In this film Kim Tai Jung was one of 3 Bruce Lee doublers, HK business man Chen Yao Po was used for dialog scenes, Yuen Biao was engaged for stunts and Kim was body, fight and walk doubler. Finally movie was made and released in 1978 and it grossed huge price. Even if film was not good as it would be probably would be that Bruce Lee was able to finish it, but it have some very good fights as Green House fight with Ca Sa Fa and locker room fight with Bob Wall.
Kim Tai Jung was born on 1956 in city of Pusan, South Korea. In early childhood he began with practicing Tae Kwon Do and later he trained it in gym with late star Dragon Lee. Like pretty much every other man in that time, Kim was dreaming about becoming big action movies star. His house was fool of Bruce Lee film posters, he used to watch all his films many times until first screen test for Game of Death in 1977. Before auditions he left Pusan for Seul where Korean film company offered him a job but he refused it and went to HK without appearing in the movie.
After Game of Death was made, Hong Kong film producer NG See-Yuen wanted to make movie sequel and Reymond Chow promised that in future film he would use much unseen Bruce Lee footage, but suddenly it turned up to be just cut scenes from Enter the Dragon. Jackie Chan was supposed to get role in Tower in Death but Kim’s stronger performance won.
However when they began with filming movie Tower of Death (Game of Death II) where Kim was Bruce Lee doubler once again, but also played his brother under the stage name Tong Lung. This was hard period for Kim because he wasn’t able to speak Cantonese, but luckily there was another Korean actor on the set, Hwang Jang Lee who translated most of dialog to Kim.
After 3 years of hard work Tower of Death was finally released in 1981 and it grossed 1.950.391 HK$ and became on of the best known Kung Fu films of that period, also end fight scene between Kim and Hwang Jang Lee was very high rated. After Tower of Death, Kim went back to Korea where he starred in some movies including Taiwanese co-production Bruce & Jackie to the Rescue that was shot in 1981 and released in 1982, co-starring Jackie Chan look-alike named Jackie Chang who is actually actor Lee Siu-Ming.
In 1985 Kim was invented to play Bruce Lee’s ghost in another NG See-Yuen production No Retreat, No Surrender debut movie of Jean Claude Van Damme. Kim went to the USA to shot a movie, but on set there were many troubles.
Namely leading actor Kurt McKinney used to call Kim “Sensei Lee” on and off the set. Kim got angry because Kurt didn’t call him by his real name and fight at the set almost happened, another problem was in that Kim didn’t speak the word of English so during his dialog scenes he talked in Korea, and later his voice was dubbed. After this film Kim went back to Korean and began with business deals.
In 2007 Kim Tai Jung appeared on 12th International Punch Festival where his Hong Kong style action comedy movie Miss, Please be Patient, originally shot in 1981 was shown. Movie was also presented by Ryu Seung-Wan (City of Violence) on New York film festival. Recently Kim made appearance in documentray film Legend of the Era, that is parody on choosing doubler for Game of Death. These
days Kim is spending with trying to make his own martial art movie Yakuza with
him in the leading role.
