History Film / GameOfDeath

* AtArmsLength: Teased with. When Kareem sits cross-legged, Lee attempts to attack him, but the former just extends his much longer arms to block it, and Lee stops himself upon realizing it would be useless.

* DavidVersusGoliath: Bruce Lee vs. Creator/KareemAbdulJabbar. Bruce Lee was 5ft 7.5 in (1,71 m), Jabbar was 7ft. 2 in (2,18 m), but Bruce Lee still could land a jump kick on his head.

** Bruce Lee does this himself when he first sees much taller Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

* ScaryBlackMan: Kareem's character is 7ft 2in tall, has super strength, and is very intimidating.

* WrestlerInAllOfUs: Bruce's character takes out Ji Han Jae's character with a backbreaker variation, and later uses an arm triangle choke and a bulldog choke on Kareem. Those fights were controversial, as grappling and ground fighting was very rare in kung fu movies of this time, not to talk about pro wrestling.

* AllegoricalCharacter: One could ask if the guardians of the pagoda spend all of their lives in the pagoda waiting for some challenger, and what they're doing all day, when they eat, sleep etc., however represent the formalized system of martial arts that Bruce Lee wanted to prove wrong. Hai Tien (Bruce Lee) can beat them all with some ease because of their inability to adapt. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has an unknown fighting style that represents the highest level of martial arts and has superhuman strength and is subsequently the hardest match for Bruce Lee.
* AmbiguouslyHuman: Kareem's character is not an albino, yet he shows the eyes of one when he loses his sunglasses, and his high sensitivity to light turns out to be his bane. In an alternate take, he has [[spoiler:animalistic lizard-like eyes.]] It was rumored that the character was meant to be a product of a genetic experiment, apparently one of a superior human race created by a MadScientist, but that never has been confirmed by any official sources.

* EvilTowerOfOminousness: The pagoda appears as this when seen from distance. It's also the home of five of the most deadly martial artists in the world.

** Kareem Abdul-Jabbar [[spoiler: turns down Bruce Lee's request to just let him pass although he is rendered powerless by this point]] while stating that has no fear of dying.
* ItsTheJourneyThatCounts: A very strong implication of the ending. Bruce decides to not go up to the highest floor but descend the stairs and not retrieve the treasure, as he learns that after all of the fighting, the treasure is ultimately unimportant but the quest for enlightenment and improvement is and no treasure can keep up with this.

* KnowWhenToFoldThem: Hai Tien doesn't even want to go to the top of the pagoda after beating Kareem Abdul Jabbar in a highly exhausting fight. The most common interpretation for this is that it's ultimately unimportant what is on top of the pagoda.

* MartyrWithoutACause: The guardians are completely willing to die to protect the highest floor. Why they do or what they're literally guarding with their lives is never revealed.

* PostVictoryCollapse: After Hai Tien (Bruce Lee) defeats his last opponents his collapses from exhaustion. He does not go to highest floor and asks the mafia guys for help. They don't care very much and tell him that there's more fighting downstairs.

* TakeThatAudience: The main premise of the movie is to prove styles and patterns wrong, and as such he guardians appear as obvious stand-ins for the martial arts community of the early 1970s, stuck in tradition and inflexibility to his eyes: including the intended characters, there are opponents of Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Filipino styles, as well as a black, jive-talking giant possibly representing stereotypical urban street fighting or just sheer physicality (or maybe some unknown, uncategorizable style that would represent the highest level of martial arts). This extends to people who believe that Jeet Kune Do is another style or the perfect style, which it isn't (it's a philosophy).
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Related to the above, the whole concept of the movie is nothing more than heroic version of this trope. Five masters with five different styles and Lee uses his style to show the holes and weaknesses in theirs. Styles included an eskrima specialist (3rd) and hapikdo (4th). Kareem was at the top and used Lee's style of no style. The other two styles were going to have a kicking master (1st) and a master in a mantis-based martial art (2nd). In ''Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey'', during the fight with the eskrima specialist, Lee points out that eskrima's "rehearsed routine" doesn't have the same flexibility as his own Jeet Kune Do and thus can't adapt to "broken rhythm".
* RiddleForTheAges: None of the surviving materials reveal what is on top of the pagoda. There are many rumors (a scroll with an inspirational message, another fighter, something supernatural, riches, nothing, or - according to several of Bruce's friends - a mirror, which would be was based on the philosophical idea that since he had overcome all of his opponents by adapting, [[ItWasWithYouAllAlong HE HIMSELF was the treasure]]), but none of these are canon. One can assume that Bruce Lee's intention was that it's unimportant what is on top of it, the quest to the highest level counts.

* TitleDrop: In the original concept, shown in Bruce's story notes, this would have occurred when the American member of the pagoda raid (likely Bob Wall's unfilmed character) takes Hai Tien aside the night before the journey to their target, and tells him about the eponymous "Game" in philosophical terms.
* UnbuiltTrope: As noted in DieHardOnAnX, this film predates ''Film/DieHard'' by 16 years, yet has a plot where the main character must "ascend" to the top floor of a structure to obtain something of value, and[=/=]or complete their mission. More notably, however, ''Game'' would have Tien face a "boss" on each floor, which is remarkably similar to numerous video games that would have situations specifically created around boss raids (for a popular example that's also a ShoutOut, see the Wutai[=/=]Yuffie pagoda subplot in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''.) Unlike most[=/=]all of the example, statements from Lee's friends suggest that the ultimate "prize" at the top of the pagoda wouldn't have been an item of great value, but the realization that Tien himself was the prize, as he had mastered himself and defeated all of the obstacles that held him back along the way.

* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Lee's character is somehow able to keep Dan Inosanto at range (and even disarm him!) with a flexible bamboo wand that should not even allow him even parry a honest attack from Inosanto's sticks. It only works because Inosanto is so baffled at being unable to parry Lee's quick attacks that he doesn't try to do the same.

* MartialArtsHeadband: Pasqual (Dan Inosanto) wears a red one during the nunchaku fight with Bruce Lee on the third-to-last level of the pagoda. In the 1978 version he wears it during all of his screen time, [[LimitedWardrobe sometimes inexplicably over his shoulder.]]

* AmbiguousSituation: Kareem's character is not an albino, yet he shows the eyes of one when he loses his sunglasses, and his high sensitivity to light turns out to be his bane. In an alternate take, he has [[spoiler:animalistic lizard-like eyes.]] It was rumored that the character was meant to be a product of a genetic experiment, apparently one of a superior human race created by a MadScientist, but that never has been confirmed by any official sources.

* FakeShemp: Korean UsefulNotes/{{Taekwondo}} expert Kim Tai Chung played Billy Lo for most of the movie, his face partially obscured by fake beards, large sunglasses, dark shadows, behind shots, a motorcycle helmet, facial gauze, and cardboard cutouts. Notorious BruceLeeClone Bruce Li was also offered the role in tandem with Chung, but he declined because he didn't think he should be officially filling Bruce's shoes.

* ImportationExpansion: The international version shows a longer sequence where Billy Lo meets his uncle in a theater. The HK version shows another fight scene with Bruce Lee's double and Korean taekwondo master Casanova Wong in a greenhouse (this scene would be repurposed for Game Of Death II). The ending is also significantly longer in the HK version, [[spoiler: where the dead Dr. Land is picked up by an ambulance and Billy is arrested]]. More information on this [[http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=534837 here]].
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: After an unsuccessful murder attempt against him, Billy Lo returns to plan his revenge against the syndicate. [[spoiler: He kills every single member of it.]]

** The film uses 11 minutes of the original Game of Death, which is cautiously edited to not star any of Bruce's associates.

* YourSizeMayVary: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was 7ft 2 in tall, his double is at least one head smaller.