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JOMEC Journal Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies

Enter the 2-Disc Platinum Edition: and Post-DVD Textuality

Leon Hunt

Brunel University Email: [email protected]

Keywords Bruce Lee DVD textuality DVD extras The Big

Abstract

Bruce Lee’s films have moved across not only cultural boundaries, but also different media platforms – film, television, video and an assortment of digital media. DVD and Blu- ray don’t just facilitate ownership of optimum and definitive versions of texts, but also re- define textuality through their secondary materials. As Barbara Klinger argues, ‘DVD acts as an ambassador of context, entering the home complete with its own armada of discourses meant to influence reception, including behind-the-scenes industry information and commentary tracks’. In the case of a culturally contested figure like Bruce Lee, such an armada of discourses might be particularly worthy of study. Moreover, DVD introduces new criteria for determining what makes a ‘perfect DVD movie’, by making use of the audio-visual ‘perfection’ facilitated by the medium or presenting particularly impressive arrays of extras. Bruce Lee is perhaps not an obvious candidate for post-DVD study, compared to such formats as the TV boxed set or multi-disc extended cut of a Hollywood blockbuster. These comparatively low budget films don’t lend themselves to the audio-visual perfection expected of a high-end blockbuster movie. Moreover, most DVD versions of his films (including releases in HK and the US) have been light on features. Nevertheless certain releases of Lee films do raise interesting questions in the light of post-DVD debates. How are Lee’s defiantly pre-digital movies positioned and re- mediated on DVD? This paper will consider some of the different versions available, and the role of intratextual materials. It examines competing discourses used to frame Lee’s legacy and cultural significance, particularly between his films and the Hollywood co-production Enter the . The essay focuses in particular on two Bruce Lee films characterised by degrees of incompleteness – (cut after its original Mandarin release) and the incomplete Game of Death. Considering Game of Death in the context of the ‘perfect DVD movie’ debate, this essay revisits the question of whether a ‘bad’ film (at least in its theatrical version) can become a ‘great’ DVD.

Contributor Note

Leon Hunt is a Senior Lecturer in Screen Media at Brunel University. He is the author of British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation (1998), Cult Masters: From Bruce Lee to Crouching (2003), BFI TV Classics: The League of Gentlemen (2008) and Cult British TV Comedy: From Reeves and Mortimer to Psychoville (2013), and co- editor of East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film (2008) and Screening the Undead: Vampires and Zombies in Film and TV (2013).

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In an issue of the British fanzine BLR either definitive or alternative versions of (Bruce Lee Review) published in 2012, texts, but also potentially re-define one of the articles imagines what the textuality (for certain viewers, at least) ‘definitive’ DVD/blu-ray release of The Big through their secondary materials – Boss (, Hong Kong 1972) might extra features, deleted scenes, look like – a version that has not only commentaries. There has been some never been made available but may debate about the extent to which never become available, given the consumers actually watch and/or listen ‘missing in action’ status of some of its to these supplementary materials footage (Bentley 2012: 19).1 Across three (Brookey and Westerhaus 2002; Parker discs, the author ‘fantasizes’ about the and Parker 2005; Ruh 2008), although different versions of the film (the ‘lost’ we might speculate that Bruce Lee is the Mandarin cut, two different English dubs, kind of figure who attracts the sort of and the later language hypothetical ‘invested viewers’ that version) along with extra features Brookey and Westerhaus are talking chronicling the film’s multiple versions, about, ‘who have an incentive to allow including its different musical scores, as their viewing experience to be directed – well as the standard galleries of at least in part – by DVD extra text’ interviews, trailers and stills that have (2002: 25). Furthermore, as Barbara accompanied previous releases of a film Klinger argues, DVD not only comes that is rarely seen as Bruce Lee’s best armed with an array of supplementary work. DVD and blu-ray, with their material, but introduces new criteria for capacity for extra features that might determining what makes a ‘perfect DVD include alternative versions, deleted movie’ (2008: 29). What this paper scenes, features that cover and attempt examines then is how Lee’s movies are to compensate for missing scenes, positioned and re-mediated on DVD (and, facilitate such cinephile fantasies. And by extension, blu-ray). Bruce Lee, of course, is a figure who for many years has been at the centre of Paradoxically, while DVD seems to be discourses of completeness, the sufficiently in commercial decline to archiving of rare footage and other already qualify as ‘old media’ (or at least materials, the desire for every existing ‘past-its-sell-by-date media’), its theoris- record of his life (particularly on film) to ation is still comparatively new (Barlow be seen. 2005; Klinger 2006; McDonald 2007; Bennett and Brown 2008; Gray 2010) Bruce Lee’s films have moved across not and its impact on our relationship to film only cultural boundaries, but also and television has been substantial. And different media platforms – film, given that blu-ray largely retains the television, video and an assortment of textuality of DVD (distinguished thus far digital media – from theatrical exhibition primarily by its enhanced audio-visual (sometimes in very different versions) to capabilities), these debates are probably the ‘home film cultures’ (Klinger 2006, best referred to as ‘post-DVD theory’. 2008) that are now his cinematic Central to this body of theory are those domain. DVD and blu-ray don’t just paratexts – ‘texts that prepare us for facilitate ownership of optimum and other texts’ (Gray 2010: location 548) – that are positioned alongside the film or 1 No format is specified but the reference to HD programme as ‘inter-related texts in an transfers suggests that the author has blu-ray in integrated package’ (Brookey and mind. 1

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Westerhaus (2002: 23). ‘The DVD edition’, – ‘Action! Thrills! suggest Deborah and Matt Parker, ‘is Excitement – kung fu style!’ promises the essentially a re-orientation of the film, very English narrator, or simply ‘Bruce often carried out by a variety of agents, Lee, The – all over and subject to a wide variety of choices London from Sunday!’ on the TV teaser. made by the eventual viewers’ (2005: This paratext – once an ‘entryway’ to the 125). Bruce Lee is perhaps not an film (Gray 2010: location 514), now a obvious candidate for post-DVD study. quaint curio – is presented through a These are not particularly rare films like discourse of rareness, a piece of Bruce some of the cult movies that DVD has Lee memorabilia thought lost, but it has given fresh life and new prestige to, and two other functions. Firstly, given that this nor do these comparatively low budget is a UK DVD release, it functions films lend themselves to the audio-visual nostalgically, situating the film as part of perfection expected of a high-end the ‘kung fu craze’ that would blockbuster movie released in High largely fizzle out in the West when there Definition formats. Moreover, most DVD were no more Lee films available (and versions of his films (including releases Way of the Dragon, as these trailers in Hong Kong and the US) have been underline, was the completed Lee film comparatively light on extra features. released last in Western countries).2 Nevertheless certain releases of Lee Secondly, it tells the tale of a local text films do raise interesting questions in the going global and then being mediated for light of post-DVD debates. reception in another local context (a context in which the words ‘kung fu’ are This paper examines Lee’s films on exciting, exotic, the ‘latest thing’). Other DVD/blu-ray from three angles. Firstly, I textual ‘thickeners’ are commissioned shall draw on what Roz Kaveney refers to specially for DVD releases, such as as the ‘thick text’ – ‘we accept that all commentaries, and can re-orient the text texts are not only a product of the for those who choose to listen. A further creative process but contain all the characteristic of this thick textuality is stages of that process within them like Kaveney’s suggestion that ‘all works of scars or vestigial organs’ (2005: 5). Such art are to some extent provisional – in scars and vestigial organs are often the that they are abandoned rather than province of the DVD extra; the deleted ever completed, and in that they are scene, the trailer gallery, the always one particular stage in a notional commentary all contributing to this process which may be picked up again textual thickening. Some of these ‘scars’ two decades later’ (ibid.). The vestigial and ‘vestigial’ parts are discarded and the provisional have some bearing ephemera now given new textual on two Lee films in particular – The Big significance. One such piece of seeming Boss, a film marked by changes in Hong ephemera is included on Hong Kong Kong censorship subsequent to its initial Legends’ UK release of The Way of the release and some evident uncertainty Dragon (Bruce Lee, Hong Kong 1972) - about how to export it, and Game of the UK trailer campaign commissioned Death (Bruce Lee, Hong Kong by distributors Cathay for the Odeon 1972/ Hong Kong 1978) a cinema chain and executed by Rebel Films of Carshalton, Surrey. It’s a trailer that stands in stark contrast to the slick 2 The trailer lists the films in the order in which campaign Warner Brothers designed for they were released in the UK prior to Way – , The Big Boss and then Enter the Dragon. 2

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literally abandoned film, incomplete at (usually arthouse classics), which present the time of Lee’s death, while Fist of Fury ‘scholarly, authoritative editions of classic (Lo Wei, Hong Kong 1972), Way of the works’ but do not promote the ‘new kind Dragon and to a certain extent Enter the of viewing experience’ that he feels Dragon (Robert Clouse, Hong Kong/USA should be part of the DVD experience 1973) exist in more or less ‘definitive’ (77). This is a demand that particularly versions. favours the contemporary, high-end movie – the much celebrated Lord of the Secondly, according to Barbara Klinger, Rings sets, for example, with their ‘DVD acts as an ambassador of context, extended cuts and exhaustive (or entering the home complete with its own perhaps merely exhausting) document- armada of discourses meant to influence aries. For the cult classic, on the other reception, including behind-the-scenes hand, there is a potential tension industry information and commentary between textual authenticity and DVD- tracks’ (2008: 21). In the case of a ness. Bruce Lee’s fans are unlikely to culturally contested figure like Bruce Lee want his films to become ‘new objects’, (Chinese patriot, transnational star, yet UK label Hong Kong Legends’ Special Chinese American icon), such an armada Collector’s Edition and Platinum Edition of discourses might prove to be DVDs took on the reputation of being the particularly illuminating. Where is Lee best available editions of the films. On situated as a transnational star? Who the US Amazon site, several of the speaks for him? Hong Kong Legends’ reviews for the US box set Bruce Lee: DVD releases are at greater pains to The Master Collection released by 20th position Lee as part of Hong Kong Century Fox in 2002 advise other cinema than Warner Brothers’ Enter the consumers to buy multi-region DVD Dragon extras, which present him as players and purchase the Hong Kong someone destined for Hollywood, while Legends discs.3 The dictionary definition also speaking to a specifically British of platinum identifies it as a metal that experience of Lee’s films (as we have ‘does not tarnish’; these ‘Platinum’ seen with the Way of the Dragon trailer editions are bidding (in admittedly campaign). hyperbolic terms) for definitive status. Thirdly, Klinger and others have observed ‘Platinum’ was also the name given to a set of popular discourses surrounding the prestigious DVD releases of the Lord the ‘perfect DVD movie’ (which might not of the Rings trilogy, which were regarded necessarily have been a ‘perfect movie’). by many as presenting the definitive According to Klinger, ‘What critics hail as versions of the films (rather than the “the perfect DVD movie” embodies shorter theatrical cuts) as well as aesthetic standards more directly bestowing an ‘artistic aura’ of beholden to the technical features that 3 The US box set includes the American (dubbed) seem to set DVD apart from previous prints of The Big Boss (under its US title Fists of ancillary formats’ (29). Aaron Barlow Fury), Fist of Fury (under the title The Chinese seems to have something similar in Connection), Way of the Dragon (US title: Return mind when he suggests that the best of the Dragon) and Game of Death with no extras DVDs create ‘new objects that utilize the or alternative language tracks, along with the documentary Bruce Lee; The Legend. For the possibilities of the new medium’ (2005: Amazon customer reviews, see http://www. 78). He contrasts this with the prestigious amazon.com/Bruce-Lee-Collection-Chinese-Con Region 1 DVDs produced by Criterion nection/dp/6305519471/ref=cm_cr_pr_product _top (accessed September 6, 2013) 3

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‘uniqueness, value, and authenticity’ film (whereas its inclusion now seems to (Gray 2010: location 1669). While Lee’s be a default on DVD and blu-ray films never aspire to the markers of versions). I recall the thrill of seeing these ‘quality’ that Peter Jackson’s block- ‘missing’ scenes for the first time years busters do, they are frequently invested later. In the ‘old’ (pre-video) cinephilia with their own kind of value and identified by David Desser (2005: 208), particularly ‘authenticity’ – moreover, such ‘moments in cinema’ were central they find their author figure (often to the cinematic experience, ‘a fleeting reaffirmed in DVD’s paratexts) in Lee moment of experience and epiphany’. himself. As Gray argues, ‘paratextual But perhaps we have become more frames can … prove remarkably accustomed to seeing ‘lost’ scenes and important for how they assign value to a restored versions at home. Interestingly, text’ (2010: location 1647). Significantly, the uncut versions of Bruce Lee’s films subsequent UK DVD releases of Lee’s were finally approved by the BBFC for Hong Kong films (by which I’m excluding their DVD release, as though technology the Hollywood co-production Enter the and cultural climate had somehow Dragon) reproduce the extras from the converged in one particular cultural Hong Kong Legends versions with some context. I have seen Lee’s films additional interviews with assorted co- theatrically – both cut and dubbed on workers of Lee. But not all of Lee’s films original release and uncut/subtitled at lend themselves to such textual closure, more specialist screenings (such as the as the article in BLR suggests. And one of BFI’s National Film Theatre) – in Super them in particular, Game of Death, is an 8mm cutdown versions (an early ‘home interesting example of what might be cinema’ culture), on television and VHS, judged a ‘bad’ film becoming a ‘great’ on DVD and its ‘superior’ counterpart, DVD in the form of Hong Kong Legends’ blu-ray. This multiplicity of platforms and Platinum Edition. contexts is central to my understanding of these films – I’m part of a generation that still remembers not being able to 4 Textual Thickness ‘own’ one’s favourite films, for example. They have been marked by varying ‘What does it mean when we say we degrees of completeness, authenticity have watched a film?’ asks Brian Ruh (the often elusive ‘definitive version’) and (2008: 138). My first experience of seeing audio-visual quality (the right ratio, a a Bruce Lee film was a theatrical one – good transfer). But incompleteness and Enter the Dragon in the mid-1970s. This inauthenticity don’t necessarily consign a was a very specific version of the film – particular version of a film to history – the original UK cut to carry a British rather, they become part of its history by Board of Film Censors (later, Class- speaking of its travels over time and ification) certificate. Lee’s signature across different cultural and techno- weapon the (such a bone of logical contexts. As Paul Bowman puts it, contention for the BBFC later) was still with any individual Lee film, we are less intact, but O’Hara (Bob Wall) lunging at Lee with broken bottles was missing. The pre-titles ‘monk scene’ placed between 4 Moreover, edited Super 8mm versions were in Lee’s opening fight and his meeting with some cases how I first saw censored sequences from the theatrical versions, such as Lee’s the British operative Braithwaite was not nunchaku duel with in Game of yet part of the ‘international’ cut of the Death. 4

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likely to be talking about ‘this film’ than (2013: 111). As an English-speaking ‘these films’ (2013: 111). Bruce Lee fan (the ‘invested’ fan who has bought this ‘superior’ edition), I am being Kaveney’s reference to textual scars, invited by the menu to select the most then, is one that I find hard to resist here. authentic soundtrack. Surely it’s the And like the wounds that Bruce Lee often Cantonese version – the DVDs make displays on his body, the scars on his great capital out of offering ‘original’ films become sources of fascination in language versions (and Cantonese is the themselves – they help tell the tales of default version – you have to actively their transnational travels, of battles both choose the English dub). However, given won and lost with censors and that the ‘original’ (Mandarin) version isn’t distributors. The Big Boss and (inevitably) currently available, should the existing Game of Death are the two most scarred versions be judged on the basis of which of Lee’s films, manifesting different came first – in which case, the English degrees of incompleteness and version is more of an ‘original’ than the provisionality. The Big Boss is disting- Cantonese one (which, after all, is also a uished by not even having been shown dubbed version – if those distinctions with the same musical score over the still mean anything at this point). Or years – rather, it has been exhibited with should we always defer to cultural origin at least four different ones. The ‘original’ (even if the version isn’t the ‘original’)? score by Wang Fu-ling was recorded for Pink Floyd didn’t record Dark Side of the both the Mandarin version and the Moon until after Lee’s death, and Bruce’s original English dub that was rejected for signature war cries on the Cantonese its American release. When the film was version are recognisably lifted from Enter bought by the German distributor the Dragon – Lee hadn’t developed this Cinerama, they chose to westernise the trademark until Fist of Fury. To play the film by commissioning a new score by English dub is to flirt with consigning the composer Peter Thomas (Naumann film to camp purgatory, but the music 2010), which was also used on sub- score might authenticate it for viewers sequent international releases of the film, who first saw the film on its English including the USA (where the film was language release. The Peter Thomas known as Fists of Fury) and the UK. When score is one of the ‘scars’ that the film The Big Boss was reissued in Cantonese carries – and one might say the same of in the early 80s, that version combined a the English . I would speculate score by originally written for that the English dubs are not there for the film’s Japanese release with Anglophone Bruce Lee fans who don’t incongruous slices of English progressive like subtitles – they’re there because rock such as Pink Floyd’s ‘Time’ from they are part of the film’s history. Dark Side of the Moon. Hong Kong However, the dubbed version is not Legend’s DVD includes the Cantonese presented ‘raw’, as it were. The original version, with the Peter Thomas score on English dub included some uninten- the English dubbed version. Neither of tionally comic out-of-sync sound effects these can quite claim to be the ‘original’, that have been corrected – thus the if such a thing exists. The bilinguality of version presented on DVD negotiates Lee’s films, Bowman suggests, throws between nostalgia for the historical certain binaries into disarray – ‘fidelity/ moment of ‘Bruce Lee fever’ and the infidelity, primary/secondary, original/ dangers of camp silliness. copy, authentic/construction and so on’

5

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If there was to be such a thing as a Kong trailer, prefaced by an explanatory ‘Director’s Cut’ of The Big Boss, it would introduction that draws our attention to undoubtedly be the elusive Mandarin footage not in the film – Cheng pushing version that BLR’s writer (like many the second prostitute roughly onto the Bruce Lee aficionados) longs to see bed (again, clearly not the chivalrous Lee surface. Rumours abound that it might of later films) or standing naked behind a be in the hands of a private collector or chair. lost altogether; its last reported sighting was at a Bruce Lee Fan Club screening The Big Boss has a trashy ‘grindhouse’ in London in 1979. The Mandarin version dimension largely absent from Lee’s later includes not only the alternative music films – spurting blood, severed limbs score by Wang Fu-ling, but additional packed in ice, naked flesh – and there footage that was cut after its original was evidently more of this in the original release. Two of these cuts have exerted cut. The Platinum Edition tries to make particular fascination for Lee fans. The more of a feature of the missing footage, first is well known as a still – Lee’s even though it still has no more than the character Cheng Chao-an puts a large trailer to draw on – it has two discs to fill saw through someone’s head (stories up and the missing scenes are obvious vary about whether this sequence was (if problematic) candidates for textual actually in any release version – it was thickening. ‘Deleted Scenes Examined’ apparently not included in the print uses text narration to take us through shown in London in 1979). The second the missing scenes, sometimes partly survives in the film’s original trailer illustrated by blurry photographs. In the – Cheng returns to the Thai brothel he case of the saw-through-the-head, they has visited earlier in the film (with a edit the still into the sequence, while the different prostitute) for what might be a brothel scene uses the trailer footage, final sexual encounter before he faces which is also included in the trailer death at the Boss’ mansion. It’s a gallery, The trailer and the deleted scene ‘missing’ scene with some ramifications are arguably the quintessential vestigial both for Lee’s otherwise chaste screen organs that Kaveney speaks of. The role persona and for the film’s treatment of of the trailer always changes over time – its Thai setting.5 One might speculate it is less likely to be an ‘entryway that the scene was later removed to paratext’ (Gray 2010) in the case of a bring Lee’s character in line with the ‘classic’ or ‘cult’ re-release, more likely to similarly naive figure he plays in Way of provide context and archival colour. the Dragon, who flees from a topless Here, it takes on something like a prostitute in Rome. Only Hong Kong documentary function - closer to Gray’s Legends’ two DVD releases – the 2000 ‘in media res paratext’ that serves to Special Collector’s Edition and the 2006 ‘inflect or redirect the text following initial Platinum Edition – attempt to address interaction’ (2010: location 755) – filling the missing footage. The Collector’s in some of gaps in the main text that we Edition does this via the original Hong might not have known existed.

5 Rather problematically (but not uncharacteristic of Hong Kong’s representation of as ‘Third World Other’ in the early 70s), the film’s Chinese women are the objects of chivalry and protection, while its Thai women are disposable sex workers. 6

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Competing ambassadors of context of context’ – Lee as Hollywood star in the making, his Hong Kong films relegated to The Bruce Lee DVDs with the most stepping stones towards his real destiny. generous array of extras are Warner This ‘authority’ is bolstered by the array Brothers’ Region 1 and 2 DVDs of Enter of surviving material available as extra the Dragon and Hong Kong Legends’ material – extensive trailer campaigns Platinum editions of the other films, but (both theatrical and TV), a promotional it is across these releases that we see film from 1973, actress ’s some of the biggest differences in how home movie footage of the film’s supplementary materials orient us production. Hong Kong Legends don’t towards Lee and his films. There are have the same kind of studio-approved some points of convergence – both material – their approach to Lee’s Hong include supplementary materials that Kong films is closer to a kind of fan position Lee as ‘more than’ an action scholarship. Their default DVD extra is star; a legitimate martial artist, innovator the interview with someone who knew and philosopher, a man with a ‘legacy’. Bruce Lee – Fist of Fury and Way of the But there are some significant differ- Dragon are particularly dependent on ences, too. Enter the Dragon, the first Lee such extras because there are no film to make it to blu-ray, is packaged as deleted scenes to excavate, and limited a prestigious Hollywood studio film trailers available. (sometimes partially erasing its Hong Kong-ness) – boxed set editions, a 30th I want to focus here particularly on the Anniversary edition with a new ‘Making DVD commentary, perhaps the DVD extra Of’ Documentary Blood and Steel, the that has attracted most attention – it involvement of Lee’s (American) family both carries the ‘aura of quality’ members.6 Warners’ Enter the Dragon (McDonald 2007: 59) and can be seen as DVDs and blu-rays have the aura of privileging certain readings of the text. ‘authorised’ editions. The film is Tellingly, the DVD commentaries on Lee’s introduced by Linda Lee, Bruce’s wife, films have been almost exclusively while his daughter Shannon features Anglophone – Mega Star’s Hong Kong heavily on a more recent blu-ray edition. DVD of Fist of Fury provides a Cantonese The DVDs/blu-rays include material from commentary by but also John Little, the Linda-approved authority includes an English language one by Bey on Lee and publisher of his papers and Logan, the most prolific commentator for letters. Above all, it’s the Lee disc with DVD labels such as Hong Kong Legends, the most substantial input from people Premier Asia and Dragon Dynasty. involved in the film’s production – Warners’ Enter the Dragon DVD (and producers and Fred subsequent releases) has a commentary Weintraub and writer Michael Allin. As we by Paul Heller, which also incorporates a might expect, it’s a very particular Lee separately recorded telephone convers- who emerges from these ‘ambassadors ation between Heller and writer Michael Allin. Heller’s approach is largely

6 anecdotal, punctuated by long silences The ‘Lee family’ is a somewhat divided one, with and prone to metaphorically scraping his widow Linda and daughter Shannon having the power to ‘authorise’ official versions of Lee, fingers down a blackboard; he describes whereas Chinese family members (such as his the film as a ‘ action picture’, refers brother Robert) occupy a less powerful position to Lee as ‘the first Third World Superstar’ that nevertheless makes them more accessible and likens the (Orientalist) look of the to a DVD label such as Hong Kong Legends. 7

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film to the comic strip Terry and the between ‘academic research proper and Pirates – ‘ lends itself to that. It’s a cinephilia’ (Bennett and Brown 2008b: colourful place’, he tells us. Admittedly, 122). It requires preparation, and some of this is congruent with aspects of possibly even a script – Vincendeau the film itself, but Heller’s tale is of apparently wrote a 17,000 word script western filmmakers encountering the for the commentary that accompanied unsophisticated techniques Jean Pierre Melville’s Le Circle Rouge. It of the ‘far east’. In his commentaries for thus risks dryness, making us feel that Hong Kong Legends, Bey Logan speaks we’re being lectured at (or worse, read from a rather different position. Logan is to), although in the case of the academic of English birth but has been based in commentary (a sub-category of the Hong Kong for a number of years, initially expert commentary) that is probably to as a journalist but with an increasing be expected – labels such as the BFI and involvement in the film industry as writer, Criterion are offering prestigious editions producer and even performer. Logan’s of canonical films. Bey Logan occupies a commentaries are thus able to draw on rather different position as expert – inside knowledge of the Hong Kong film knowledgeable but not academic. On his industry while also speaking as cultural Big Boss commentary, we can hear him outsider. More importantly, while he is as shuffling his notes, but he never sounds much a filmmaker as Heller – albeit not as though he’s reading from them – his of the Lee films – he doesn’t speak as tone is always conversational, combining one. Rather, he positions himself as a context, analysis, opinion and fan trivia. knowledgeable fan – the tone of address Vincendeau lists the pitfalls of the is of one Bruce Lee fan to another. DVD prepared expert commentary as commentaries often deploy a ‘rhetoric of ‘breathlessness, rambling, redundancy intimacy’ (Klinger 2006: 89), the sense of and irrelevance’ (Bennett and Brown being chatted to and forming an 2008b: 124) and above all, ‘too many ‘imaginary friendship’ (Doherty 2001: 78) silences’ (125) – Logan avoids them all, or overhearing a conversation – Matt while managing to sound entirely Hills has called it ‘a new type of spontaneous. He actually recorded two fantasised co-presence’, a ‘mediatised different commentaries for Fist of Fury, watching-with’ (2007: 52). But this is the first for the Mega Star DVD (where easier for the filmmaker than the expert there are a few more silences than on commentator. A filmmaker’s commen- his later commentaries)7 and a second tary is more likely to be improvised, one for Hong Kong Legend’s Platinum while at the same time carrying the Edition. While he inevitably reiterates authority of authorship – a ‘digital- some information, Logan manages to authorial "paratext"‘ (Grant 2008: 103). incorporate further research, for example Even if the filmmaker can’t generate this revising his opinion of director Lo Wei. imaginary intimacy – and, indeed, comes Having earlier taken the familiar line of over as distracted, slightly boring, dismissing Lo as an uninspired hack company – then s/he will still carry the (and thus crediting all of the film’s aura of authorial authority. The ‘expert strengths to Lee); he had seen some of commentary’ (whether by critic, fan or the director’s Shaw Brothers films on academic) is, as Ginette Vincendeau has DVD in the interim, now presenting him observed, more like a piece of research as a journeyman director capable of – she describes the academic com- mentary as an ‘in-between space’ 7 I suspect that it was his first. 8

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rising to the challenge on selected films.8 style. It remains hard to imagine what At one point, he manages to name every Lee’s final version might have looked like single stuntman (some of them now when the only surviving footage is of quite well known) as Lee them in three of its planned fights. Little wonder the famous dojo scene, at another he that with some editing to remove Lee’s refers to the interviews with Japanese comrades on the mission, the footage actors Hashimoto Riki and Katsumura could be incorporated into an entirely Jun elsewhere on the disc, a particularly different narrative (one that traded on conspicuous intratextual strategy. the rumours surrounding Lee’s death).

The film’s hypothetical original structure (designed to illustrate Lee’s hybridised The ‘Perfect DVD movie’ fighting style) is After single disc releases of The Big Boss, remediated on the second disc of the Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon, Hong Platinum Edition. Bolter and Grusin use Kong Legends released Game of Death the word ‘remediation’ to describe the in 2000 as the first and best of their way new media ‘appropriates the Platinum Editions – subsequent editions techniques, forms and social significance have largely reproduced that edition. It of other media and attempts to refashion may not be the best Bruce Lee film, at them in the name of the real’ (2000: 65) least not in its feature length version, but – here, Lee’s ‘lost’ narrative is remediated I want to suggest that it would in the form of interactive DVD menus paradoxically become his ‘best’ DVD (if that allow us to ascend the floors of the we follow Aaron Barlow’s criteria of pagoda (while also giving the film an making the film a ‘new object’). There’s aura of profundity entirely lacking from something about the film, in its different the feature length version). The extras are versions, that seemed to inadvertently organised into five ‘floors’, from which anticipate new media platforms. The plot one can click to ascend or descend – of Lee’s original film – abandoned in the The Gate to Enlightenment, the Temple 1978 feature version cobbled together of the Praying Mantis, the Temple of the with doubles and footage from his earlier Tiger (effectively, the Dan Inosanto floor), films – is the basis of every single ‘beat- the Temple of Gold, and at the top the em-up’ videogame; a film about bosses Temple of the Unknown, whose main and levels. An agent of some sort sent to prize is ‘Game of Death Revisited’, a retrieve a stolen treasure from a pagoda, reconstruction of Lee’s surviving footage Lee must fight his way to the top of the (found by Bey Logan while he was building against masters of different working for Media Asia). Game of Death styles, culminating with his suits the textuality of DVD because it most formidable opponent (played by the works best as a series of intratexts – celebrated basketball player Kareem competing versions of the film Adbul Jabbar) who practices no known juxtaposed, the visible scars of an abandoned film completed some years

8 after its star’s death, by which time Hong The director’s commentary probably holds the Kong action cinema was stylistically very highest position of prestige amongst DVD commentaries. However, not only are all of the different. These two different versions of directors of Lee’s films dead – Lo Wei, Robert Game of Death – the theatrical version Clouse, Lee himself – but Lee is widely taken as and the attempt to reconstruct Lee’s the auteur figure even of those films he didn’t original footage as fully as possible – are direct or officially choreograph. 9

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framed to provide clear signposts to the quite what emerges from Logan’s ‘authentic’ and ‘original’ version (which commentary, even though he derives we ‘ascend’ to), although that too is only some inevitable amusement from one version of the original footage.9 outrageous continuity errors and However, this requires the DVD to cardboard Bruce Lee masks stuck on complicate the relationship between the mirrors or asks justifiably ‘What were feature attraction and one of its they thinking?’ as Lee’s actual funeral ‘supplements’ (which has greater claim footage is used to depict his character’s to being the ‘original’, or one version of faking of his own death. According to the original). A further ‘scar’ included in Catherine Grant, ‘The act of selecting the the package is footage (not featuring Lee, director’s commentary turns the but his double) only included in the “original” (theatrical) experience of Hong Kong release of the film. In a watching the film as fiction into one of further illustration of the different watching it “re-directed”, or literally re- investments in and formulations of Lee, performed as a documentary’ (2008: this footage replaces one of Lee’s 111). Grant is talking specifically about original fight scenes (with the discourses of intentionality on directors’ expert Ji Han-jae) with an action commentaries, but the notion of the sequence closer in style to the Hong commentary transforming the film into a Kong cinema of the late ’70s, in which documentary has a broader application. choreographer and stunt In the case of Game of Death, it double were particularly transforms a film that fails as fiction into prominent. In other words, this a documentary about an impossible and paratextual ‘scar’ illustrates how Lee’s yet endlessly fascinating film – the ‘authentic’ approach to martial arts commentary not only compensates for action had lost some of its appeal for and explains the film’s diegetic local audiences. incoherence but also serves to provide its own textual completeness. Grant At the start of his commentary for the describes commentaries as ‘auteur international version of the feature length machines’, but watching Game of Death Game of Death, Logan comments: ‘This with the commentary on is to see it as a film is like a guilty pleasure for me. It was film with competing auteur figures actually the first Bruce Lee movie that I pulling the film in different directions at ever saw, so it has a special place in my different times – Bruce Lee, the ‘auteur’ heart. And I look at it now and it’s a really of the incomplete original, Robert Clouse good “bad” movie’. What this might the Enter the Dragon director brought in suggest on the surface is a to bring the film to feature length, and paracinematic mode of viewing (to use Sammo Hung overseeing the newer Jeffrey Sconce’s term) whereby action footage. Where other Lee cinematic incompetence is celebrated by commentaries (Logan’s included) posit- the cult film viewer as an oppositional ion Lee as auteur over his directors and aesthetic (Sconce 1995). But that isn’t credited fight choreographers, Logan if anything here prioritises Sammo Hung, 9 An alternative reconstruction of the ‘original’ given the unenviable task of shooting Game of Death – cut a little tighter – appears in new fight sequences that needed to pass the documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey for Bruce Lee fights while meeting the (John Little, US 2001) which ironically appears as heightened demands of audiences in the a DVD extra on some releases of Enter the Dragon. late 1970s. When Billy Lo fights Bob Wall 10

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in a locker room, Logan doesn’t paper life suffered the ravages of breaks, burns over the shifts between close-ups of Lee and censor cuts. It’s Game of Death that from Way of the Dragon, moves by sits somewhere between these two kinds Korean super-kicker Kim Tai-jung and of DVD cinephilia – a best-possible acrobatic Yuen Biao, but also celebrates version precisely because of the way it is it as ‘a unique little fight’ and ‘an object able to use the intratextuality of DVD. It lesson in … the real Sammo Hung style’. has its own theatrical tribulations, seen He captures the paradox of the fight – a by some as a curiosity, loved for all its copy and a cheat, a Bruce Lee fight that flaws by other fans. But it seemed to find isn’t a Bruce Lee fight, but also an its most perfect incarnation on DVD – ingenious triumph in impossible circum- the most incomplete of Lee’s films stances. paradoxically became the ‘thickest’ of texts. These discs are, bar some minor Klinger argues that DVD elicits two forms updates, already more than ten years old of cinephilia, an ‘old’ one and a ‘new’ - short of the Mandarin Big Boss turning one. In terms of ‘old’ cinephilia, it up, Lee’s films may seem to have replaces and supersedes the arthouse exhausted this old/’new’ platform. But and rep cinema as a means of access to earlier this year, Lee had a more a vast range of cinematic forms from art controversial encounter with new to cult and esoterica (2008: 23). The technology – a CGI Lee (performing a second type – that which produces the famous speech from the TV series ‘perfect DVD movie’ – is beholden to a Longstreet) was used to advertise whisky digital aesthetic, making visible and in Mainland China. Whatever issues were audible use of DVD and blu-ray’s raised by the health-conscious Lee capacity for technical perfection as well advertising alcohol, he was convincing as their storage capabilities (29). Lee’s enough to suggest that we might not films sit more readily in the first category have seen the last ‘definitive’ version of – best-possible and sometimes definitive Game of Death. versions of films that in their theatrical

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