Yes, it's a god-awful film, and that's EXACTLY why they're showing it on IFC - because it's *beep* hilarious!!!
I could not stop watching it - it's mesmerizing!
I've never been a strong believer in the "so-bad-it's-good" theory, but this movie has changed my mind. I'd recommend it to anyone. Get a good drunk on, snuggle up to your favorite "sex bomb", and laugh yourself silly.
It's an unbelievably funny film, especially the dubbing. I love it when the bartender angrily informs Betty's attackers that she did not kill Bruce, but that "he died of an old brain disease!" I'm a big Bruce Lee fan and, while I do find a slick, big-budget travesty like "Game of Death" insulting, there's a lot to laugh about in "Bruce Lee: His Last Days, His Last Nights". I can't imagine how anyone could be offended by this film--it's too clumsy and pathetic to do any damage to Lee's memory.
I think the newer generation of fans are upset by it because they knew nothing about Betty Ting Pei and her relationship with Lee (whereas it's common knowledge among hoary Hong Kong film freex like yours truly). I dunno...I guess I just don't understand where all the outrage is coming from. Lee wasn't a superhero; he was a human being with human faults. One can deny the affair until the cows come home, but the fact that Lee was frequently seen at Ting Pei's apartment and that she even flew to Rome to visit him on the set of "Way of the Dragon" makes it difficult to believe that something wasn't going on between them.
I think the outrage is because Betty just HAD to make this POS in the first place. Yes, for the older fans like us, we knew he had an ongoing affair with Betty.....but I certainly didn't want to see it; especially from her *beep* up point of view.
I guess what makes me the sickest is that Bruce must have been into slimy women with no morals. Linda has shown the utmost class and poise throughout all of it. His kids certainly did not deserve to have this crap thrown in their faces. Betty should be completely ashamed of herself.
I went into the movie trying to see Betty as possibly a sympathetic person and was curious as to what Bruce saw in her. I came away completely baffled. She was a prostitute....I don't and never will buy that all she did with the men was "dance and have dinner". She was a drug addict and addicted to gambling. I have no clue what he honestly saw in her.
While it is very true that he was just a normal man with normal faults, do you think he would approved of this movie? I think not.
The question, at least for me, isn't whether or not Bruce Lee would have approved of the film (yes, I'm sure he would have been less than thrilled by it, and understandably so). The question is why so many fans regard any less-than-heroic depiction of Bruce Lee as a personal affront. I'm not talking about slander, like the Tom Bleecker book ("Unsettled Matters")--that's a horse of an altogether different color. The Betty Ting Pei affair, on the other hand, is well established. And actually, I didn't think Bruce Lee came off too badly in "His Last Days, His Last Nights". Despite the title, he's little more than a peripheral character, and what we do see of him isn't especially offensive: a determined, ambitious guy, a little cocky, who happens to be engaged in an extramarital affair. All those things were true of Lee in real life. (The slow-motion love scenes were tasteless, but one can reasonably assume that Lee and Ting Pei had a physical relationship and not just an emotional affair.) But somehow, I get the feeling that no depiction of Ting Pei's involvement with Lee, regardless of how diplomatically it was handled, would win the approval of Lee's more rabid fans.
Betty Ting Pei was a tacky person who made a tacky film, unquestionably. But the film is much more about her than about Bruce Lee and, consequently, damages her reputation rather than his. Whatever else might be said about her, I honestly don't think she intended any malice--and, judging from her refusal to join the Japanese publicity tour for "His Last Days, His Last Nights", she too was unimpressed by the final product.