Bruce Lee: Return of The Dragon and Game of Death Getting Deluxe Blu-ray Releases

Martial arts icon Bruce Lee only starred in a handful of films, which is easy to forget considering the long shadow he casts over movies and popular culture. They’re all worth seeking out, although Enter the Dragon, his final completed film, is perhaps the only genuine masterpiece among them.

But you should never forget about The Way of the Dragon (perhaps better known as Return of the Dragon), which, yes, came out before Enter the Dragon and no it’s not a franchise. Return of the Dragon was Lee’s first directorial effort and while it’s a little heavier on the comedy than his other movies, there’s no shortage of ass-kicking. In particular, it features one of the most incredible fight scenes ever filmed, with Lee taking on Chuck Norris in a seemingly endless battle in the Coliseum in Rome.

While Enter the Dragon was Lee’s final completed film, he was hard at work on another, Game of Death at the time he died at the age of 32. As with Return of The Dragon, Lee was behind the camera and directing Game of Death, and then Enter the Dragon director Robert Clouse stepped in to finish the film…to questionable results.

Both films are now scheduled to get the deluxe Blu-ray treatment from Shout! Factory, which means that they’ll be packed with extras. Nobody gives fans as much in that department as they do, and they recently did a nice job with Lee’s earliest two movies Fists of Fury and The Chinese Connection. The details on the special features haven’t been announced yet, but we’ll update this when they are. In particular, we can probably expect a lot of interesting behind-the-scenes material on the tragic Game of Death, as Lee had shot considerable fight footage on this one before production was halted. We do know that both will feature 4K restoration and that Game of Death will include “two different cuts” of the movie, so that’s a start.

You can pre-order Return of the Dragon and Game of Death from Shout! Select. Both will be released on May 16, 2017.