Black Belt Jones

A hard-working director throughout his long and varied career, Robert Clouse is known best for his two most successful films: Der Mann mit der Todeskralle (1973) and Game of Death (1978. Clouse was a director who worked mainly in the visuals of cinema, owing to the fact that he was completely deaf, he employed assistant directors who could verify that actors had delivered their lines correctly. After being hired by Warner Bros. and Golden Harvest to direct Der Mann mit der Todeskralle (1973), Clouse was escalated into the realm of profitable directors. But, unlike others in this category, doors in Hollywood were not entirely open to him. Clouse was, in 1974, hired to direct Freie Fahrt ins Jenseits (1974) for Warner Brothers Pictures. The film proved to be a moderate success, but was seen more as a vehicle for Der Mann mit der Todeskralle (1973) protégé ‘Jim Kelly’. In 1978, Clouse returned to Hong Kong where he was hired by Golden Harvest’s Raymond Chow to direct a comeback movie for Martial Artist ‘Bruce Lee’, despite the fact that Lee had died five years earlier. Clouse was given the incomplete footage from Bruce Lee’s original version of Game of Death, but decided that only a small amount of this footage should be used (mainly because the original film’s plot had been re-created countless times in Hong Kong cinema since Lee’s death). With the help of Lee companions such as ‘Samo Hung’ and ‘Bob Wall’, Clouse shot several ‘Bruce Lee’ lookalikes and stand-ins as well as cutting back to footage from other Lee movies and, of course, the original Game of Death takes.

Despite attempts, Clouse was unable to match the success of his two ‘Bruce Lee’ films later in his career. Robert Clouse, the director of the film that many call the perfect Martial Arts movie Der Mann mit der Todeskralle (1973), died on February 4, 1997. —IMDb