OCTOBER 24, 2007
A very funny look at Hollywood’s will to reincarnate a star
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 CURRENT CINEMA: Finishing the Game |
In 1973, Bruce Lee — the ultimate martial-arts star — died at 32, just as he began making Game of Death. Although only 12 minutes of a Lee action scene had been shot, the studio forged ahead and began a casting call for a “new” Bruce Lee.
Thirty-four years later, director Justin Lin hilariously reimagines that dubious casting call from the early ’70s in Finishing the Game. The 88-minute film focuses on five actors — a perpetually sedate Indian doctor; an emotionally scarred Vietnamese refugee; a chili fries–eating Southerner; a B-movie actor (best known as a cop whose signature line, delivered to his partner, is “Hey, I ain’t gonna do your laundry”); and a white, non-Asian American — who battle to become Bruce Lee reincarnated.
We’re suckers for the faux-documentary genre — think all-time champion This Is Spinal Tap — and Finishing the Game does not disappoint; it’s a film that can laugh at the insanity of filmmaking and still show (a little) respect to its subject.
the trailer for Finishing the Game
Bruce Lee fight Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a clip from the original 12 minutes shot for The Game of Death
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