Dragon Squad (2005)

Dragon Squad (2005)
aka: Dragon Heat
Chinese Title: 猛龍
Translation: Fierce Dragons

 

Starring: Vanness Wu Chien-Hao, Shawn Yu Man-Lok, Xia Yu, Eva Huang Sheng-Yi, Lawrence Chou Chun-Wai, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, Michael Biehn, Heo Jun-Ho, Li Bing-Bing, Maggie Q, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Isabella Leung Lok-Sze, Andy On Chi-Kit, Kent Tong Chun-Yip, Hugo Ng Doi-Yung, Gordon Liu Chia-Hui, Liu Kai-Chi, Sammy Hung Tin-Chiu, Philip Ng Wan-Lung
Director: Daniel Lee
Action Director: Chin Kar-Lok

Most people agree that Hong Kong action cinema had started to decline in the second half of the 1990s. Others before me have discussed the reasons in at length, but suffice to say that by this period, a mixture of rampant movie piracy, the Triads bleeding much of the industry dry, and the fears of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong back to the PRC driving much of its talent to Hollywood resulted in a declined quality (and interest) in the product the local studios were releasing. I think that was also about the time that the modern Hollywood blockbuster business model was really taking shape, with each year having multiple big-budgeted CGI epics to compete with the local films.

That doesn’t mean that Hong Kong stopped making action movies. It was clear that international audiences were starting to wake up the works of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and many theaters tried to make films that might have natural worldwide appeal, full of slick effects and pretty faces. Thus, we got a lot of Hong Kong films trying ape Hollywood, like Downtown Torpedoes and that execrable Extreme Crisis. Jet Li movies made money as long as they were set in period and Jackie Chan was…well, Jackie Chan. His movies from both sides of the Pacific continued to be reasonably (and sometimes outrageously) successful.

But it was clear that the magic of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s was gone. Many of the new “photogenic” actors lacked the charisma of the likes of Chow Yun-Fat, Jackie, Sammo and Yuen. Sammo was rebuilding his career after numerous flops and bad press in the first half of the 1990s, first as a director and then as an actor. Yuen Biao had been appearing in Filipino films, but was starting to make his way back as a respected supporting actor. But the people who took their place on the action front—Ekin Cheng, Aaron Kwok, Nicolas Tse, etc.—were still a little wet behind the ears. They have grown over the past two decades, but they couldn’t make us forget the good ol’ days at that time.

Despite some winners coming out of the Jade Screen in the early aughts, like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; Hero; and So Close, things were getting pretty dire in Hong Kong by 2003. The following year showed some signs of improvement. Jackie Chan’s image had been blighted by the one-two punch that was The Tuxedo and The Medallion, but his Hong Kong film New Police Story showed us that he still had it in him. House of Flying Daggers, Zhang Yimou’s follow-up to Hero, was a beautiful film with some of choreographer Ching Siu-Tung’s best work. And Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle, made a killing at the Hong Kong box office.

The year 2005 is often considered the comeback year for Hong Kong action. Most of the credit goes to Donnie Yen, who had been slumming in the late 1990s with low-budget directorial films of varying quality. Unlike Jackie, Chow Yun-Fat and Jet Li, his forays into Hollywood were a lot more low key, doing bit parts and choreography in films like Highlander: Endgame and Blade II. However, he was able to use Hollywood on his résumé to get him some more prestigious action directing gigs on films like Twins Effect, which eventually led to his comeback in front of the camera. His two movies from that year, Sha Po Lang (or SPL or Killzone) and Seven Swords, were successful in Asian markets and both won him best Action Choreography Awards in Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively. Dragon Squad sometimes comes up in conversation about important action films from that period, although it hasn’t quite stood the test of time like its contemporaries have.

We open with a news report that a big-name drug dealer, Panther Duen (Hugo Ng, of Jiang Hu: The Triad Zone and Bloody Buns), has been arrested after a sting operation that took the lives of three police officers. Because the empire shared by Duen and his brother, Tiger (Kent Tong, of The Dragon Family and Chasing the Dragon), has its reaches all over the world, Interpol has sent a crack team of agents to help the police escort him to his trial to guarantee nothing goes wrong.

Enter the titular Dragon Squad: Wang Sun-Ho (Vaness Wu, who was in Daniel Lee’s Star Runner) is a former American Army Ranger and sort of the brains of the outfit; Hung Kei-Lok (Shawn Yu, of Reign of Assassins and The Guillotines) is a Hong Kong cop whose specialty is daredevil driving—he infiltrates illegal races; Luo Zai-Jen (Xia Yu, who “fought” Bruce Lee in Rise of the Dragon) is the sniper of the outfit; James Lam (Lawrence Chou, of Forest of Death and The Death Curse) is…well…there; and finally there’s Ashley Pak (Kung Fu Hustle’s Eva Huang), a Hong Kong cop who specializes in going undercover as Triad molls.

On the day of Panther Duen’s trial, the Dragon Squad is assigned by Commander Hong Sun (Simon Yam, of Exiled and Election) to lead a decoy convoy in order to distract Tiger’s men from trying to free him. What nobody knows is that there is another group at work in all this. That would be a mercenary force led by North Korean exile Colonel Ko (Volcano High’s Heo Jun-Ho). His team consists of Colombian drug lord Petros Angelo (Michael Beihn, of Aliens and The Terminator); Vietnamese sniper Yuet (Maggie Q, who was in Daniel Lee’s Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon); the musclebound Joe Pearson (Mark Henderson); and the shotgun-toting Lee (Philip Ng, who fought Xia Yu in Rise of the Dragon).

So, why are they involved in all this? Well, a few years before, they were apparently contracted by the Duen Brothers to perform a high-stakes bank robbery. The Duens betrayed them, getting away with all the money and leaving one of the mercenaries—Petros’s brother—dead in the street. So, they want revenge of the Duen Brothers and to get their cut of the money. They find out where the real convoy is, kill a whole bunch of police officers, and make off with Panther Duen in tow. Now, they have a bargaining chip.

Meanwhile, the Dragon Squad is taken off the case by Commander Hong, who has disgraced officer Kong Lung (Sammo Hung, who was in Daniel Lee’s Three Kingdoms and 14 Blades) babysit them until the police can “handle” the mercs. Why was Kong Lung demoted? He was in charge of the Special Anti-Drug Unit during the aforementioned robbery. His ego led him to disobey orders and take the robbers head on, which resulted in the deaths of some six officers. One may assume that his obsession with this case also led to his estrangement with his wife and daughter (Isabella Leong, of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor). Of course, the Squad initially goes behind the HK Police’s back in following the different mercenaries.

Ultimately, the Dragon Squad’s intervention in a negotiation between Tiger and the mercs results in the apprehension of Tiger Duen (and two of the Dragon Squad team members). But when Commander Hong holes Tiger Duen up in an abandoned building in order to ferret out the mercenaries, he’ll learn the hard way that he’s no match for these professionals. Dozens of cops bite the dust in the ensuing chaos, including one member of the Dragon Squad. Now, with nobody to stand in their way and nothing to lose, the Dragon Squad and Kong Lung will make a final stand against the baddies…

Director Daniel Lee is a mainstream director, but he often tries to put in some artistic flourishes in his films, despite the commercial subject matter of his films and frequent use of over-the-top violence in them. This is one of the goriest movies to come out of Hong Kong since Lee’s own Black Mask: so many cops get shot that you’d think this was a Benny Chan movie, plus there’s some torture, nasty looking cuts and stabs, and lots of splattered blood from people getting blown away. Sadly, it’s the mainstream nature of this film that I think prevents it from going all the way: at least two characters are shot in the head with sniper rifles (in slow motion), but we don’t see any bullet entry wounds. It’s almost as if Daniel Lee didn’t want to make his pretty face actors look…well…unpretty.

While the violence is nice and intense (much like that same year’s Sha Po Lang), it’s the artistic flourishes that drag down the film. Whenever there’s an action sequence about to break out, or a character is in the processing of biting the dust, there is a hard-cut, black-and-white flashback to the character that just interrupts the flow of the scene. These flashbacks do nothing to give the characters more depth or make us feel anything more for them, and thus are completely pointless. The occasional use of light ballad music during death scenes is also irritating.

That said, I’m glad that Daniel Lee tried to make these newbies likable and give some of them a backstory. Shawn Yu has a crippled brother he likes to visit. Eva Huang holds regrets for falling in love with a former quarry (cue a cameo from Andy On, of Star Runner and Three Kingdoms). Lawrence Chou’s James is the most one-dimensional of the lot, but he has a mother at home he has to check up on. Sammo’s Kong Lung has a semi-tragic backstory and a running rivalry with Col. Ko, so you know those two will have to face off at the end. They’re still a bit green when it comes to acting, but some of them would improve their game over the years. They are certainly a step up from the forgettable newbies that Jackie Chan tries to introduce every now and then, in films like CZ12 and Vanguard.

Speaking of Jackie, let’s talk about the action. Daniel Lee employs the talents of Chin Kar-Lok, who had worked with him on the kickboxing drama Star Runner. Chin was still reinventing himself as an action director of note at this point, and has since reached Stephen Tung Wei’s level as one of the main go-to guys for modern gun-driven action. He does a good job with the gunplay, although Daniel Lee and editor Azrael Chung go the Bourne Identity route and fill the action with quick cuts and shaky cam. The action is quite “kinetic,” although you wish they’d keep the camera in one place at times.

The highlight set piece is the ambush of the Hong Kong police by the Colonel Ko’s gang at the abandoned building, plus the tense and closed quarters showdown between the Dragon Squad and the bad guys in the alley way outside the building. Simon Yam and his team are completely ill-equipped to take on the one-two punch of Petros and Colonel Ko, but once they get within the scope of Yuet the sniper, they are completely screwed. Hundreds of shots are exchanged when the bad guys try to escape into a nearby alley, as the Squad team exchanges fire with them while Luo Zai-Jen and Yuet get into a long-distance sniper duel. I don’t think we’d gotten anything remotely this good in the gunplay department since the finale of Jet Li’s Hitman, or Purple Storm.

The martial arts is limited, but there are some moments here and there. There is a brief fight between Sammo Hung and Heo Jun-Ho early on, where Hung goes all Jackie Chan on Heo, who attacks him at the police station locker room with a machete. Hung uses every object that isn’t bolted down, including a metal teapot, in order to deflect his opponent’s attacks. Their rematch occurs at the climax, set initially inside an abandoned power plant. Once again, the two fight with machetes, although Sammo is prepared this time. Sammo is still agile and, when he’s disarmed, is able to switch combat strategies. He fights with long 2x4s (like a bo staff), short 2x4’s (like escrima), and even a nice dose of close-quarters wing chun. Daniel Lee’s artistic flourishes get in the way sometimes, but it’s still a nice fight. I think if you removed all of the unnecessary flashbacks, stupid ballad music during character deaths, and some of the more intrusive editing, this could have been a great action thriller, instead of merely a good one.