Latin Dragon

For a 2004 movie "Latin Dragon" sure had a lot of similarities to the action and martial arts movies from the mid-1990's. And you might think that it is a good thing, but it wasn't.

A generic and stereotypical lone hero saves the day storyline didn't really make it into a particularly entertaining movie, nor did the flaccid acting put on throughout the course of the entire movie.

Thumbs up for actually making a Latin martial arts movie, that is something that I have personally never seen before stumbling upon "Latin Dragon" in the local secondhand DVD store.

With a cast that included Gary Busey, Lorenzo Lamas and for me an unknown guy named Fabian Carrillo, you pretty know what you are getting into. But I guess it is the morbid fascination with bad movies that still make us sit down to watch such movies.

The action sequences and scenes were mediocre, so nothing to get your hopes up for here. My favorite scene would have to be where Carrillo slided down a wooden banister while standing up and shooting two guns, and in slow motion just as icing on the cake. That was so bad it actually hurt the eyes to witness. At least it was good for a solid laugh.

Bad acting, bad dialogue, bad story, if these is your things, by all Means give "Latin Dragon" a go, otherwise stay well clear of this movie.

Man, I sure did love Billy Jack when I was a kid and "Everybody Loves Raymond" is one funny show. So, as I sat watching this movie I kept thinking to myself, "Gosh, this sure seems familiar in a really odd, totally indirect sort of way."

And then it hit me.

The hero looks like Ray Romano and the avenging retired soldier aspect of his character reminded me of Billy Jack. Then you've got some bad guys making everyone miserable and rich folks with money providing money to the bad guys to make everyone miserable. I mean, it's not EXACTLY like Billy Jack but if Billy Jack ever made it to East L.A. this is exactly how he'd handle things.

Of course he wouldn't ride in on a burgundy red Kawasaki (!). No self respecting tough guy would.

This movie sucked absolutely sucked. It came on TV and the only reason I watched it was because I was sick and couldn't really do much. The acting was bad all around. You'd expect more from someone like Gary Busey. The movie was low budget horribly acted and in fact made me sicker. I knew from the title Latin Dragon and the first I dunno 5 minutes that this was a stinker. I was really unimpressed by everything the plot was predictable and I've seen better fight scenes in a Steven Segal movie. You expect the good guy to roll up on a Harley Davidson but this guy nope he's on a toy bike a Kawasaki. To me that does not scream butt kicking' its more like i dunno guy who teaches Karate at the local YMCA and thats exactly what the fighting looked like. Like they payed a guy a hundred bucks to come on the set and teach these guys basic karate. They should've also hired an acting coach cause they couldn't get that right either. This movie was a real disappoint a couple of no body's Gary Busey and Lorenzo Lamas. Oh how the mighty have fallen (Gary Busey that is Lorenzo Lamas has always been a crap actor)!

This movie made me think of what it might be like if Ray Romano decided to do martial arts. Fabian Corillo looked just like Ray in that one where Ray was trying to act cool and got a tan and dyed his hair black.

Seriously, the acting was pretty bad, and the fighting was pretty... eh. The shots were edgy for the first 3 minutes and then they over-did it with 'edgy'. Then they over-did it with 'edgy'. Then they over-did it with 'edgy'. It was like a broken record with the speeding up and slowing down and almost stopping the camera. It's like back in school if you had the hyper kid running the movie projector. "Stop playing around Tommy!"

Still, there was some minor charm in this film. And to quote Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction), "Charm goes a long way." Still, watching it only one time would be fine with me.

Interesting house "the Dragon" has at the end. If you go for that "post-hurricane" look. Was that supposed to be his "Fortress of Solitude"??

If this comes to television, it's worth watching. In fact it has a made-for-TV look to it. 4/10

This movie has a real story behind all the action with finally, a Latino action hero! The acting is good and the fighting is great and feels real as well as unique, not all the fancy wireworks like most of the martial arts action movies today. It's edgy and depicts the bad guys as what we see in true life today! It's almost scary.

Fabian Carrillo did great first time out of the gate as compared to Jean Claude and Steven Segal in their first movie. He has presence on screen and at times has hints of very successful actors. In the cemetery scene he looks like Nick Cage, in the suit he looks like Stallone and at times like John Cusack. He's going to be a big star.

This movie kicks ass!