For almost 30 years, rumours about the existence of the film has sent searchers following a well-trodden trail from Hong Kong to the US.

Privately, Fortune STAR executives had always believed the footage lay buried somewhere in their vast vaults for almost 30 years. 'We knew they were there,' says general manager Peter Poon. 'But with so many films stored in so many different places, we'd been unable to locate the footage.'

That was until the company decided to move its storage facilities back to its Whampoa Gardens headquarters two years ago. That required sorting through everything they had. Boxes that had been gathering dust for years were unpacked and repacked during the move ... and the long-lost film cells were found among countless other titles. 'We were lucky,' says Poon.

Which may be how some of Lee's die-hard fans are feeling now. Fortune STAR will this week release the first complete box set of Lee's films in high-definition (HD) format - including the lost footage.

'We've taken some of those outtakes and compiled a before-and-after comparison with the final edit of the film and placed them on a special features DVD,' Poon says.

The seven-disc Bruce Lee Ultimate DVD Collection, to be released tomorrow, includes all Lee's major films - The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon, Game of Death, Game of Death II, and Enter the Dragon - the unseen outtakes from Game of Death, a new trailer, and interviews with local actors and martial arts directors such as Stephen Tung Wai, Wong Jing and Sammo Hung Kam-bo.

It's good news for fans of the star, whose appeal has only grown since his death. Hundreds of Lee websites attract up to 5,000 hits a day each. Lee, whose feature film career lasted only two years, from 1971-1973, has retained his cool image over the years and continues to attract young devotees.

This box set should particularly please his local fans, because until now copyright complexities have prevented his small body of feature film work from being released in one package. Warner Brothers holds the worldwide rights, outside Asia, to Enter the Dragon, while Golden Harvest - which made the movies - owned the copyright to his other works, before selling it to STAR several years ago.

The box set will be released only in Asia, reproduced on HD format with digital surround sound DTS 5.1. The films will also be released with their original Chinese soundtracks (with English subtitles), which will please those who've long complained about the poor dubbing of many versions produced for overseas markets.

'The whole restoration process has taken us about two years,' says Poon. 'We decided to do it in high definition because we didn't want to have to catch up with technology and do another release when HD finally takes off.'

Advances in DVD and sound technology are driving a boom in film restoration. In the past year, Celestial Pictures has restored many Shaw Brothers classics that had not been available since their cinema release in the 1960s and 70s.

However, the Bruce Lee Ultimate DVD Collection will have to slug it out with the many different versions of his titles already on shelves. Despite the numerous Lee releases during the past three decades, Poon says he's confident the $500 box set will appeal to movie buffs because it offers Lee's complete catalogue and the unseen footage.

He says the earlier versions on the market don't bother him, and he's confident fans will find the novel packaging worth paying for.

'We've found that avid Bruce Lee fans don't care if they already have the DVD of the movies,' he says. 'They'll buy new releases just for the different packaging. But this will be worthwhile for them because of the extra features. It's reasonably priced and it's a boxed set for collectors that won't be released outside Asia.'