O Dragão Invencível

I was able to catch Invincible Dragon on my flight to Hong Kong recently and well - let's just say on my DVD shopping spree in Kowloon, I hadn't the slightest urge to buy this one for my collection!

That collection by the way, which is a strong 4,000 movies consisting mainly of HK cinema, which probably contains nothing (if very few) like what I witnessed when watching this film...

I can't even say, if this was made in the 80s it would work - it's not even just the insanity of the story that makes this a WTF movie - it's the script, the acting, the dodgy CG, and using Silva as a bad guy, and well, I guess the direction too!

Celebrated director Fruit Chan's first foray into action cinema is quite simply not a great one. It's not even a good one! I does have the odd entertaining moment or three, but that's far from enough to make up for the mess woven throughout it.

It's quite unfortunate really.

I was really hoping this would be a real return to what's been missing from HK cinema the last 20 years... but no.

Give it a go. You may find it entertaining, or like myself, you may just be left asking yourself 'what the actual did I just watch?'

In short: Not recommended, not a good production overall. One of those three stars is for the budget which partially seems to have been there, one is for costume/backdrop and stagework, i would detract 1 for both martial arts choreography (overly complicated spinkicks and pushkicks that would never work or be used) put on that horrible effects and u got a really bad movie. This can barely be compared to the old 70's and 80'skung fu movies. This is bad, the only saving grace is the plotline which first denotes the dragon as metaphorical and keeps the interest not fully dead.

This movie is a Hong Kong production and the DVD comes with a Cantonese version. All the main characters of this movie are from all over the world but not Hong Kong. Anderson Silva is Brazilian American. Kevin Cheng and Juju Chan are Chinese American from San Francisco and New York. Annie Liu is from Taiwan and Jin Zhang is from China. None of them are native Cantonese speakers. Their dialogues in Cantonese are so funny and not one person can speak fluent Cantonese. Skip the Cantonese version.

A Chinese movie. It is a kind of action thriller. Totally crazy. The effects are lousy, quite a few moments are poorly achieved and caricatured, in fact the dragon is too exaggerated. Disappoints in visual effects. The performances are not entirely accomplished. The choreographies of well executed blows. The script seems written by a teenager. Although the story is not bad. It fulfills its function which is to entertain but only that. It is about a detective who has to have a revolver in a case of murdering female police officers and the incidents he does to achieve it.

Max Zhang is always impressive! His fighting is beautiful in its grace and brutality! I never tire of watching him fight. The story line is good for an action flick. More impressive is his English! I know it's hard to get the pronunciation down. Max Zhang did a good job with that. He was understandable. I wish the writers had done a better job with the English parts. Not that they were any more cheesy than American action flick writing.

I gave this a 6 because Max Zhang is Amazing despite some of the bad writing!