Doble Dragón

I really don't see what everyone's problem with this picture is! I believe that if any film bases itself on a computer game, then it stands to reason that is not going to take itself seriously for a split second! I played some of the DOUBLE DRAGON games for Nintendo when I was younger and they were pretty jokey themselves. This little picture has great fights, great action and most importantly of all, a great sense of humour. Robert Patrick camps it up wonderfully as bad guy Koga Shuko. A young Mark Dacascos (DRIVE, THE CROW: STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN, CRYING FREEMAN) kicks less butt than usual but is still enjoyable. Alyssa Milano is great as the sardonic revolutionary Marion, and both Dacascos and Scott Wolf as the Lee brothers (Dacascos is 'Home Lee' and Wolf is 'Ug Lee', geddit?) both have a fine line in sarcastic remarks. The car chase near the start with the 'Dragon Wagon' being pursued by Abobo's van is brilliant, especially with the use of computer graphics. Again, a classic example of good, mindless fun!

It's obvious why the Super Mario Bros. live action movie bombed? The games themselves didn't have much of a storyline to begin with. The Super Mario games was about a fat italian midget plumber who suddenly becomes huge after eating magic mushrooms and had to rescue his princess from a monster who looks vaguely like Godzilla. Which is why they ditched the original plot and made a movie that is nothing like the material it's based on. However, the Double Dragon series, unlike Super Mario, has a believable storyline and settings that could had been converted very well into live action. Let's take a look.

Double Dragon 1 (Arcade Version): In this game, Billy & Jimmy Lee are martial arts masters out to rescue their girlfriend/student Marian from a street gang known as the Black Warriors, led by the machine gun toting Big Boss Willy and his two right men, Abobo and Jeff. Not exactly Shakepearce material, but they could have add an extra dimension to the storyline and give background details about the characters. The game itself draw heavy inspirations from Enter the Dragon, especially at the names of some of the villains (Williams, Roper, Linda and Bolo).

Double Dragon 2 - The Revenge (Famicom Version): Taking place a year after the above, in this sequel, a terrorist group has killed Marian and now Billy and Jimmy are possesed by anger to avenge her death. This sequel is more inspired from a Japanese comic book series called Hokuto no Ken (AKA Fist of the North Star). The setting is that of a semi-apocalyptic New York (as if NYC wasn't bad enough already) and featuresa horde of supernatural villains such as Burnov (a fat man who's body dissappears after dying, leaving behind his mask and clothes), the Phantom Doubles and the Shadow Warrior at the end of the game. At the end, Marian is bought back from the dead and everyone lives happilly ever after or something like that.

Double Dragon 3 - The Rosetta Stones (Famicom Version): Taking place two years after the events of Double Dragon 2, Billy & Jimmy returns home from a training mission only to meet an old fortune teller named Hiruko. Hiruko tells them that in order to proved their strength, they must go on a wild Goose chase to collect the three Rosetta Stones and solve the mystery at Egypt. They go to China, Japan and Egypt to collect the stones and they meet two unlikely allies: Chin Seimei from China and Yagyuu Ranzou from Japan. Upon going to Cleopatra's tomb, the heroes eventually realized that Hiruko took advantage of Billy and Jimmy so that she could steal the treasure at Cleopatra's tomb. Hiruko dies mysteriously and the heroes are force to fight Cleopatra's reanimated corpse. After Cleopatra is defeated, the heroes donates Cleopatra's treasure to charity and the powers of the stones is left in question. Although, it has a cheesy storyline, the game itself took place in exotic locations and the Dragons fights agaisnt several enemies such as punks, monks, ninjas and strongmen.

Return of Double Dragon - Sleeping Dragon has Awoken (or Super Double Dragon): Probably the best storyline in the series, too bad Technos forgot to program it into the game. The storyline is essentially a remake of the first game. A female cop named Marian Kelly is kidnapped by a drug cartel known as the Shadow Warriors. Billy and Jimmy engaged a war agaisnt the Shadow Warriors and it's leader, Duke, to rescue her. The storyline is very realistic (no post-apocalytip settings, no medals, no Rosetta Stones) and most of the characters has interesting backstories that are only explained in the manual. This would had been an ideal storyline to adapt into a movie, especially since it doesnt follow the previous games, but stay true to the original.

NOTE: Double Dragon V is excluded from the list since it's not a true Double Dragon game and was made by Tradewest and not Technos Japan. Same thing with Battletoads & Double Dragon. Plus both games sucks.

Sadly, Paul Dini and Jim Yukich decided to ditch the storyline behind all the games and made some cheesy Power Rangers-ripoff about two idiots played by Scott Wolf and Mark Dascacos trying to save the world from some evil businessman named Koga Shuko by trying to find some cheesy medal called the Double Dragon. They team up with the film's good gang called the Power Corps, a group of hippies and clowns led by a tomboyish Alyssa Milano, and they get chased by several gangs including Clowns, mailmens and zombie basketball players. Eventually, Scott and Mark gets the medal, which allows them to change into their "Game" suits (they still don't look anything like the real deal) and they beat Shuko up. Eventually, Shuko is arrested and the main characters dies a horrible and painful death after Bo Abobo crashes their Dragon Wagon (not really, but I wished it was true).

A really horrible movie that insults fans of the Double Dragon series. What could had been a decent martial arts flick turn out to be a total train wreck that was made to torture little kids. I watched this movie when I was younger and I hated it. Avoid it like the plague.

This was another lousy attempt at a movie based off a video game. I loved the Double Dragon video games since I was a kid, but I was ashamed of myself for watching this movie. The story line is basic, good guys trying to beat up bad guys. The film is very goofy and geared towards the younger crowd but fails with the PG-13 rating. If you want effects you will not find them and if you want a good movie don't watch this one.

One of my favourite childhood games gets the typical nineties Hollywood makeover and only just entertains for all the wrong reasons!

Set in the future, well, if our year of 2007 really turned out like this, in the city of New Angeles. With vehicles powered by burning rubbish, police curfews, buildings held up by jacks, and lots of colourful clothes and bad jeans, we enter the god awful world of James Yukich's Double Dragon.

In a nutshell - Embarrassing acting from most cast members, all but Dacascos, Wolf and Nickson, that only adds to the unintentional humour, terrible make-up, costumes and direction. Its only saving grace is its two gorgeous leading men who give us some decent fight scenes and a number of funny enough one liners!

In my opinion - Hollywood, oh Hollywood... For many years you have astounded us with your inability to chose directors that know what they are doing, that suit the project in action, or generally just can't stop ruining great things! Taking a documentary film maker and handing him one of the ultimate and most popular games of that time, should have been the first sign to the studio fat cats that this was going to be as much of a success as the previous years, Super Mario Bros.

Haunted by that typical mid nineties costume department that helped make a lot of then films look naff, there is pretty much nothing in this 90 minutes of madness that stays true to the game. Every extra looks ridiculous and is annoying as hell, with most of it playing out like some bastard child from a Power Rangers episode!

Is there anything good in Double Dragon I hear you ask? Well, yes if I'm honest. Both its leading men are absolutely gorgeous and perfect leading men material for such a film. They probably act the best out of everyone, and Scott manages to hold his own in the fight scenes alongside the always incredible Mark Dacascos. It is only a shame though that Hollywood executives thought this would be the best film to introduce Mark as a leading man, instead of his classic Crying Freeman which went unreleased in the US for many years!

Double Dragon has its moments. It just makes me so angry to see such a great thing wasted, and another case of what could have been if it was in the right hands. In one scene, the spinach feeding scene, the actor in terrible make-up states, 'I'm not acting...'

Never a truer word said.

Ok, it's not an Oscar winner, but few films are. It is a campy flick, but it's not the wanna-poke-your-eyes-out-to-stop-the-pain campy, but rather in the realm of a guilty pleasure.

In agreement with an earlier post, this was not supposed to be a film that took itself seriously. Notably, the action was on par with any other martial arts movie being made, and the script had a bunch of smart-assy humor (which I must admit that I'm a big sucker for). It's meant to be a fun film, and that was the end result.

As far as a video game movie is concerned, it's not the worst ever made...Mario Bros is still the king, with Street Fighter in a close second, and Final Fantasy in third place. So you see, there are worst movies that have been made.

And folks, I'm not ashamed to admit that I have the DVD for this film in my collection.