Movie:
Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey is a new documentary written, produced, and directed by John Little. The documentary includes lots of rare footage, such as screen tests, audio interviews and dictations, as well as home movies. The highlight of the documentary is easily the almost thirty-five minutes of lost footage from Game of Death.

The first sixty minutes of A Warrior's Journey explores Lee's background in the martial arts and the evolution of his training from Gung Fu to Jeet Kune Do. It also chronicles his struggle as an instructor of Jeet Kune Do and ultimately explores how he wanted to bring his philosophy of the martial arts to a mass audience through motion pictures. Though he made several movies prior, Game of Death was to be the film which fully explored and demonstrated his beliefs and techniques. For this film, he would take on numerous roles, including writer, director, producer, choreographer, and lead star. Filming began in 1972, though was halted to allow him to star in Enter the Dragon. However, he died tragically before he could return and finish Game of Death. In 1978, director Robert Clouse (Enter the Dragon), using the footage already shot and some stock footage, managed to flesh out and finish the film using stand-ins for Lee as well as reassembling the other actors to resume their roles.

It wasn't until 1994, while doing research for a series of books on Bruce Lee, that his original script notes and choreographed fight sequences for Game of Death were found. After reading this material, it was believed that more footage for Game of Death existed. After six years of searching, this footage was found and using Lee's notes, reassembled. The documentary first goes over the original storyline as Lee intended: Lee's original vision was for the final climatic fight to take place in a pagoda with five levels, each guarded by a master. At the top was a treasure, which Lee had to recover in order to trade for his family that was being held for ransom. However, in Clouse's Game of Death, Lee enters a warehouse and fights up three levels to get to Dr. Land. The masters in each version are the same, as is some of the footage, and were intended to be the masters of levels three through five. The documentary then comments on the choices Lee made for the five masters of the pagoda, and talks about Lee's notes for the final fights. Outtakes from the footage both lost and unused from 1978 are also included. In sum, the lost footage includes three carefully crafted sequences that run approximately thirty-five minutes in length, and consist of Lee fighting the masters of levels three through five in the pagoda.

That long lost and forgotten notes and footage from Game of Death were not only discovered, but released in the documentary is just amazing. Game of Death, as released in 1978, was, to put it kindly, a disappointment. Here, Lee's vision of the film is markedly different and, more importantly, better from what Clouse created. Lee is at the top of his form here and manages to craft fight sequences that are stunning to behold. Had these script notes and fight footage been discovered soon after his death, I wonder how Game of Death might have turned out. However, I was a bit disappointed in the documentary portion of the disc. Little glosses over most of Lee's early movie career, instead focusing more on his years as an instructor. Some of the footage in the documentary portion was also included in Bruce Lee: The Legend, released last year as part of the Bruce Lee: The Master Collection box set from Fox. The documentary also leaves several questions unanswered, such as where the lost footage was, and why it took until the year 2000 for it to be located.

Picture:
Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey is presented in both 1.33:1 full frame, for the documentary, and 2.35:1 non-anamorphic widescreen, for the Game of Death footage. Because the documentary is an amalgam of so many different things (home movies, lost footage, new interviews, old interviews, etc), the quality varies drastically. The newer interviews are in great shape, though the older footage and home movies have some degree of specks, marks, lines, and grain. The lost footage from Game of Death looks better than I expected, as it's thirty years old; however, it does contain all of the above print flaws, and in addition, the image softens occasionally.

Sound:
Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. As the documentary is mostly dialogue, the rear channels are seldom employed, for the exception of the score. Dialogue throughout the documentary portion is crisp and clean, though there is slight distortion in some of the older footage. The lost footage from Game of Death is, essentially, two-channel mono. One scene in the lost footage has missing audio, most likely due to deterioration. Also, though dialogue for the lost footage mostly synchs up, it doesn't sound quite right.

Optional subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Extras:
Extras include a filmography for Lee and a DVD/VHS trailer for the film.

The case lists several other extras, such as a commentary with Little and a music video, but these are not included.

Summary:
While I feel the documentary portion was a bit lacking in several areas, the real meat of the feature is the lost footage from Game of Death, which runs almost thirty-five continuous minutes. Any fan of Bruce Lee's films should definitely give the disc a try, as seeing the previously lost footage is more than worth the price of admission. Recommended.