Metacritic Film

Finishing the Game

Starring Roger Fan, Sung Kang, James Franco, McCaleb Burnett, Jim Parrack, Dustin Nguyen, Cassidy Freeman, and M.C. Hammer

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

IFC Films
Comedy
88 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters October 5, 2007

The unexpected death of Bruce Lee, a world-wide phenomenon and established movie star, came at the zenith of his popularity. Having already shot scenes for his upcoming movie Game of Death, studio heads decided to complete the film by launching a search for his replacement attracting hopefuls from all around the world. Finishing the Game is an uproarious, poignant, unpredictable and action-packed re-imagining of that casting process for Lee's replacement and examines the leaps and bounds Asians have taken in media representation - or have they? (IFC Films)

WRITTEN BY
Josh Diamond
Justin Lin

DIRECTED BY
Justin Lin

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

46 / 100

Critic Reviews

75	San Francisco Chronicle David Wiegand When you finally stop laughing, there is something to think about.
70	LA Weekly There’s nothing new in the movie’s sociocultural insights, especially for those of us already interested in how identity is shaped by pop culture, but the breezy tone and obvious fun being had by the cast make Finishing the Game a slight, low-key cool cinematic essay on identity politics.
63	TV Guide It feels as though everyone involved was having a rollicking good time, and while the film itself is wildly uneven, Lin and company get in a few pointed jabs at Hollywood fatuousness and self-delusion, cultural stereotypes and '70s fashions.
60	The Hollywood Reporter Justin Lowe The ensemble cast members play well off one another, particularly Fan as the self-absorbed Bruce Lee wannabe and Lynn in the role of the monumentally ignorant casting director.
50	The Onion (A.V. Club) Finishing The Game doesn't get anywhere that "Hollywood Shuffle" didn't go to first, even if it has its own set of specific complaints about how show business treats Asians.
50	New York Post A genially scattershot mockumentary.
40	The New York Times A faux documentary grounded in ethnicity and mired in absurdity, Finishing the Game is a terrific idea still waiting to be fashioned into a real movie.
40	Los Angeles Times Staff (Not credited) Only intermittently funny at best, but mostly full of dead air, the film is a let-down on both fronts.
40	Village Voice Nick Pinkerton By setting the film in a deliberately distanced '70s, writer-director Justin Lin gets the benefit of looking-back-in-superiority.
25	Entertainment Weekly The film completely misses what should have been its real target -- the filming of Game of Death, a martial-arts campfest worthy of Edward D. Wood Jr.

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