Trivia / The Big Boss

• Cast the Expert: The Thai brothel featured in the film was actually a genuine and functioning brothel. The extras who feature in these scenes (excluding Malalene's character) were actual prostitutes who were paid more by Golden Harvest than they would normally receive in a day by their clients so that they could appear in the film.
• Cast the Runner-Up: The original star was James Tien, who plays Hsiu Chien, while Bruce Lee was to be a co-star. However, when directors changed, the stars switched, giving Lee top billing. This may also be part of the reason why Lee does not fight until halfway through the film.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Chen is voiced by movie and TV actor, and also a martial artist by his own right, Hiroshi Fujioka, better known by toku fans as Takeshi Hongo aka the original Kamen Rider and Segata Sanshiro.
• Descended Creator: Han Ying-chieh, the titular boss, was also the film's fight choreographer.
• Dueling Dubs: The film has two English dubs. One is an extremely typical Ted Thomas-filled Hong Kong dub with the original Mandarin soundtrack. The other is the U.S. dub, which almost entirely replaced this version internationally, featuring a new score by German composer Peter Thomas. Almost every major foreign version used this dub as a basis. The incomplete HK dub was only recently bootleg telecined and later slapped onto the Shout! Factory Blu-Ray as a bonus track. Interestingly, a good two minutes of this dub was heard on some earlier DVD releases of the U.S. dub for some unexplained reason.
• Follow the Leader:
  • The idea to shoot in Thailand came from the success of a recent Shaw Brothers film about Muay Thai boxing called Duel of Fists.
  • In 1974, Shaw Brothers attempts their own take in The Shadow Boxer, another movie where its protagonist, a youngster who had taken a vow of non-violence, discovers his boss to be a drug smuggling baron who kills off his workers who knew his secrets. The protagonist of Shadow Boxer even has a passing resemblance to Bruce Lee.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Most prints are missing several scenes that were in the original Mandarin version shown in theaters in 1971. Whilst some scenes were cut for being violent there are others which were removed strictly for pacing reasons, such as some which were featured in some of the film's trailers. Apparently the uncut version still exists, circulates amongst collectors and was even touted for an official release at one point, but nobody knows for sure. If there is an uncut version, it's so rare that even the Criterion Collection couldn't secure it for their comprehensive Bruce Lee boxset. As for the 110-minute Mandarin cut released by Arrow Films, good luck acquiring a copy in the U.S. without having to don an eyepatch and sail the seven seas
• Market-Based Title: The film was originally going to be retitled The Chinese Connection for the American market in order to cash in on the success of The French Connection (as both films' plots involved drug trafficking). Unfortunately the American distributor screwed up by accidentally switching the title with that of Fist of Fury (in singular), which was meant to be called Fists of Fury in America. For awhile, The Big Boss was known as Fists of Fury in America, while Fist of Fury was The Chinese Connection, until later re-releases restored the original titles.
  • If the above paragraph confused you, it basically says that film A was supposed to get title C and film B was supposed to get title D, but because of a mix-up, film A got titled D and film B got title C instead.
• Missing Episode: This is surely the most cut film in Bruce Lee's library, with some scenes never making it into any surviving prints of the film because they were cut shortly after (or even before?) release, leading to speculations whether some of these scenes even existed in the first place. As of 2023, a new box set has been released where about 10 minutes of the original footage has been restored, that presumably has last been seen 1979 (known as the "Mandarin cut"). However there are still scenes missing, most notably is the "saw in head" scene, but also the "bodyparts in ice" scene has gained notoriety. For more infos see here and here.
• No Budget: The production was so haphazard that the equipment was in bad condition and the "script" consisted of a few basic ideas scribbled down on scraps of paper.
• On-Set Injury: Bruce Lee sprained his ankle badly while landing awkwardly from a jump. He couldn't move properly and was also racked with aches and fever and was having difficulty keeping food down. Even so, filming continued. His twisted ankle meant that he had to drag his injured leg, so in several scenes he had to be filmed in closeup. He also broke a glass in his hand very early on in production, resulting in a gash that required ten stitches and a large plaster, which is very noticeable throughout the movie, especially the scenes filmed at the ice factory, which was the first location filmed. While at the hospital in Bangkok, he caught flu and rapidly lost ten pounds.
• Star-Making Role: The film made Bruce Lee a national hero in Hong Kong.
• Troubled Production:
  • After just a few days, the overbearing and aggressive original director, Wu Chia Hsiang, was replaced by Lo Wei (the husband of associate producer Liu Liang-Hua). Bruce Lee was initially sceptical of Lo, describing him in letters to Linda as a fame lover and not particularly focused on being much of a director. He was also The Gambling Addict, more concerned about what was happening on the racetrack than on the set. Because sound wasn't recorded at the same time the action was filmed, he arranged to have the commentary of the horse races booming across the set, infuriating Lee.
  • Lee hated the filming location of Pak Chong, Thailand, describing it as a lawless, impoverished and undeveloped village. Due to the lack of fresh food, Bruce was losing weight due to a lack of proper diet, having to eat canned meat and supplement his diet with vitamins, which he had thankfully brought along. He occasionally lost his voice through trying to shout above the noise on set. Mosquitoes and cockroaches were plentiful in the hotel, and the tap water was yellow. At times, filming had to be delayed by heavy rain.
  • When Lee arrived in Pak Chong, rival film companies tried desperately to poach him away from Golden Harvest, including Shaw Brothers. A film producer from Taiwan told Bruce to rip up his contract and promised to take care of any lawsuit that might ensue from breach of said contract. Bruce, a man of his word, had no intention of considering the offers, although it did add some extra tension on the film set.
  • Although Ying-Chieh Han was the official fight coordinator, Lee took control of his own fight scenes almost immediately. When there was some dispute, he would disrupt filming with a little strategy, such as 'losing' one of his contact lenses while filming in the ice-cutting factory where there were thousands of tiny ice chips on the floor.
  • One night, filming of the big fight in the ice house had to be stopped for an hour as Lee had lost a contact lens, and dozens of people were on their hands and knees looking for it amongst thousands of ice chips. Eventually Lee found it himself, leading Lo Wei to wonder if he had it in his pocket all along, and was deliberately being disruptive.
  • The final fight proved problematic, as Lee endured "two days of hell" when he sprained his ankle from a high jump on a slipped mattress and had to be driven to Bangkok to see a doctor, where he caught a virus in the hot and stuffy conditions. Close-ups were used to finish the fight, as Bruce struggled and had to drag his leg, which contributed to and was covered up by his character's worn out, exhausted appearance.
• Wag the Director: Bruce Lee was originally against a few of director Lo Wei's ideas used in the film. First was when one of the foremen was to be punched through a wooden wall. Lo wanted to leave the villain's outline in the wall, similar to something in a cartoon. Lee tried his best to change it, but somehow Lo got the upper hand. The second, and the most famous scene of the film, is the climactic "jump kick joust" between Lee and the boss. Lee, once again, didn't like the idea due to its separation from realism. However, he gave in, and the shot was done. Third was the use of trampolines and mattresses to give jumps a lot of additional height and range. Again, Lo got his way.

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