Billy Lo

Billy Lo (originally Hai Tien, 海天), the protagonist of Game of Death who is depicted as a fictionalized version of Bruce Lee, struggling against a racketeering "syndicate" after gaining international success as a martial arts movie star.

Original biography[]

The original plot involves Lee playing the role of Hai Tien, a retired champion martial artist who was confronted by the Korean underworld gangs. They tell him the story of a pagoda where guns are prohibited, and under heavy guard by highly skilled martial artists who are protecting something (which is not identified at all in any surviving material) held on its top level. The gang boss wants Hai to be a part of a group whose purpose is to retrieve said item. They would be the second group to try to do so as the first attempt with a previous group had failed. When Hai refuses, his younger sister and brother are kidnapped, forcing him to participate. Hai, as well as four other martial artists (two of which were played by James Tien and Chieh Yuan), then fight their way up a five-level pagoda, encountering a different challenge on each floor. The setting of the pagoda was at Peobjusa temple in Songnisan National Park in South Korea.

The pagoda, called Palsang-jon, is the only remaining wooden pagoda in South Korea. At the base of the pagoda they fight 10 people, all black belts in Karate. While inside the pagoda, they encounter a different opponent on each floor, each more challenging than the last. Although his allies try to help out, they are handily defeated, and Hai must face each of the martial artists in one-on-one combat. He defeats Filipino martial arts master Dan Inosanto, hapkido master Ji Han Jae, and finally Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who fights with a free and fluid style mirroring Lee's Jeet Kune Do. Because Abdul-Jabbar's character has great size and strength in addition to a fighting style as potent as Lee's, he can only be defeated once Hai recognizes that an unusually high sensitivity to light is his greatest weakness.^[1]

Immediately after defeating the giant guardian, Hai turns around and descends the staircase, heading out of the pagoda. Despite all the talk of something awaiting up top of the (now unguarded) flight of stairs, there is no mention of anyone going up to retrieve it. No surviving material explains how this will affect Hai or his captive siblings.^[2]

Rebooted biography[]

The 1978 version uses portions of the original footage married to an entirely new plot involving a new character, Billy Lo,(盧比利) struggling against a racketeering "syndicate" after gaining international success as a martial arts movie star. When Billy refuses to be intimidated by syndicate henchman Steiner (Hugh O'Brian) and his gangs of thugs, syndicate owner Dr. Land (Dean Jagger) orders his assassination to serve as an example to others.

Disguised as a stuntman, Land's assassin Stick (Mel Novak) sneaks onto the set of Billy's new film, and shoots Billy during filming. A fragment of the bullet passes through Billy's face, leaving him alive but in need of plastic surgery which alters his facial features. Billy takes the opportunity to fake his death and disguise himself, exacting revenge against those who wronged him one at a time. When the syndicate threatens and kidnaps his fiancée, Ann Morris (Colleen Camp), Billy is forced to come out of hiding in order to save her. In the revised film, Bruce Lee's fight scenes inside the pagoda are assumed to take place in the upper floors of the Red Pepper restaurant, where Dr. Land and his thugs have laid an ambush. In the end Billy survives the ambush, rescues Ann, and destroys each of the main mobsters one-by-one.

The yellow-and-black tracksuit[]

The yellow-and-black tracksuit which Lee wore in the film has come to be seen as something of a trademark for the actor, and is paid homage to in numerous other media. In the Clouse-directed remake, the filmmakers rationalized its presence by including a scene where Billy Lo disguises himself as one of Dr. Land's motorcycle-riding thugs, who all wear striped jumpsuits.

In the warehouse scene, Billy Lo wears a pair of yellow Adidas shoes with black stripes and white shelltoes. Towards the end of the movie, Billy wears a pair of yellow Onitsuka Tiger shoes, with black stripes. This was due to the fact that the real Bruce Lee wore the latter when he was filming, and the double wore the former in the 1978 version to resemble his shoes.

In film[]

Uma Thurman wears a similar suit in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 when she travels to Japan to take on an underworld boss and assassin played by Lucy Liu. In homage to both the film and the remake, Thurman wears the suit and Onitsuka Tiger sneakers as part of her motorcycle-riding gear, and keeps the suit on during her battle with Liu and her gang, the Crazy 88.
In Shaolin Soccer, a similar suit is worn by the goalie "Empty Hand" (Danny Chan Kwok Kwan) who resembles Bruce Lee.
In the Jet Li film High Risk, Jacky Cheung plays a movie star who is losing his fighting ability due to his cowardice. When he regains his courage at the end of the film, he wears a copy of the yellow tracksuit. The role is generally felt to be a parody of Jackie Chan, but the references to Bruce Lee are also obvious.
The 1985 film The Last Dragon, produced by Motown legend Berry Gordy, centered around a Bruce Lee fan in search of reaching martial arts enlightenment who instructed his students wearing the same tracksuit.
In Revenge of the Nerds, Brian Tochi's character, Toshiro Takashi, wears the yellow jumpsuit while riding a tricycle during the inter-Greek competitions.
In the Wong Jing live-action City Hunter film, Jackie Chan uses the scene with Bruce fighting Kareem as a reference to dispatch his own taller opponents.
In Finishing the Game, Breeze Loo, played by Roger Fan, wears a yellow and black striped jumpsuit.
In the 2011 British comedy film On the Ropes, writer and director Mark Noyce added a scene in homage to his idol Bruce Lee which featured Mick Western (played by Ben Shockley) wearing a yellow tracksuit.

In gaming[]

The 1984 arcade video game Kung-Fu Master was inspired by Game of Death. The player protagonist fights bosses at the end of each level before climbing the stairs to the next, more difficult stage in a "Devil's Temple" with five floors.
Marshall Law and Forrest Law, from the Tekken series of fighting games, resemble Bruce Lee with their move set, whoops and yells and wears a sleeveless version of the tracksuit.
In Dead or Alive 4, Jann Lee's third costume is none other than the tracksuit and his ending movie includes him watching Bruce Lee movies to help him practice Jeet Kune Do.
In the Playmore fighting game Rage of the Dragons, Mr. Jones (who already bares a striking resemblance to Kareem Abdul Jabbar) wears a suit very similar to the famous yellow jump suit.
The suit is present in the MMORPG Anarchy Online as a piece of equipment for powerful martial artist characters.
In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, one equippable item is the "kung fu suit," which is a yellow tracksuit with black vertical stripes along the sides.
Although the suit does not appear in any Street Fighter games, Fei Long wears it in several issues of the UDONStreet Fighter comic book and in Masahiko Nakahira's Cammy manga.
In the video game Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, the main character can wear an identical outfit called the "Dragon Jumpsuit".
In the video game Shadow Hearts: From the New World talking cat and drunken master Mao confronts the master of cat martial arts, the tracksuit-clad "Bruce Meow".
In WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008, in the "Create a WWE Superstar" function the tracksuit is emulated.
In Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, the character Chie Satonaka's Persona is dressed in the same yellow jumpsuit, and fights with a combination of spears and Jeet Kun Do.
In Street Fighter IV, the character Rufus wears a yellow and black tracksuit. The suit matches his personality of having a great love for martial arts movies, leading to his style being adopted from imitating martial arts movies and mail order courses.
In the online game Dragon Fist 3: Age of the Warrior, one of the characters from martial arts films is Billy Lo (with Bruce Lee being animated out) from this film, dressed in the yellow-and-black jumpsuit, fighting with Jeet Kune Do, using a yellow nunchaku (which is not found in the Character Editor) as a weapon, and the one inch punch as a special move.
In most servers of the Dragonica online game, the gladiator class can summon a Bruce Lee styled character named Bro Lee who wears the jumpsuit to perform some Kung Fu moves. The players can also buy the suit from the cash shop to equip on their characters.
The yellow-and-black tracksuit can be obtained in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon from the custom character creation menu.
In Rumble Fighter, Billy's Jumpsuit is available in yellow, blue and green under the name: Billy Lo, Jeet Kune Do is also available as a fighting style.
A similar tracksuit can be found and worn in the Capcom game Dead Rising 2.
In Sleeping Dogs, Wei Shen can wear the "Hai Tien Vintage Jumpsuit".

In music[]

A short promotional video for the virtual band Gorillaz showed the fictional animated guitarist, Noodle, taking on a pack of thugs while dressed in the tracksuit and imitating Lee's fighting style. Noodle also wore the suit in the Game of Death short clip from Phase One: Celebrity Take Down.
The band Sugar Ray, in their video for the single "When It's Over", included a segment in which one of the band members fantasizes about having a kung fu battle similar to the fight scene between Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The band member wears Lee's tracksuit, his opponent wears a beard, clothes, and sunglasses similar to Abdul-Jabbar's, and the video duplicates the scene in which a seated Kareem kicks Lee in the chest, knocking him down and leaving a huge footprint on his chest.
Topper Headon of The Clash was known to wear a similar jumpsuit at live shows.^{[citation needed]}
Avant-garde guitarist Buckethead released a cover of "Game of Death" in 2006.^[8] He also wore a yellow tracksuit while playing live and performed with nunchakus on stage.

American band Far East Movement's song "Satisfaction"^[9] featured the yellow jumpsuits in its video, as the song was the soundtrack to the 2007 mockumentary Finishing the Game.

In manga, anime, and other cartoons[]

In "Karate Island", a fourth season episode of SpongeBob SquarePants (which is itself a take-off of Game of Death), Sandy Cheeks wears a yellow tracksuit similar to Bruce's.
In the Urusei Yatsura episode titled "The Mendo Family's Masquerade War", Ataru was wearing a yellow tracksuit with black stripes while trying to court Mendou's sister who is sporting nunchakus. Both Ataru's yellow tracksuit and the Mendou sister's nunchakus are a homage to Bruce Lee.[1][2]

In the anime/manga Tenjho Tenge, there is a short appearance of a character named "Inosato Dan" who is the leader of the "Jun Fan Gung Fu club" (Jun Fan is Bruce Lee's Chinese name). He resembles Bruce Lee very much, and wears the jumpsuit. However, in the anime the colors of the jumpsuit are switched to a black suit with yellow stripes.

Duel #25 of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga features some references to Bruce Lee. Yugi's fighting-game character of choice is a Bruce Lee clone called Bruce Ryu. His opponent, the villain of the chapter, wears the yellow jumpsuit and calls his fight with Jonouchi a "Game of Death".

The second episode of the anime series Cowboy Bebop, "Stray Dog Strut", further plays homage with the episode's main antagonist being named Abdul Hakim (after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's character) and bearing a strikingly similar appearance.

The character Mr. Tanaka from Sonic X wears the suit in an episode.

The character Sasshi, from the anime Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, also gets a uniform called the Game of Death suit, later imitating Lee in both appearance and mannerisms.

Another reference is found in Great Teacher Onizuka, where the main character, Onizuka Eikichi, wears the same suits when performing feats of strength like breaking a baseball bat with a kick in front of his class.

In episode 18 of the anime, Gin Tama, Kagura wears a suit similar to Bruce's suit in this movie.

The character, Mandy, from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy wore a yellow jumpsuit in the episode "Modern Primitives / Giant Billy and Mandy All-Out Attack". The episode also had parodies from Akira (Mandy drives a bike similar to Kaneda's in the series), the "Godzilla" franchise (there are several giant monsters that parody monsters from the franchise including the name of the episode), and Kill Bill (a check off list plus a red screened close-up mimicking the bride).

A game sprite resembling an Asian man can be seen wearing Bruce Lee's yellow suit during the first and third season's of ReBoot.

A Gorillabite from the band Gorillaz is titled Game of Death. In the bite, Noodle, the guitarist, dons the yellow tracksuit to take on Russel.

The cover for the third volume of the American DVD release of the anime, PaniPoni Dash!, features the main character Rebecca Miyamoto wearing a track suit similar to Bruce Lee's. The subtitle for the DVD, "Class of Death", also pays homage to Game of Death.

In episode 20 of Hayate the Combat Butler, Hayate asks Maria is she knows "the art of assassination". She denies it, but Hayate and does not believe her and Nagi imagines what Maria would look like wearing a yellow jumpsuit and holding nunchucks.

Episode 100 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon depicts Master Splinter's former owner, Hamato Yoshi, wearing the yellow tracksuit.

In the classic anime/manga series Dragon Ball during his early adventures, Goku enters a military base named "Muscle Tower" in the shape of a dumbbell, in which he visits numerous floors, fighting enemies that inhabit them. He fights a robot, a ninja, a beast, and a general of the military.

In The Boondocks episode "Let's Nab Oprah", Oprah's bodyguard Bushido Brown is seen as a reference to Jim Kelly's character, Williams in Enter the Dragon. Brown also tells main character Huey Freeman "You come straight out of a comic book", a reference to Enter the Dragon. However, he wears a Karate gi version of the yellow and black tracksuit in the episode "Stinkmeaner 3: The Hateocracy".

When cosplaying the character Hong Kong from the anime series Hetalia Axis Powers, fans love to portray him wearing the yellow tracksuit.

In episode 11 of HeartCatch PreCure!, the guest characters for the episode, brothers Masato Sakai and Yoshito Sakai, both wear the yellow tracksuit. Masato Sakai styles himself as a Kung Fu master and his brother is his pupil.

In episode 18 of Xiaolin Showdown The character of Kimiko Tohomiko is seen wearing yellow track pants with a black stripe. The rest of her outfit is yellow with long black gloves.

In "Tofu-Town Showdown", an episode of the second season of the tv show Chowder, The character Schnitzel wore a yellow tracksuit and a similiar Bruce Lee's haircut, then he turns into a supersaiyan, making a parody of Dragon Ball.

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