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Bruce Lee’s yellow jumpsuit from Game Of Death became iconic in its own right, so here are some other movies that paid homage to it. Before his untimely death at the age of 32, Bruce Lee had already become a cinematic icon. Lee was a famed martial artist and teacher and had high-profile students such as Chuck Norris, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Steve McQueen. This led to his first television role as Kato on Green Hornet, with the character also making guest appearances on the Batman TV show.
Bruce Lee’s first starring role came with 1971’s The Big Boss and he quickly followed up with Fist Of Fury and Way Of The Dragon, both of which were released in 1972. The popularity of these films led to Warner Brothers producing his most famous film Enter The Dragon, which is considered one of the greatest martial arts films ever made; sadly, Lee would pass away before it’s release. The actor had also started production on another Hong Kong film called Game Of Death, which he was also directing. Lee had shot a large chunk of the film’s final, which saw his character progressing up a pagoda and facing a new challenger on each floor, including one played by basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
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Bruce Lee paused production on Game Of Death to make Enter The Dragon and had planned to meet former Bond star George Lazenby about a role in the film prior to his death. Reports had already spread of Lee filming some of Game Of Death, so Golden Harvest hired Enter The Dragon director Robert Clouse to make a film around this footage. This resulted in 1978’s Game Of Death, which only used around ten minutes of footage shot by Lee, with lookalikes in disguises playing his character for the rest of the movie. In spite of the very mixed reception of the released version, Lee’s famed yellow and black jumpsuit became instantly iconic.
Numerous movies, TV shows, and video games have paid homage to this outfit, including Tekken and The Last Of Us. Movie homages have been especially prominent, with the most famous being Uma Thurman’s yellow and black suit in Kill Bill: Volume 1, which gets splattered with blood as she fights the Crazy 88. It was far from the first, with a couple of Bruce Lee exploitation movies like 1978’s Enter The Game Of Death, also using this costume.
The character of Toshiro dons one in Revenge Of The Nerds, main character Leroy wears a yellow and black jumpsuit in 1985’s The Last Dragon, and Jet Li’s very Die Hard–inspired action movie High Risk features a pampered movie star played by Jacky Cheung also wears one in the finale. Finally, a goalkeeper in 2001 comedy Shaolin Soccer wears a very Game Of Death-themed jumpsuit.
