ACTION star Bruce Lee died while shooting “Game of Death” in 1973, but his 12 minutes of footage was so spectacular – and Lee was such a huge star – that the producers eventually completed the film using a double.
“Finishing the Game,” a genially scattershot mockumentary, re-imagines the process of finding Lee’s replacement (by a rookie director who’s the studio boss’ son and a bossy casting director, played by scene-stealer Meredith Scott Lynn) as a way of commenting on Asian-American identity.
The competitors include a blatant Lee imitator named Breeze Loo (Roger Fan); a one-time cop-show star (Dustin Nguyen) scraping by as a vacuum cleaner salesman; a white actor (McCaleb Burnett) who dubiously claims Asian ancestry; and an Indian-American doctor (Mousa Kraish) who worked as Breeze Loo’s stunt double.
There are more laughs than you would expect from Justin Lin, the earnest director of the indie “Better Luck Tomorrow” (as well as the slick studio products “Annapolis” and “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”), as well as cameos by MC Hammer, Ron Jeremy and James Franco.
Running time: 88 minutes. Not rated (profanity, action violence). At the IFC Center, Sixth Avenue and Waverly Place.