Revenge of the Green Dragons

The plot is good and the direction is also alright. But the weakest link of the movie are the actors of the main characters.

Justin is just too skinny and little to make a credible gangster. If he threatened me I think I woukd laugh. In reality is just difficult to picture it.

The film could be more darker, with more character development. For example, Steven is the crazy one, but sometimes he just doesn't seem that crazy, just plain retarded.

Sonny and Steven could have talked more to give the viewer the sense of bonding, instead the movie is just plain simple. The movie evolves way too fast and the all triad gets arrested too soon. It made them (gangsters) look careless.

It kind reminds you the senseless gang banger movies of Hong Kong

Traveling across an ocean or desert and into a new country, one becomes subject to different rules, and vulnerable to thugs who know the system better. Those unable or unwilling to control their own destinies in this new climate, invite others to do it for them. "Captain leads, sailor sails," is the saying, and some unsavory, yet deceptively wholesome looking, captains appear at the helm. The American dream depends more on one's luck, resources and strength of character, than on equal opportunity, liberty or other tenuous threads. Based on actual events from the 1980s, the film follows the lives of Chinese immigrants to New York City who are pressured into gangs, menial labor and violence. The main characters are two boys who become part of the notorious Green Dragon gang. Despite shaky acting and disjointed transitions, it is an intriguing and insightful glimpse into the underworld of U.S. immigration. Many scenes are predictable, yet there were some twists and turns, especially at the end, that I did not see coming. Seen at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

Despite Martin Scorsese being the executive producer and Ray Liotta having a role, "Revenge of the Green Dragons" doesn't seem to have received much of a theatrical release (if any) in North America. It doesn't take long to figure out why - the movie simply isn't very good. I'm not saying there isn't any merit to be found. Some of the acting by the largely no-name cast is fine, and directors Wai-Keung Lau and Andrew Loo do manage to inject a little stylishness despite their low budget. But for the most part, the movie's low budget does show, particularly with the extremely tight direction - I almost suffered from a case of claustrophobia with everything so closely filmed. But the movie also suffers script problems. None of the characters are fleshed out enough to give us a good idea as to their backgrounds or what they are thinking or feeling. I simply didn't care one way or another about these guys. As a result, the movie becomes extremely tiresome very quickly, and you'll be impatiently waiting for it to come to its end.

The movie is based on true events, so the filmmakers had to walk on the thin line between integrity and artistic freedom, which may have effected the story being told, and made everything overall weak.

Andrew Lau, known best for Infernal Affairs, the movie that inspired Martian Scorsese's the Departed, with the help of Andrew Loo, takes his from of crime drama off the streets of Hong Kong, and place it on the streets of Queens, New York, which I thought was perfect.

It's starts out about a boy who gets caught up in the crime underworld in the 1980s and leads to unwinding The FBI's theory that the large amount of Immigration in the city is bringing crime into it.

The movie was just a jumble of events slab together by a story that did not feel really drawn out. I loved the fact that the movie is filled with Asian Actors not doing the stereotypical action Kung Fu genre but wish they had more to work with.

I went into it expecting to see a a great Asian Cinema Crime Drama set in New York which sounds amazing, and even though I liked the movie it was not anywhere as good what I would expect a collaboration between Scorsese and Lau.

A collaboration between Wai-Keung Lau (Infernal Affairs trilogy) and Martin Scorsese (The Departed) about Chinese gangs in New York at the end of the 1980s. One would expect fireworks, right? Not so much. This movie is entertaining but misses a bigger impact. It's not surprising the film didn't get a wider release in the US... The rather conventional story is embellished with different kind of colorful gangs from the (Asian) underworld, some pretty gruesome torture scenes and an attempt to make a huge plot twist at the end, but finally fails due to ordinariness. It needed more "cool" and a more interesting angle storywise. Fans of Asian-centered mob movies should give it a try though.