10 Movie Conspiracy Theories You Won't Believe Exist

The sudden death of movie and martial arts star Bruce Lee aged just 32 and at the peak of physical fitness has predictably generated talk that his death may have been more suspicious than the official story would have us all believe. The most prevailing theory is that the Triads, China’s equivalent of the Mafia, had Bruce killed for either exposing the secrets of the martial arts via his kung fu movies or as revenge for him betraying Hong Kong’s film industry, which the Triad are apparently entrenched in, for Hollywood productions. Whether any of this holds any weight is debatable, but when Bruce Lee’s son Brandon later died at a similarly young age and under even more suspicious circumstances the conspiracy theory flames were well and truly fanned.

Any cult film fan worth their salt has heard of Brandon Lee’s death on the set of fantasy revenge flick The Crow. Brandon, an actor and martial artist just like his father, was killed during a shootout scene when a prop gun misfired launching a fragment of a dummy bullet at the star and fatally striking him in the abdomen. A tragic and untimely accident that can most likely be put down to unfortunate negligence, but where’s the paranoid fun in that? According to some it was also a hit by the Triad undertaken by a suspicious Asian-American extra who turned up on-set the day of the shooting, messed with the prop gun that caused Brandon’s death and conveniently was never seen again.

It doesn’t end there either. Before Bruce Lee died, he had begun filming a movie named Game of Death. Though the film was unfinished before his death Bruce did get around to shooting a scene in which his character Billy Lo, a martial arts actor like Lee, is the victim of an attempted assassination when a hitman sneaks on set and tries to kill him after swapping a blank bullet for a real one during a shootout scene. Sound familiar at all?

But why would the Triad go to all the trouble of killing Brandon too? Apparently, the Triad’s grudges are long-standing and with Brandon following his father’s footsteps into the world of martial arts and movie stardom, they too saw him as a threat. As for why they’d orchestrate Brandon’s death in a manner that mimicked a scene from one of Bruce’s movies? Seems the Triad believes revenge is a dish best served poetically.