For anyone who read the script from the DVD. SPOILERS
First let me say that when I saw this movie when it was first played on cable I was probably 7-8, yet I remember it moving me profoundly like no other experience up to that time - and actually asking deep questions of myself. I would watch it over and over seeing something I missed before. This movie may have been soley responsible for questioning of certain teachings which got me in a lot of trouble growing up.
That being said, is this film perfect? No. I did end up buying it though after having forgotten it for years (not remembering the title until I was reading a book about Bruce Lee and saw a single photo of Cord fighting the monkyman, then it all came flooding back). I read the script and was surprised at how close it was to the finished film other then the sex, gore and last few seconds of the film. Knowing how Hollywood types like to rebuild everything in their own image when the original wrters are not on the project.
It seems clear to me that Lee didn't come back to finish this film when Coburn contacted him because he was already working on a less zen-like version in the Game of Death. Oddly, in the script they talk about a fighter called the "black giant", who was played by Earl Maynard. Seems that this was probably meant as a role for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
I was shocked to find that "the book" was never seen by Cord in the screenplay. To me that is the best part of the whole story. The movie would not have had the impact that it did had it ended as it did in the screenplay. So finally, I get to what my post is about. I prefered the ending in the movie, but thought the expalnations of the 2nd and 3rd trials were much beter in the screenplay. I just thought there was much mre depth in the scrpt. What were your oppinions of the script verses the film?