Finishing the Game.

This "extended audition sequence for the new Bruce Lee" is "a terrific idea still waiting to be fashioned into a real movie," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times.

"Finishing the Game's observations about the unflattering celluloid treatment of Asians can be summed up by a greedy studio head's (Sam Bottoms) 'They all look alike" slander,' writes Nick Schager at Slant. "If its critique sometimes lacks grace, it's nonetheless bolstered by a shrewd understanding of the way pop culture exploits minority differences for entertainment purposes as well as co-opts rebellion against such treatment..., all while capturing the means by which minorities unwittingly, deleteriously perpetuate stereotypes through self-deception."

Updated through 10/8.

"As [Justin] Lin says in his director's notes, Lee is an inescapable Asian-American icon who embodies both the contributions of the Asian community and the vicious stereotyping that's plagued it. Game of Death's completion exemplified this dichotomy," writes John Constantine at Nerve. "Unfortunately, Finishing the Game fails to make much of its promising conceit."

"[H]ard as it is to believe that anyone thinks the comic possibilities of polyester arrow collars haven't been thoroughly strip-mined, those are the primary source of ostensible laffs here," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice.

"Finishing the Game doesn't get anywhere that Hollywood Shuffle didn't go to first," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club.

"Though reminiscent of Christopher Guest's films (and the fake Dirk Diggler documentary featured in Boogie Nights), Finishing the Game lacks Guest's subtle eccentricity, as well as his ability to render idiosyncratic characters with simultaneous strangeness and familiarity," writes Cullen Gallagher in the L Magazine.

Update, 10/8: IndieWIRE interviews Lin.

Posted by dwhudson at October 5, 2007 2:13 AM