette - The Story: Extra footage shot by Little and his Korean crew to provide the back-story of Game of Death. Some of the footage appears in the documentary, but the complete sequence is provided here.

Music Video: The video for a song that has an undefined connection to Bruce. The connection may only be the home movie footage used as the basis for the video.

Trailer: The trailer for the documentary video and DVD, presented in full frame.