- Pierre Berton: There are lines that express your philosophy. I don't know if you remember them
- Bruce Lee: I remember them
- Pierre Berton: Let's hear It
- Bruce Lee: I said... this Is what It Is, okay? I said, ''Empty your mind. Be formless. Shapeless, like water. Now, you put water into a cup, It becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, It becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or It can crash. Be water my friend''.
- Mantis: [From dialogue cantonese with the English subtitles] His big advantage is that he gives no thought to life or death. And with no distracting thoughts, he is therefore free to concentrate on fighting against the attack from outside.
- Mantis: [From dialogue cantonese with the English subtitles] With his great size, he is going to find it difficult to keep getting up each time I knock him down.
- Mantis: [From dialogue cantonese with the English subtitles] Look at him. Give him the fatigue bombing!
- Mantis: [From dialogue cantonese with the English subtitles] I'm so tired. No, no! Hai Tien, he must be much more tired than you. Calm down your soul.
- Hai Tien: [prepares to fight with his bamboo whip] You know baby, this bamboo is longer, more flexible and very much alive, and if your flashy routine cannot keep up with the speed and elusiveness of this thing here, all I can say is you will be in deep trouble.
- Third Floor Guardian: That we will have to find out.
- Hai Tien: [fight proceeds] I am telling you it is difficult to have a rehearsed routine to fit in with broken rhythm... see, rehearsed routines, lack the flexibility to adapt.
- Fighter accomplice antagonist: You are my brother! I will let you do this first deed of merit. You go ahead. Wish you success.
- Narration: Five years after his passing, excerpta from the film Lee had worked so feverishly on during the final months and hours of his Life, are edited into a film featuring Lee's title, The Game of Death. But the film bears no comparison to Lee's original multi-level vision. Without Lee's choreograghy notes, script-outline and motif the producers are uncertain what to do with the 100 minutes of footage they have in their possession. Moreover, they discovery that Lee was such a perfectionist that of the 100 minutes of footage they have in hand, two-thirds turn out to be outtakes and retakes, shot that Lee himself had discarded for sequences in the film that he felt were beneath his standard of quality. They deem only 11 minutes and 7 seconds of the footage ti be worthy of inclusion in their film. The rest, approximately 21 minutes worth, they discard. Intercutting actual footage of Lee into fight sequences involving lookalikes and even using cardboard cutouts of Lee's head, the end result Is viewed by many as an exploitive and grotesque joke played on the great artist's legacy. By now, even Lee's most zealous fans are beginning to believe that the original footage Is gone. And that It will never be possible to see the footage Lee shot in its entirety nor to ever learn what his original storyline for the film was. In the fall of 1994, during research conducted for a multi-volume book series based on Lee's surviving writings, Lee's original script and choreograghy writings for The Game of Death are recovered. The writings confirm what had long been suspected thath Lee had shot considerably more footage for The Game of Death than had been seen to date. Another unexpected surprise Is discovered among his choreography writings. His hand-written storyline, 12 pages in length and containing all scene breakdowns and select dialogue passages the original storyline stands in sharp contrast to the one presented in the film released under the same name. After the discovery of Lee's script notes a search to find the missing footage Is launched. It will last some six years, but then the miraculous happens. The original 35mm film footage Is located. After having been separated for over a quarter of a century Bruce Lee's original footage and script notes are finally reunited. Over the course of this film, you'll see this footage as Bruce Lee had intended for It to be shown, and you'll also come to understand the struggle he had to undergo in order to bring It to the big screen. And perhaps along the way, you'll come to know the real Bruce Lee the man behind the legend, a little better as well.
- Linda Lee Cadwell: Then It's just two people who are being aware of their own movements who are observing the other person's movements and being able to fit in with that person's movements, so that there's no set pattern of movements. No ''well, when be does this, then I do this.'' It's just a total freedom to react to what the other person does. In fact, Bruce inscribes It perfectly on the back of this medallion where he wrote his motto, It says, ''Using no way as way having no limitations as limitations.'' Over the years this phrase has been somewhat misinterpreted. People think of using ''no way as way'' to mean anything I do is okay ''and anything I do is my way.'' I don't think Bruce really intended It to mean that way. He just meant not to be boxed in by a certain way, so that you never get into a situation where there's only one response. You adapt to what the situation calls for. I think Bruce had that down pretty well.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: When Bruce closed the schools, he felt he was unburdening himself of having to prove through his students that his system had merit. He didn't want to get into that. He wanted them to evolve and teach, but It was not a thing where ''you have to teach what I taught. You have to teach what you learned and that's going to be more than what he taught, hopefully for those students that understood what he was doing.''
- Narration: In the battle of the third floor, Lee's character makes use of a green bamboo whip. The whip represents flexibility, an attribute which Lee felt a martial artist must possess if he was to be successful in combat. Since combat, like Life, Is not predictable, Lee held that one must possess a pliable adaptability in order to change with change. Lee has his charactery dressed in a one-piece yellow track suit to symbolize no affiliation with any known martial arts style.
- Self - Interview: [Lee had chosen his real-life senior-most student, Taky Kimura to play the guardian of the second floor. According to Kimura, Lee wanted him to utilize praying mantis gung fu as well as some elements of wing chun, both arts that emphasize infighting use of hands predominately, with kicks limited to below the waist] I think It was in October of '71-'72, in that era. He called me and said he wanted me to be in that movie. I said, Look, Bruce, I've got two left front feet. You know it and I know it. There's probably 1,000 people in Hong Kong that can do It better. Just let me sit here and enjoy the fruits of your success. You know me, I don't need ti be in that. He said, No, I want you in it. I'm the techical director and the co-producer. Don't worry about it. So, I reluctantly, for fear that he'd kick my butt if I said no, at that point, I said okay. He'd already sent me an airline ticket. And really, I think at this point in his life. I think he had transcended the gimmicks that are usually in these movies. And I think that he had gotten to that plateau where you could just simply do the simple, you know, normal things and yet create that excitement within that simplicity.