Gli occhi del dragone

This film is entertaining.

The bias we hold coming into a film will always steer our opinions of it. Mine was the foregone conclusion this would be boring and low budget and I was wrong! Well, I was wrong about boring.

Most people on here seem to rip the story line and the main actor's demeanor but I don't watch fight films for character development. Does anyone really do that? The fight scenes are pretty cool and at times sweet. I enjoyed the use of camera angles throughout the film and wasn't ever bored.

In the end it was entertaining and that is what I look for with fight films.

Sigh. Where to begin?

A bad film with a hell of a lot of stupid moments, a stock caricature villain, awful rap music... At least the Western-style cinematography is new - not particularly well done, but new. There's also the annoying and cliché freeze-frame with each character's name as they appear on-screen for the first time. Yes, just five minutes in you'll know that this film will suck... but will the fight scenes redeem it?

Unfortunately, I'd have to say no.

Cung Le is pretty good as the stoic, kick-arse lead and, given some better material, I'd give him a second chance, but the film is forgettable at best and painful at worst.

Yes, van Damme's in it (the reason I recorded it when it came on TV), but don't expect too much from him, as he somehow manages to train the lead in prison from sorry loser to ninja, in such a short period of time that his student's hair doesn't even grow!

Credits to the man for that - now where do I sign up for my martial arts lessons?

Given van Damme's massive library of content though, I'd have to advise that a fan looked elsewhere to get his kicks... a joke that falls about as flat as this dreadful feature.

'DRAGON EYES': Three Stars (Out of Five)

International Kickboxing champion and UFC star Chung Le stars in this crime drama action film. It co-stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, Peter Weller and Kristopher Van Varenberg (Van Damme's son). The film was directed by John Hyams (who also directed the last two 'UNIVERSAL SOLDIER' films, also featuring Van Damme) and written by Tim Tori (who also wrote the low budget B horror films 'PROWL', 'HYSTERIA' and 'TRESSPASSERS'). It was produced by After Dark Films, who had primarily been known for releasing horror films but has now turned to martial arts action films as well (they also produced the recent Scott Adkins action film 'EL GRINGO'). The film is about what you'd expect from your average martial arts B movie but it does showcase Le's talents well; as an action force to be reckoned with.

Le plays Ryan Hong, a mysterious loner who rolls in to a town, rife with gang violence, known as St. Jude. He turns the two ruling gangs there against each other before falling under the attention of corrupt police chief Mr. V (Weller). Mr. V first sees Hong's skills as an asset and uses him to help control the gangs but then finds him to be more of a menace than an ally. Hong turns to the skills he was taught in prison by an old resident of St. Jude, known as Tiano (Van Damme), and attempts to clean up the town once and for all.

Le has had a lot of cool supporting turns in action films like 'TEKKEN', 'PANDORUM', 'FIGHTING' and most recently 'THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS' but this is his first chance to show off his leading man chops. His fighting skills are very impressive and he has an acting style similar to the likes of the greats; like Jackie Chan and Jet Li (in my opinion). It would be nice to see him get better movies with higher production values but this is a good start for him. Hyams is a good action film director and it doesn't get much better than having Van Damme and Peter Weller supporting you in your first starring role. Van Damme plays little more than an extended cameo in the film but was given top billing in all the marketing (including posters and the DVD cover) in order to sell it (his name is pretty marketable these days, despite being seen as washed up just a few years ago). He doesn't really have enough screen time in this film to make much of an impression but just his presence gives the film some extra cred. Weller is great as the movie's villain and it's nice to see him popping up in films still as well. The movie is really just an action vehicle for Chung Le though and at that it does it's job pretty well.

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Really bad story- if you put this movie in DVD 📀 to watch van Damme move watch something else and the story in the movie is really bad. Terrible in fact. I give a honest 4/ 10.

Storywise this really aims high. Something that people might not really be into that much, but whatever the case, you have to admire the filmmakers for trying at least. There are some very fine ideas in this movie (loyalty, friendship, respect amongst them), but none get explored too much. Not to mention that the emotional connection between the viewer and the main character unfortunately isn't the strongest. And that has nothing to do with the storyline, but has more to do with the way the movie is handled.

The action scenes are decent enough (some are even spectacular), but hopefully you're not renting this to watch van Damme fight. He's playing a major part, but is a supporting player. But Cung Le knows how to fight. In the charisma department on the other hand ... One really good coup the movie made is installing Peter Weller as the main bad guy. He is terrific and shows what Charisma really is!