Dragon Tiger Gate (2006)

Dragon Tiger Gate (2006)
Chinese Title: 龍虎門
Translation: Dragon Tiger Gate

 

Starring: Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung, Donnie Yen, Shawn Yue Man-Lok, Dong Jie, Chen Kuan-Tai, Yu Kang, Li Xiaoran, Yuen Wah, Tony Wong Yuk-Long, Vincent Sze
Director: Wilson Yip Wai-Shen
Action Director: Donnie Yen

 

Following the success of Sha Po Lang/SPL/Killzone, most martial arts fans and Hong Kong cinephiles were waiting with baited breath for Donnie Yen’s next project. It turned out to be an adaptation of Tony Wong’s long-running (since 1970) manhua “Oriental Heroes.” In other words, Donnie was going to do a kung fu comic adaptation that would give him ample room to explore new and creative ways to do action. I can still remember watching the original trailer/fight reel on this new thing called Youtube and watching it several times. This was going to be awesome.

Then the film came out to a lukewarm critical response, getting attacked for everything from the drama to the overuse of CGI in the fight scenes. Even a lot of more casual fans were not impressed. I remember my colleague’s “Steamed Prawn Buns” blog referring to it as an “unfortunate red-headed stepchild of a film” couched between SPL and Ip Man.  I rented it here in Brazil around 2009 and it wasn’t that bad. I eventually bought it for myself because…it’s Donnie Yen, duh. And now, even as then, I think some of the criticisms are overstated.

The movie kicks off in a headquarters of Shibumi (Yu Kang, a member of Donnie Yen’s stunt team), a powerful crime lord and head of the much-feared Luoshan Gang. For the record, the visual tics of Shibumi are at odds with the rest of the film: The building he resides is beset with inclement weather and drenched in yellow/orange filters that makes the whole thing look like a post-Apocalyptic film. He also sits on a throne in a palace located several stories beneath his headquarters, which continues several stories lower into what appears to be the hellscape where Scorpion dwells in Mortal Kombat. There’s some interesting art direction there, but it is nonsensical in any real world sense.

Anyway, Shibumi has been impressed with the performance of Ma Kun (Chen Kuan-Tai, of Heroes Two and The Gallants), the head of one of the smaller gangs that acts as an extension of the Luoshan gang. He tells his right-hand woman, Rosa (Li Xiaoran, of Ghosts and The Game of Killing), to give Ma Kun a special plaque as a token of appreciation for services rendered. This upsets the rival White Lions gang, who tries to pick a fight with Ma Kun’s gang while they are celebrating at a restaurant. While all this is going on, Tiger Wong (Nicholas Tse, of Gen-X Cops and Raging Fire) and his friends from the “Dragon Tiger Gate” kung fu school are having dinner at the same place. When they see some of Ma Kun’s goons harassing a family over a loan, Tiger literally kicks into action and starts beating up Ma Kun’s entire gang with only his feet. He is only stopped by the arrival of Dragon (Donnie Yen, of Tiger Cage II and Enter the Fat Dragon), Ma Kun’s bodyguard.

It turns out that during the ruckus, one of Tiger’s friends ended up with the plaque. A few days later, the boys are eating at a Japanese restaurant when they are confronted by Dragon, who takes back the plaque. Also in attendance is Scaly (Vincent Sze, of Dragon Squad and Firestorm), the little punk who acts as Ma Kun’s yes man. Scaly is jealous of Dragon, so he tries to steal the plaque back while sending an army of his own goons to beat everybody up. Another huge fight ensues which ends up involving a wandering martial artist by the name of Turbo Shek (Shawn Yue, of The Invisible Target and The Brink). Everybody is kung fu fighting until there are no more goons to beat up.

The next half hour of the film focuses on character building and exposition. At this point, Tiger realizes that Dragon is his long-lost half-brother. Dragon’s dad, one of the founders of the Dragon Tiger Gate, left his mom to be with the wife of the school’s co-founder, Wong Xianglong (Yuen Wah, of Supercop and Eastern Condors). From their illicit union was born Tiger. As a result, Dragon and his mother left the school and Dragon projected all of his hate onto the school itself, which is how he ended up in the world of organized crime. Dragon wants to come back to the school, but is too ashamed of his violent past to go at the moment. There is also a subplot involving Rosa, who has carried a torch for Dragon ever since childhood. Plus, a bit of puppy love between Tiger Wong and Xiaoling (Dong Jie, of Sky Lovers and 2046) and Turbo Shek wants to get into Dragon Tiger Gate to study.

Things go sour when Ma Kun decides that he wants to retire and returns the plaque to Shibumi. Shibumi takes it as an insult and decrees the death of both Ma Kun and Dragon. Rosa is ordered to kill Dragon, but can’t bring herself to do it. Dragon kills the assassins sent to kill Ma Kun, but Rosa lies (to protect Dragon) and informs her boss that it was the Dragon Tiger Gate who defeated them. Shibumi decides to get up in on the action and challenges Wong Xianglong. Eventually, only Dragon, Tiger and Turbo Shek are left to face Shibumi, but their kung fu isn’t good enough…

The main flaw of Dragon Tiger Gate is that it never surpasses those first twenty minutes. Those first two melees are really well choreographed and promise a fight fest brimming with creative choreography and camerawork. Although it’s fine if a movie slows down after an explosive opening, you hope that it doesn’t slow to a crawl and that it fires on all cylinders once it’s time for things to get real. Although the later fights have their moments, I never felt they matched the energy of the earlier brawls.

The other flaw is that Shibumi (voiced by Louis Koo) is very much a one-dimensional villain. He’s evil, wears a mask and he likes to fight. Like Fatal Fury 2’s Wolfgang Krauser, he’s always looking for a worthy opponent. He fancies himself so good, in fact, that he doesn’t kill weak fighters for thinking they aren’t worthy to die under his hand. We don’t really know what his gang actually does. People just say that he’s an evil crime lord. Wilson Yip needed to give us more show and less tell in that regard. He just hangs out in the background until the second half, when his call to action is not liking that Ma Kun is going to retire.

Nicholas Tse steals the show early on with this wonderful footwork. I know some of it was assisted with wires, but the man still looks great. I find it heartwarming that Tse, who started the action genre with the inauspicious debut in Gen-X Cops is now, 25 years later, graduating the rank of fight choreographer/action director recently with Customs Frontline and the bigger-budgeted Raging Havoc. I know he trained diligently in wing chun during the 2000s, which he showcased on the TV series “Wing Chun” (natch), but apparently he has applied himself to other styles as well. I also think it telling that he was Donnie’s main opponent in Raging Fire, considering how much Donnie has dedicated himself to the fighting the best of the best in his movies ever since Sha Po Lang. But Tse shows that he had grown a lot as a screen fighter in this movie since his earlier days.

Donnie Yen is Donnie Yen. Dragon Tiger Gate is interesting in that it’s one of the first films to completely downplay his fancier aerial kicks in favor of complex handwork. In that sense, it’s sort of a transition to the wing chun-only stuff he’d do in the Ip Man movies. He does a lot of fancy hand “posturing” in this movie, something he would do in later films, even up to Enter the Fat Dragon. He briefly fights with a pole in one of his fights, something that the Dragon character in the manhua did. He also gets the better showcase of the three leads during the final fight against Shibumi, including a nice triple-knee smash. If you like watching Donnie fight, you should enjoy his work here.

Shawn Yue as Turbo Shek is interesting. The character was originally named Shek Hak Lung in the comic, which translate to “Dark Dragon.” English translations of the comic changed his name to “Gold Dragon” because of the character’s blonde hair. Shaw Yue does get to wear a silly wig—they all do—and wield a pair of nunchaku in his fights. Like his comic counterpart, Shek also knows judo, although that never gets explored in the movie and I wish that it had. I like his character—the one who presents himself as a badass, but whom the sifu at the school can see right through. It is only when he humbles himself that he is ready to start training.

There is enough good action on display to warrant a recommendation. Martial arts purists will complain about wire-work in the fighting, but given the film’s comic roots, I don’t mind that sort of exaggeration. There is also some CGI, especially in the end when the characters start performing their signature special moves with names like “Electric Dragon Drill” and “The Golden Mask.” I think criticisms about there being too much CGI in the action are overstated. Personally, I enjoy this more than The Storm Riders, another manhua adaptation. I wish this had gotten a sequel that could have built on Donnie’s creative choreography. Now that Donnie is 60, he could give the Dragon role to Nicholas Tse (now 44—Donnie was 42 when he made this) and find some newcomers to play Tiger and Shek. And considering that Donnie is currently making Flash Point 2, a sequel to this is a possibility.

This review is part of "Month of the Dragon"

Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon (1990)

Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon (1990)
Aka: Nutty Kickbox Cops
Original Title: 瘦虎肥龍
Translation: Thin Tiger, Fat Dragon

 

Starring: Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, Karl Maka, Carrie Ng Ka-Lai, Wanda Yung Wai-Tak, Lung Ming-Yan, Wu Fung, Ni Kuang, Lau Kar-Wing, Tai Bo
Director: Lau Kar-Wing
Action Director: Ridley Tsui, Xiong Xin Xin

 

From about 1978 to 1991, Sammo Hung could no little wrong in the Hong Kong film industry. Starting with Knockabout and Warriors Two and going up through Gambling Ghost and Slickers vs. Killers, the man produced, choreographed, directed and starred in many of the greatest martial arts comedies of all time. Many people still consider his 1981 masterpiece The Prodigal Son to be the ne plus ultra of old school kung fu movies. He was the Gold Standard for fight choreography once things went modern in 1983 with Winners and Sinners and Project A. His My Lucky Stars was Golden Harvest’s highest-grossing movies on the 1980s. Eastern Condors is one of my personal all-time favorite action movies. Only with the coming of 1990s wire-fu did Sammo’s reign give way to the likes of Yuen Woo-Ping and Tony Ching Siu-Tung, who were admittedly better at that kind of thing than Sammo.

Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon came out in 1990, when Sammo’s box office appeal was on the decline. As I understand it, a lot of it had to do with his then concurrent romance with Joyce Maria Godenzi, which hit the tabloids while he was still married to his first wife, the Korean Jo Eun-ok. For the record, he eventually divorced his first wife in 1994 and married Joyce the following year—they’ve been married for 29 years now. In any case, although Sammo’s movies weren’t raking in the bucks during the early 90s, he still provided viewers with high quality fight action and decent Canto-comedy hijinks. This is one of his better examples of the form.

Skinny (Karl Maka, best known for the Aces Go Places movies) and Fatty (Sammo Hung) are a pair of cop buddies on the trail of a drug dealer named Prince Tak (Lung Ming-Yan, who played the hitman in A Better Tomorrow II). As most investigations go, the two start small—busting some small-time robbers—and start shaking down more and more people until they find out where Tak’s next drug deal will be. After getting some information from mid-level enforcer Johnny Dyke (Tai Bo, of Dragons Forever and The Brink), Skinny and Fatty go to a gallery shopping center to bust Tak. The exchanged is carried out between Tak’s wife, Lai (Carrie Ng, of The Naked Killer and Cheetah on Fire), with a transvestite. The resulting brawl results in the cops getting arrested(!) for sexual harassment.

In order to get Lai as one of their witnesses, the two cops start trailing her and lying to Tak about how she and Skinny might be having an affair. This comes to a head at a construction site where Tak tries to buy Fatty’s loyalty (while simultaneously trying to silence his own wife). A huge fight erupts, starting at the site and moving to the kitchen of a posh restaurant, and finally to the wedding party of the police commissioner. On one hand, Tak is arrested and Lai agrees to witness against him. On the other, Fatty accidentally injured the commissioner during the brawl and now both partners are forced to go on leave until the whole mess blows over.

The two head to Singapore for an extended vacation. There, they meet a couple of a pretty (and rich) Chinese girls who seem to be fond of both Skinny and Fatty. The two men decide to quit the force, move to Singapore, and re-establish themselves there. There are only two problems to that. First, Skinny already has a long-time girlfriend, credited as The Tall Girl (Wanda Yung, best known for being Collin Chou’s wife). Second, Tak’s older brother, Wing (Lau Kar-Wing, of Cat vs. Rat and Legendary Weapons of China), has hired a couple of Thai lady-boy killers to snuff out Lai, Skinny, Fatty and their loved ones…

Lau Kar-Leung’s Tiger on the Beat has often been compared to Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon, although City War may fit that bill a little better. This movie, directed by his brother, feels a little less like Lethal Weapon and more like a precursor to Rush Hour, in that the buddy team consists of the fast-talking loudmouth (Maka) and the more naïve martial arts expert (Sammo). Sammo and Karl Maka had worked together a number of times—Maka had cameos in both Knockabout and The Odd Couple—and had some nice antagonistic chemistry in The Lucky Stars Go Places. Here, they do bicker a bit (especially in the very last scene), but they do work well together and share an undeniable chemistry.

On the same token, Sammo and Lau Kar-Wing have long been great cinematic partners. Sammo directed him and Lau Kar-Wing in Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog and Knockabout. Meanwhile, Lau Kar-Wing directed him and Sammo in The Odd Couple. Lau Kar-Wing also had smaller fighting roles in both My Lucky Stars and Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars, both directed by Sammo. Their finale together is pure kung fu ballet goodness. After exchanging fisticuffs, they whip out the two-fisted machetes and go bonkers on each other. For a long time, credible knife fights were particularly difficult to choreograph. Part of it was the general inexperience of the both the combatants and the action directors. Now that martial artists have greater access to things like Special Forces training regimens, Filipino martial arts, and the like, we’ve seen greater advances in knife fights onscreen—see Sha Po Lang and The Hunted ’03 for examples.

The action was staged by Xiong Xin Xin and Ridley Tsui. Ridley Tsui was a B-list stuntman and action director during the late 80s and throughout the 90s. Western viewers will be familiar with some of his work in the West; he played Smoke in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Xiong Xin Xin was a Mainland wushu stylist a lá Jet Li who was best known at this point for being Jet Li’s stunt double. Later in the 1990s, he came on his own as an actor, after which he also became a renown fight choreographer and director in the 2000s. As fight choreographers, Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon represents both men’s best work (at least from my POV).

There are two major set pieces and two or three smaller scuffles in the film. The first big set piece is between Sammo and Prince Tak’s men at the construction site. In this film, like Enter the Fat Dragon, Sammo is in pure Bruce Lee imitation mode throughout the movie. Sammo utterly destroys all of the men with jeet kune do. He then grabs a pair of metal bars and essentially recreates the escrima sequence from Enter the Dragon, but with even more complex choreography than that movie. At the climax, Sammo and Maka take on a small army of thugs armed with machetes and hatchets at a chemical factory. Maka’s more of a comic foil, so his fighting is a cruder form of choreographed brawling. He throws down with Lau Kar-Wing, who just owns him for most of the sequence. Meanwhile, Sammo uses more jeet kune do before whipping out a pair of nunchaku and one-upping every “nunchuck” fight from Fist of Fury to Enter the Dragon. He also throws down with Lau Kar-Leung’s student, Mark Houghton, during which fight he recreates the wing chun scene from Bruce Lee’s fight with Chuck Norris in Way of the Dragon.

In between the fight scenes, the movie is made up of comic segments, usually relying on Karl Maka’s motor-mouthed Canto-humor. There are some nice character quirks, like the protagonists’ superior, played by Wu Fung, who spends most of the film giving the Bras d'honneur to everybody he’s mad at in a given scene. There are situational comedy bits, like Sammo peeping in the wrong shower stalls while looking for a transvestite drug dealer. Finally, there is some great physical comedy, like Sammo’s dance number during the Singapore segment. If you like that kind of thing, it will surely entertain you in between the fights. If not, the quality of the action direction is so high that it’s worth sitting through these scenes.

This review is part of "Month of the Dragon"

Lady Dragon (1992)

Lady Dragon (1992)
Aka: Lady Kickboxer

 

Starring:  Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton, Robert Ginty, Bella Esperance, Hengky Tornado, Pitradjaya Burnama, Diaz Tangkilisan
Director: David Worth
Action Director: Tanaka

 

The prevailing wisdom dictates that Cynthia Rothrock’s non-HK output is not only inferior to what she did in Hong Kong, but that it’s actively bad MA cinema, all things considered. I’m pretty sure that was true to some extent, especially the further into the 2000s we got. After all, Sci-Fighter was just horrid and Outside the Law ran out of money before they filmed the finale, leaving them a few hours for what was supposed to be one of her best end fights since her HK years. Within a few years, she was playing supporting roles in beefcake parades and no-budget Christmas films for David DeCouteau. I think the older she gets and more unlikely it is that we’ll ever see a good showcase from her again, the more her 1990s output will be re-evaluated.

Not all of her post-HK output was made in America. She made three English-language films in Indonesia: Angel of Fury and the two Lady Dragon movies. Written by Clifford Mohr and directed by cinematographer-turned-director David Worth, the Lady Dragon films are essentially two different of takes on the same premise: Cynthia Rothrock using her martial arts skills to take revenge on the scumbags who raped her and murdered her husband. David Worth is best known for photographing Bloodsport and directing the first Kickboxer, and one can definitely see the influence of the latter in this movie.

Rothrock plays Kathy Galagher, an expatriate martial artist living in (presumably) Jakarta, Indonesia. When we meet her, she’s participating in an underground fighting contest against a much bigger opponent—prepares to listen to the groans of people who can’t suspend disbelief at this sort of thing. She takes more than a few lumps, but is ultimately victorious and walks away with a nice purse from the fight.

While getting a drink at the bar later that evening, Kathy is visited by Gibson (Robert Ginty, best known for The Exterminator 1 & 2), a CIA agent of sorts who confronts her about her quest for revenge against Ludwig Hauptman (Richard Norton, of Rage and Honor and City Hunter), a German-Australian arms dealer working out of his importation company in Jakarta. We learn through flashback that Hauptman had her husband murdered just as they were leaving the church on their wedding day. Gibson warns her that Hauptman is too powerful and well-guarded for a single person to take down. As expected, she just ignores him.

Later that evening, Kathy dresses like a hooker and heads to one of Ludwig’s nightclub haunts. She gets in a fight with several of his guards, but then tries to retreat when they all start pulling guns on her. Ludwig interrogates her in a room reserved for Hauptman and whatever strumpet he picks up on any given night, but Kathy is a horrible liar. When she refuses to answer any question he asks to his satisfaction, he rapes her, beats her, and leaves her for dead out in the sticks. Interestingly enough, the rape is depicted as a quick montage of close-ups of the scantily-clad women on the posters that adorn the walls of the room they’re in. Sort of an odd, but tasteful way to depict something that is anything but.

Kathy is found by a young boy (Diaz Tangkilisan, of Blood Warriors and Without Mercy) and his mute grandfather (Pitradjaya Burnama, Escape from Hellhole and Blood Warriors). They nurse Kathy back to health and, as luck would have it, grandfather is some sort of master of pencak silat. He’s to Indonesia martial arts what Dennis Chan’s Xian Chow was to muay thai in Kickboxer. So she starts a training regimen that involves moving up and down bamboo poles and all sorts of flexibility training. Eventually, Kathy is ready to leave and head back to the big city for revenge. And to get close to Hauptman, she’s going to start with his lover, played by Lady Dragon 2’s Bella Esperance.

Lady Dragon plays a lot like David Worth’s own Kickboxer, but with a female lead and the element of sexual assault included among the protagonist’s grievances. The middle act in the rural Indonesian village is very similar to Jean-Claude Van Damme’s extended training sequence in Kickboxer. This film, however, starts off with Cynthia’s Kathy Galagher already being a top martial artist, albeit not quite good enough to face off with Richard Norton’s Ludwig. That said, there’s even a bit during the final fight where Cynthia is (temporarily) forced to throw the fight at the risk of losing her loved ones.

Both Lady Dragon films give Cynthia Rothrock a little more opportunity to act than most of her Hong Kong fare did. Those films generally required her to look tough and kick ass, which was fine. In these films, she’s both emotionally vulnerable and subject to some of the worst sort of treatment any woman can go through. I’m not sure she plays the most convincing or compelling rape victim, but I appreciate her efforts to do more than usual no-nonsense persona.

Richard Norton plays his villain much in the same way he played Giancarlo in Mr. Nice Guy: a charming villain with a sophisticated exterior covering a savage inner self. Considering the number of times they have played partners, lovers and fighting buddies, it is strange to see him do horrible things to Cynthia, even if it’s offscreen. Later scenes suggest that Norton’s villain is a full-blown sexual deviant, making him the slimiest of villains that Norton has thus far played.

The action was staged by a fellow named Tanaka, who is also credited with Rothrock’s other Indonesia films. He also shows up as one of Richard Norton’s chief enforcers. I was surprised with the quality of the action in this movie. On a scale of 1 to 10—"1” being the crap that Don “The Dragon” Wilson was churning out at the time and “10” being Sammo Hung at his 1980s best—I would rate the action a 5 or a 6. The exchanges are not quite as detailed and complex as the best of Hong Kong’s 1980s kickboxing era, but they are not slow and static affairs. My main complaint about the fighting is the sound design, which is crappy. The sound FX themselves fail to accentuate the power of the blows, and they are often played at a low volume which makes the hits feel weak.

The first fight, which pits Rothrock against a tall, muscular fighter, is actually quite long and sets up the film quite nicely. She performs her infamous scorpion kick against him several times, even though the dude is buff enough that he can take three to the dome without flinching. The fight at the nightclub is shorter, but she does some good moves. A fight between Cynthia and some guards later in the film allows her to show off her pole skills and perform a vertical front over-the-shoulder kick. A later fight has Norton fighting with some of his guards, one of whom is wielding a pair of sai swords and another who fights with nunchaku. It’s actually a really well-choreographed one-vs-many fight and Norton shines in it. The finale is a lengthy one-on-one pit fight between Rothrock and Norton, and the two just savage each other for almost ten minutes. Forget JCVD vs. Bolo Yeung or Tong Po. This fight is where it’s at. Both of them get a very good showcase here.

The pacing could have been tightened up a little better. The camera could have been placed better during some of the fights. And the sound FX could have been more…dynamic. But all in all, Lady Dragon makes for a solid 90 minutes of martial arts mayhem.

This review is part of "Month of the Dragon"

The Cyan Dragon (2020)

The Cyan Dragon (2020)
Aka: The Yan Dragon
Chinese Title: 异星战甲之青龙
Translation: Alien Armor: Blue Dragon

 

Starring: Cui Erkang, Zhang Ruiyao, Hou Suxia, Chen Qi, Zhang Jing
Director: Ji Zhizhong, Tong Wei
Action Director: Li Xiaolong, Huang Yifei
VFX Director: Ji Zhizhong

I would say that the second half of the 2010s, possibly a little earlier, saw the Mainland Chinese film industry just take off like it never has before. Thanks to video sites like YouKu and Youtube, and streaming sites like iQiyi, dozens (if not hundreds) of low budget Chinese movies from smaller studios and indy filmmakers found platforms to show their films that would otherwise be ignored by traditional mediums (theaters, DVD releases, etc.). Moreover, in the past five years or so, hundreds of low-budget monster movies stuffed with questionable CGI—much like the sort of crap Sy-Fy, The Asylum, and Nu Image have been producing for years-- have been released in China and found their way to the West. The Cyan Dragon is an interesting fantasy film of the xianxia sub-genre.

In Mystical Fantasy Asia-Land, there are two battling kingdoms: Long and Yin. The Long kingdom is a good and righteous country being invaded by the Yin army, whose Imperial Master can control a kaiju-sized hydra monster named Xiang Liu. With the help of Xiang Liu, the Yin armies are able to conquer the border of the Long Country and slay their top general, General Ling. General Ling was not only the country’s principal warlord, he was the receptacle for the Cyan Dragon, the mythical beast and founder of the Long Kingdom. However, before dying, General Ling transfers the Cyan Dragon to one of his soldiers, Xiang Tian (Cui Erkang, of Jinxin is like Jade). Xiang Tian flees to the capital to inform the King and his ministers of what happened at the border.

Among the ministers is Ling Xuanji, General Ling’s sister. Upon learning that Xiang Tian is the new host for the Cyan Dragon, she tries to train him in how to harness the beast’s power as they journey to the border to face down Yin Imperial Master and the monster Xiang Liu. Joining them are two soldiers—Lu San and Qian Qian—a man and a woman, respectively. Following them are the Yin commander’s three top generals/assassins: a guy in a demon mask who has earthquake gauntlets, a ninja-like killer who leaves a trail of black smoke when he moves at super-speed, and finally a mask-wearing sorcerer. Will Xiang Tian be able to learn how to unleash the power of the Cyan Dragon and don the all-powerful Jade Armor before his encounter with the monster Xiang Liu?

We talk a lot these days about how Hollywood films are just too friggin’ long! Theatrical releases today often have 140-150-minute run times despite barely deserving a two-hour run time. Part of the reason is that it seems that movies these days have not one, but two climaxes—see The Batman for a particularly egregious example of the phenomenon. Moreover, this tendency toward overlength extends to South Korean and Japanese movies: every time I want to watch the latest Korean actioner to hit Netflix, I’m dismayed to see that it runs between 135 and 140 minutes. What the hell, people?

Anyway, I mention this because The Cyan Dragon manages to fit its epic-sized plotline in a mere 68 minutes. I mean, that’s only ten minutes longer than you average pre-fame John Wayne oater from the 1930s! And despite the short running time, the film manages to fit in a (sort of) coherent mythology, a few moments of tragedy, an epic battle sequence, several wire-fu fight scenes, and a final CGI vs. CGI climax, plus a bit of humor, too! None of it is particularly deep, but I admire the filmmakers’ ability to keep things short and sweet.

The fight scenes were staged by Li Xiaolong (not to be confused with Bruce Lee) and Huang Yifei. Li Xiaolong has a few credits as a stuntman on the HKMDB, notably The Four 3 and The Greatest Escort Group. The Four 3 allowed him to work with Yuen Woo-Ping protégé “Deedee” Ku Huen-Chiu, so I guess it’s the third generation of Yuen Woo-Ping’s influence in action. Huang Yifei, on the other hand, has done action direction on The Lost Tomb Under the Yellow River and Chasing the Dragon 2: Wild Wild Bunch. There he worked with Wong Min-Kin, a protégé of Tony Ching Siu-Tung. To sum things up, we have two action directors two generations removed from the Golden Age of Hong Kong Action Cinema.

The first battle scene is pretty cool, although very 300 in its presentation. Lots of alternating between slow motion and speeding up whenever someone is about to strike down their opponent. General Ling wields a sword imbued with magical power that allows him to extend it to Dhalsim-like lengths to impale multiple people and ram it into the ground so it sticks out several yards away to stab an opponent. The fights between the heroes and the Yin Generals in the second act are very twisty-turny-twirly sword ballets like your average 1990s Ching Siu-Tung film. The finale has our heroes fighting a 15-foot CGI giant with swords before our hero becomes a CGI-armored character to fight a hydra that would make King Ghidorah blush.

In the end, The Cyan Dragon is a slight fantasy actioner, but a fun one that does its job in half the time most movies take to tell similar stories. Lasting a smidge longer than an episode of Law & Order with commercials, it’s certainly worth a view.

This review is part of "Month of the Dragon"

Firefist of Incredible Dragon (1982)

Firefist of Incredible Dragon (1982)
Korean Title: 소림사 주천귀동
Translation: Juchon-Gwidong in Shaolin Temple
Chinese Title: 少林寺酒天鬼童
Translation: Shaolin Temple Drunken Ghost Boy

 

Starring: Lee Jae-yeong, Im Pung, Chen Pao-Liang, Pan Chang-Ming, Han Hui, Ju Yong-jong, Park Sang-suk, Kim Yu-haeng, Ju Eun-seop, Park Hyo-keun
Director: Kim Jong-seong
Action Director: Ko Pui

 

The last time I watched a Korean horror-kung fu-comedy, that film was Dragon vs. Vampire, which was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, period. It was awful: devoid of action, scares, production values and any sort of purpose. Firefist of Incredible Dragon is a movie in a similar vein. Originally titled Juchon-Gwidong in Shaolin Temple, it was picked up by Tomas Tang and Filmark for distribution around 1984 and given a more “dynamic” title. Considering that the Shaolin Temple doesn’t even figure into the story, I can’t argue that a change was necessary. However, there is no “firefist” technique, nor do any of the characters’ skills reach “dragon” status. It is surreal, though.

We begin with the grim image of a bunch of women lying dead in the snow somewhere in (presumably) Northern China. A bunch of Evil Goons™ show up to bury the bodies. As they do so, what looks like a flying papier mâché heart—apparently, it is a magical undead fetus—starts flying around and killing the men. This is going to happen several other times throughout the movie’s run time. Cue to the local village, which is run by the evil nobleman Liao (Chen Pao-Liang, A Girl Fighter and Heroine of Tribulation). Liao has a penchant for kidnapping nubile young women, torturing them, raping them, murdering them, and then having his lackeys bury them outside of town. When we meet Liao, we learn that his wife (Han Hui, of Daughters of Darkness and Kwangtung Viper) is having a torrid affair with his second-in-command (Pan Chang-Ming, of Ma Su Chen and Lightning of Bruce Lee).

The next day, Liao’s men are terrorizing the populace for no reason when one of the thugs (Kim Yu-haeng, of Tiger of Northland and Eagle vs. Silver Fox) tries to pick a fight with a travelling magician/martial artist, Kun-Kun (Im Pung). Second-in-Command arrives to stop his cohort from getting into a street fight, but is amazed at how much Kun-Kun looks like someone else. When he tells Liao about Kun-Kun, Liao sends him to dig up the body of one of his rape toys, which was buried in the snow some time back. They are surprised to find that nobody is there!

Kun-Kun turns out to be the twin sister of said rape victims, who has come to town looking for her missing sister and brother-in-law. She tries to sneak into Liao’s house, but is injured and rescued at the last moment by Chen Tin-Chi (Lee Jae-yong, Double Dragon in Last Duel and Snake Fist of a Buddhist Dragon), a wandering kung fu (or Taekwondo) fighter. During the escape, Kun-Kun is “lost” and is found by an old man (clearly a young man wearing a wig and a bad latex scar). The old man tells her how her sister was kidnapped and raped by Liao, before miscarrying and dying in the snow. Kun-Kun is eventually reunited with Chen Tin-Chi and they go to an old man’s house to hide out. Coincidentally, the old man’s daughter (Park Sang-suk), has become Liao’s latest victim.

Chen Tin-Chi goes to Liao’s place looking for the daughter, but is beaten in a big kung fu battle and captured. Liao sends his men to capture Kun-Kun, but she is saved by the ghost of her sister. Meanwhile, Liao is having nightmares of being attacked by the ghosts of the women he has raped, so he sends for a Taoist Priest and his pickpocket nephew/assistant (Chin Lung, One Armed Against Nine Killers and The Swift Shaolin Boxers) to ward off the evil spirits. Those two characters are so goofy that you don’t know whether or not they’re charlatans or just bad at their jobs. However, when the nephew catches Liao’s wife in bed with the Second-in-Command, he gets killed for “knowing too much,” causing his uncle to call upon the spirit of the dead sister to possess his nephew’s body and deliver the kung fu justice. By this point, Kun-Kun has freed Chen Tin-Chi and those two (plus the sister’s ghost) are ready for a final showdown with Liao.

Firefist of Incredible Dragon is a hard film to discuss, because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Granted, the version I watched on Youtube was missing about 12 minutes, so this could have actually been an in-depth analysis of the Human Condition. Probably not, though. This is a movie where most of the killings are carried out by a Magical Flying Fetus, which does stuff like fly into people’s faces, (somehow) slice off people’s limbs, knock people onto sharp objects, and dive-bomb into people, causing giant explosions. And at no point do any of the main characters—good or bad—actually acknowledge this occurrence. To be honest, I don’t think they’re ever even aware that there is a papier mâché placenta plopping about, killing the Expendable Meat.

There are a handful of fight scenes, choreographed by someone named Po Kui (as per Filmark’s bogus credits). There is nobody on the IMDB whose name corresponds to that, so I wonder if it’s a false name for Pan Chang-Ming (the Second-in-Command), who does have a solid filmography in Taiwan as a fight choreographer. Being a Korean production, the “kung fu” is actually Taekwondo and most of the those fighting onscreen are kickers whose talents range from “solid” to “quite good.” Sadly, a lot of the good choreography is ruined by excessive undercranking and some wire-assisted moves that look at home in an early 1990s fighting game. Pan Chang-Ming himself displayed some good footwork in Lightning of Bruce Lee and he makes a good showing for himself in his fight scenes.

I wish that instead of a conventional chop-socky climax, the film had followed up on the elements of Liao’s nightmares and ended the film with him facing the ghosts of his victims in a wired-up free-for-all. That might’ve fit the more surreal aspects of the movie more than your typical flurry of fists and kicks. As it stands, Firefist of Incredible Dragon is mainly the sort of movie you invite your snarky friends over to point and laugh at.

This review is part of "Month of the Dragon"

Enter the Fat Dragon (2020)

Enter the Fat Dragon (2020)
Chinese Title: 肥龍過江
Translation: Fat Dragon Crossing the River

 

Starring: Donnie Yen, Niki Chow Lai-Kei, Teresa Mo Sun-Kwan, Wong Jing, Joey Tee, Louis Cheung Kai-Chung, Jessica Jann, Naoto Takenaka, Tetsuya Watanabe, Chaney Lin Qiunan
Director: Kenji Tanigaki
Action Director: Donnie Yen’s Stuntman Team

Enter the Fat Dragon isn’t so much a remake of the Sammo Hung classic from 1978 as it is a reimagining of the premise of a martial arts dynamo who a) likes Bruce Lee and b) happens to be massively overweight. But more than that, the comic stylings of the film—it was written by, produced by, and co-stars Wong Jing—brought back to the late 1990s when I used to watch VCDs of films like Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars and Future Cops. It feels like an homage to the bygone era of those screwball Hong Kong action comedies that throw in a Bruce Lee parody or two because…those somehow have never gone out of style (unlike The Matrix parodies, which were passé by 2000).

The movie begins with maverick detective Fallon Zhu (Donnie Yen, of Wing Chun and Crystal Hunt) getting ready for a wedding photo shoot. Zhu’s fiancée is a bitchy TV actress named Chloe (Niki Chow, of Naked Ambition and Chasing the Dragon) who browbeats her soon-to-be hubby into caving into her every whim. While at the photo studio (which is also a bank? Or a high-class jewelry store?), some robbers break in and point guns at everyone. It doesn’t take long for the whole thing to devolve into a huge shootout, followed by a Mr. Nice Guy-esque fight scene inside of a moving van. By the time the smoke clears, several bystanders are injured and Fallon almost runs over the police superintendent.

The fallout from this reckless display of heroism is two-fold. First, Chloe gets mad at Fallon for ruining the photo shoot and acting like the responsibility for solving the world’s crime falls solely on his shoulders. Thus, she leaves him. Second, Zhu is demoted to work in the evidence locker, where he mainly sits around doing nothing all day. Since he really has nothing to do and nothing to keep him company save a vending machine, Fallon starts filling up on unhealthy snack food. Within six months, he has more than doubled his weight. Enter…the Fat Dragon.

At this time, we learn that one of the victims of the aforementioned robbers’ assault was a Japanese porn director named Yuji (Hiro Hayama, of The Myth and The Shinjuku Incident). Yuji was wanted in Japan for some traffic accident or something and now the Japan police want him extradited. Fallon’s former superior, Huang Ching (Louis Cheng, of L Storm and P Storm), puts Zhu on the case with the simple task of accompanying Yuji back to Japan and seeing that he is taken into police custody there. Huang even promises to reinstate him as an inspector if things go without a hitch. If you have ever seen Ridley Scott’s Black Rain, you can probably see where this is going…

Fallon soon finds himself running around Tokyo trying to find Yuji, interacting with colorful characters like Maggie (Jessica Jann), the peppy Japanese-Chinese interpreter for the police; Thor (Wong Jing, of Magic Crystal and Ghost Fever), an ex-HK cop living in Tokyo; and Charisma (Hard Boiled’s Teresa Mo), the loud-mouthed owner of a Chinese restaurant. He also learns that Yuji was wanted by the Yakuza because of something he accidentally recorded while making some video involving a large tuna and a woman dressed as a mermaid(!).

If you like (and even miss) the goofy, non-sequitur action-comedies of Hong Kong’s Golden Age, you’ll probably enjoy Enter the Fat Dragon. This is the sort of movie where Donnie Yen can be in the middle of a pitched fight inside a moving van and the punchline is that two rival reporters are trying to film the fight from either side of the van, doing whatever they can to extend the fight for the benefit of their audiences. Like Saint of Gamblers, there is a random kung fu kid (Chaney Lin) who shows up to randomly kick butt during a fight sequence. Sadly, the movie does nothing with him after his initial demonstration of alternating hop kicks. Wong Jing plays a human punching bag, which is to be expected. You have to admire him for allowing himself to be subject to the same sort of shtick that he was 30 years prior. Even Sammo cut it out after the 1990s. Interestingly enough, despite much of the film taking place in Japan, the writers don’t really have much fun at the Japanese’ expense, save a running gag at the Tokyo police station.

As a result, the movie is mainly about people bickering with each other in a strange mix of both Cantonese and English, with a little bit of Japanese thrown in. I don’t think it quite reaches the level of mo lei tau, which is complete nonsense. On the other hand, this is a movie where Wong Jing wreaks havoc with a forklift after accidentally getting coked up while trying to eat a frozen tuna. So what do I know? I suspect that some of the bickering will be funny to people who speak Cantonese. I had a hard time following it, because the characters talk so fast that the Portuguese subtitles on the disc I was watching wouldn’t stay onscreen for more than a second.

One thing that kung fu fans will recognize is that the main theme of the film is an updated version of the Way of the Dragon theme. That actually makes sense when you think about. Despite the English title being a reference to Enter the Dragon, the Chinese title translates as “Fat Dragon Crossing the River.” That is a play on the Chinese title for Way of the Dragon, which is “Flying Dragon Crossing the River.” And film does follow the exploits of a Chinese martial artist getting into hijinks in a foreign land. And there is a Chinese lady running a restaurant. And the finale is set on a well-known monument of the city the characters are in: in Way of the Dragon, it was the Coliseum; here, it’s Tokyo Tower. One may think of it as a mo lei tau reimagining of Way of the Dragon, rather than any sort of a remake of the original Enter the Fat Dragon.

The fight scenes were handled by Donnie Yen’s team, which includes him, director Kenji Tanigaki, Yan Hua, Takahito Ouchi, and newcomer (to the team) Masaki Suzumura. Suzumura looks like another Japanese veteran who has done stuntwork a lot of those blood-n-boobs films for horny ohtaku, like Robo-Geisha and Machine Girl. He also choreographed Dead Sushi and one of the Kunoichi Ninpôcho films. If he’s trying to up his game working with Donnie Yen, then we can hope for better stuff from him in his native Japan in the future.

Donnie Yen does his usual work in this movie, mixing his trademark kicks with a Bruce Lee moves and the more modern MMA/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu throws and takedowns. Thankfully, the ground fighting doesn’t take precedence over the kicking and punching this time around like it has done in some of his other more modern movies. Despite being in his late 50s when this was filmed, he seems to be able to pull of parkour still…or the use of wires for a lot of the exaggerated jumps was a lot smoother than it was in Master Z: Ip Man Legacy. Moreover, although his character is supposed to be overweight, it never actually hampers his actual fighting. I don’t mind watching Donnie do Donnie under several pounds of fat makeup, but if his weight is supposed to be an important plot point, they could at least do something with it.

The first fight in the van is obviously a homage of sorts to the same one in Mr. Nice Guy, albeit longer and goofier. As I mentioned before, much of the humor is derived less from the fighting itself and more from non-sequitur moments, like how the main robber keeps on injuring the driver accidentally. There are several big group fights in Japan, including a long one set at a fish market. One fight near the end has Donnie doing another homage to Jackie Chan, fighting off a gang of people with a giant 7-Eleven sign. He then starts jumping up and down the different balconies, signs, and roofs in a way that calls to mind Chocolate. This was also done in Master Z, but the use of wires was obvious. It works better in this movie. The finale pits Donnie against a Japanese Yakuza, played by Joey Tee (of Rurouni Kenshin: Final Chapter and Baby Assassins 2). Tee seems like a pretty good kicker, but the treat is when the two go at it with sai swords and nunchaku. The choreography is fast and fluid and doesn’t simply rely on them doing twisting-and-twirling demonstrations of their weapons. I enjoyed Donnie’s work with the ‘chucks a lot more here than I did in Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen. And that is Enter the Fat Dragon: not all that original, but it does some stuff better than the movies that it obviously drew inspiration from.

This review is part of "Month of the Dragon"

Four Dragons (2008)

Four Dragons (2008)
Original Title: Kinta 1881
Translation: Kinta 1881 – Kinta referring to the valley where tin was discovered

 

Starring: Robin Ho, Kuan Jun-Fei, David Bao, Michael Chin, Albert Yuen, Patrick Teoh, Anita Kwan, Shawn Lee
Director: C.L. Hor
Action Director: Chin Kar-Lok

 

Starting in 2003, Southeast Asia joined the martial arts frenzy that was going worldwide (again) following the worldwide success of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and the coming of big-name Hong Kong stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li to Hollywood. As we all know, the SE Asia martial arts “renaissance” began with Ong Bak and Tony Jaa, who led the charge for the first few years. He was eventually joined by Vietnam, represented by Johnny Tri Nguyen and Veronica Ngo, who made quality martial arts films like The Rebel and Clash. Quickly getting in on the action was Indonesia. Silat masters like Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian, under the careful eye of Welsh director Gareth Evans, set the action genre alight with Merantau and The Raid films.

However, lost in the shuffle of the torrent of quality action to come out of that region was Four Dragons, Malaysia’s first martial arts movie. Oh sure, there were Hong Kong movies filmed in Malaysia, like Supercop and Angel II. But this was the first one produced, written and directed by Malaysians, even though they brought in a Hongkie to do the action choreography. There is a good reason that this movie has a measly 3.5 rating at the IMDB while its contemporaries from Malaysia’s neighbors are revered to this day: this movie somehow manages to fail on every single level. It comes close to being the Birdemic of martial arts movies.

The movie is set in 1881, shortly after the discovery of tin in Malaysia. Much like the California Gold Rush, the promise of economic opportunity has attracted a lot of Chinese immigrants from Southern China—thus we get a movie in which most of the cast speaks Cantonese. Unfortunately, the tin mines are run with an iron fist under conditions that aren’t much better than slavery. The Chinese laborers are overseen and cared for by Tin Sok (Albert Yuen). “Uncle” Tin, for his part, answers to Master Hoong (Patrick Teoh, who was in the “Marco Polo” series for Netflix), who is part mining entrepreneur, part Triad.

Tin Sok has four “adopted” sons who not only assist him as a foreman, but were taught martial arts by him as well. The oldest is Dragon (Robin Ho, a four-time gold medalist in four different Wushu Championships), who is distinguished from his brothers by the fact he has mustache. Seriously, the only one of member of the titular “Four Dragons” who doesn’t get a backstory happens to be the guy named “Dragon.” Then there’s Ace (Kuan Jun-Fei, another wushu taolu champion), who is distinguished from his brothers by being the guy with short hair, no facial hair, and thin eyebrows. We learn that he has a gambling problem, although it’s something he does to help the daughter of some random murdered immigrant. He’s followed by Blaze (Chinese tai chi chuan practitioner David Bao), who sports one of those late 1990s manes a lá Ekin Cheng. Finally, there’s Tiger (Michael Chin, yet another wushu champion), who has short hair, no facial hair, and thick eyebrows. His deal is that he is secretly in love with Dan Dan (Anita Kwan, who reminds me of a young Karen Mok), Master Hoong’s daughter.

Well, one day Master Hoong has the Chinese laborers attacked and murdered at the behest of Master Sam (Tsai Lex), a wealthy opium dealer. We never quite find out why Master Sam decided that they all had to die. Nor do we ever learn what sort of business venture that an opium dealer and a tin baron would want to join forces for. People just have to die because…well, that’s what villains do! The four brothers barely escape the bloodbath with their lives and are found by a Malay village chief and nursed back to health. Tin Sok also survives, albeit barely, and is eventually carried back to the village to recover. Meanwhile, Master Sam knows something that the brothers don’t: Tin Sok was responsible for Blaze’s father’s death years and years ago when they and Master Hoong were humble miners. That’s enough to turn Blaze turncoat against his brothers.

The first reason that Four Dragon utterly fails is the story. What should be a simple revenge tale—the downtrodden immigrants rising up against their fellow Chinese oppressor (much like The Roaring Lion)—gets convoluted as flashback is piled upon flashback, subplot upon subplot, and yet nothing ever gets adequately explained. We never learn what happened between Tin Sok and Blaze’s dad; there’s a throwaway line to suggest that the guy was a bad apple. There’s a love triangle between Tiger, Dan Dan, and Forest, one of Master Hoong’s enforcers. That never gets mentioned after the scene that establishes it, though. It’s suggested that Forest would vent out his lust on Dan Dan’s British friend, Rose (Laura Jayne New), but once again, it’s forgotten as soon as it’s brought up. There’s also a bit about random Chinese immigrants being murdered and hung from bamboo stalks, but that’s never explored, either.

The structure of the film is also confusing. The entire second act is made up of numerous flashbacks, most of which serve to give us our heroes’ backstories. There are even some flashbacks within flashbacks, and some of the fights during the massacre of the Chinese miners are replayed verbatim. The problem is that the editing is terrible and less-attentive viewers will undoubtedly get lost, not being able to tell a flashback apart from a scene in the present. The editing also fails in setting up scenes, such that fights often start out of nowhere with no regard to space. Where are these people? Who are these people? Why are they suddenly fighting?

Chin Kar-Lok was hired to stage the fights and initially, I was glad to see him working on a traditional kung fu film. For the past 20 years, Chin Sifu has mainly worked in modern-day action films, setting up car chases, gun fights, explosions, and all the stuntwork that revolves around those sorts of set pieces. He has gotten LOTS of nominations for Best Action Choreography at the Hong Kong Film Award, but still hasn’t won one yet. After watching Four Dragons, Chin Sifu should really stick with modern action.

Chin Kar-Lok just doesn’t seem to have the talent for making Taolu (i.e. forms) champions look like seasoned fighters. I mean, Jet Li has always looked believable. Vincent Zhao Wen-Zhuo has always been credible. Wu Jing has been solid for most of his career. But these guys just look soft boned in their fights, like some of those old wushu movies that Mainland China made in the 1980s. You know they have martial experience, but you need a certain sort of talent to translate that to credible screen fighting. The Four Dragons don’t. They are frequently outshone by the villains. Shawn Lee, who plays Forest, was a wushu sparring champion, so in addition to being big and muscular, he actually knew how to fight. And it shows in his fight sequences. The same goes for Chu Cho-Kuen, who plays Hoong’s other enforcer, Sand. That guy kicks major ass and shames our heroes. Those two should’ve been the lead performers.

The story is muddled, the editing is incoherent and the action is disappointing. Sadly, the film’s woes don’t stop there. Most of the fights are punctuated by the worst CGI blood on record, which looks like an optical effect that you would’ve paid your local video editing service to do on your shot-on-video movie circa 1985. Seriously, the blood in Mortal Kombat for the Sega Genesis was more realistic. There are serious acting and directing flubs, like Shawn Lee standing in front of a burning building for about twenty seconds and screaming for no reason. And to make it worse, that scene is replayed in one of the film’s many flashbacks. The animated opening titles and behind-the-scenes footage that plays over the closing credits are interesting, but not enough to prevent Four Dragons from becoming Four Brookesia Chameleons.

 

This review is part of "Month of the Dragon"