The transcript below is from the video “THE TRUTH about Bruce Lee’s Yellow Suit in Game of Death!” by Bruce Willow.

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

There’s a vicious rumor that’s made its way around Hollywood for many years thanks to one documentary about the symbolism of Game of Death, you know. Why did Bruce Lee wear a yellow outfit with black stripes when he was climbing up the tower? And what was the symbolism and was he really wearing that yellow jumpsuit, showing that he was representing all Asians in their journey to equality with white men?

Bruce Willow:

Oh, really? That was far-fetched.

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

Yeah, I was stunned. I was actually stunned to hear this years ago. I was like, wow! That’s really trippy. The reason it’s really trippy was because I was actually on the set, standing with Bruce today, that the wardrobe guy/ lady, actually was the wardrobe guy and his assistant came shuffling up and said to Bruce because he was directing Game of Death.

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

Hey, for the scene where you fight inside the temple, because we were gonna do the different stages, right? We were gonna fight with Jabbar in the pagoda. Then we were gonna do Danny Inosanto’s and we were gonna do all these different people as we figured out what the tower of death was all about, which was open to a lot of discussion. And so Bruce looked and there were two suits. There was a yellow one with black bars. There was a black one with yellow bars. So Bruce said, well, I think I’ll wear the black one. it’ll make me look lean, etc cause before we made Enter the Dragon. And then, you know, we can have Kareem kick me and put a footprint. It’ll look really great, right? There’s big footprint on the black. Sounds good.

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

So the wardrobe man went off, bought a couple of the black ones, kept the yellow one because in those days you didn’t get samples, you had to pay for everything. So he had the black ones, he had the yellow ones and Kareem showed up. We were getting ready to start filming and Bruce said, you know, I’m gonna have you Kareem at a certain point in the fight. Then you’re gonna kick me in the chest and I’m gonna fall backwards and then when I stand up, there’ll be this big footprint right across my chest as before we knock the glasses off and skis got the cat’s eyes…

Bruce Willow:

Yeah, he’s still sitting down. Yeah.

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

So he says to the wardrobe man, I want to see how big the footprint is because he would put it straight, would he put it sideways cause you know Bruce wasn’t that big

Bruce Willow:

Kareem’s feet were bigger than Bruce.

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

Yeah, Kareem’s feet were appropriate to the size of Kareem. So the wardrobe man says well what kind of dust you’re gonna have on the floor? Nobody really thought about things like this, what kind of dust you want on the floor. Well, we need dust on the floor so you can have dust on his foot, so his foot can go like that. So he goes off and he comes back and he’s got white dust and he’s put a big imprint on the black jersey. Personally, I think it looks like sh*t. It looks weird, looks like somebody took [inaudible].

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

So this wardrobe man went off mumbling to himself as wardrobe men do and about 10 minutes later, he comes back with the yellow one, with a gray footprint on it. Bruce says that’s perfect. The wardrobe man goes off and quickly buys 3 more of the yellows with the black stripes and we reshot the entry shots

So when Kareem arrives, boom, it shows… why? Why the yellow? Because it makes for better foot prints.

Bruce Willow:

So it’s not symbolic of the power to the …

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

Nothing to do with the yellow man’s burden, or the black man’s burden, nor the white man’s burden. Foot prints look better in grey on a yellow. Never forget that, it’s a very important lesson for you as a stuntman, as a producer, as a director, okay. Get your foot to match the fabric.

Bruce Willow:

If you know that, you’re ready to graduate.

Andre Morgan (Film Producer & Financial Consultant):

Believe me, you’re on the producer school 301

Bruce Willow:

Oh, nice, nice. I’m a black belt already. That’s incredible. That’s amazing.