Dragões para Sempre

I am by no means a Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, or of the genre in general, but I was simply blown away by the fight sequences. Some of the stunts I had never seen before, and even those that have long since become cliche continued to impress me. Although the plot was rather simple and at times I was confused as to Jackie Chan's character's intentions, I didn't watch this movie for its intellectual stimulation...

Incredibly acrobatic!

The comedy is VERY funny (casting Jackie as a lawyer is funny in itself, intentionally I hope), the romance is sweet and the action is (expectedly) spectacular. The film is marred only by its inconsistent tone: there is a little too much violence toward the end, which doesn't sit too well with the rest of the movie. By the way, I watched the dubbed version, and this may be one of those rare instances where the dubbing does not significantly detract from the film - in fact, it probably ENHANCES the comedy. (***)

Defence lawyer Jackie Lung (Jackie Chan) represents shady businessman Hua Hsien-Wu, who is accused of polluting a local fish farm owned by Miss Yip (Deannie Yip). To help him win the case, Jackie enlists two friends from the criminal fraternity, arms dealer Luke Wong Fei-hung (Sammo Hung) and cat burglar Timothy Tung Tak-Biao (Yuen Baio). Jackie also romances Miss Yip's pretty cousin Nancy (Pauline Yeung) in order to get inside information, but finds himself falling in love for real, resulting in a change of heart that pits him and his friends against Hua Hsien-Wu and his cronies.

For twelve incredible minutes, Dragons Forever shows Chan, Biao and Hung at their very best, in a blistering finale that sees the trio battling numerous bad guys in a chemical factory: our heroes perform amazing feats of acrobatics, punch and kick at jaw-dropping speed, bodies falls from gangways onto hard surfaces, and lots of glass is smashed. It's just a shame that to get there one must endure well over an hour of mediocre comedy and dull romance, interspersed by the occasional spot of less memorable martial arts to retain the attention of fight fans until the final showdown.

As a whole, the film really only warrants an average rating, but I'm happy to bump it up a bit for the main bad guys, the excellent Yuen Wah (who also played the memorable villain from another fave of mine, Eastern Condors), and the awesome Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez—never has eyeliner been so macho! 6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Dragons Forever may be one of Jackie Chan's best and certainly one of his most satisfying films. It contains some of the best fight action of his career,and an equal amount of humour,but also has a reasonable plot,some character development and a welcome dose of romance,something which is usually sidelined in Chan films. In fact,this is one Chan movie which might be enjoyed just as much by the gals as well as the guys.

This was the last film featuring the great trio of Chan,Samo Hung and Yuen Biao,and it sees them experimenting a bit by playing against type. Chan is really good as a shady,skirt chasing lawyer,and Biao is very funny as a mentally unstable thief {some versions of the film remove two of his scenes,so beware},but Hung,who was easily the best actor of the three,gives the stand out performance as Chan's devious gun running buddy. A great deal of time is given to Hung's and Chan's romances,and there is one really touching if over the top scene involving Hung with a megaphone trying to get his potential girl to trust him in front of loads of people.

Some of the film's slapstick perhaps goes on a bit,but there are some terrific scenes where the three heroes keep comedic-ally fighting each other,sometimes all at one time. Don't worry action fans,amidst all this romance and slapstick is some superb fighting. The fights are not that many in number and some are quite brief,but Chan looks near his best and Hung and Baio also shine. Chan's running battle with a gang of heavies on a ship and his duel with Benny Urquidez {a thrilling battle and not at all like the Chan/Urquidez match in Wheels On Meals} are amongst his best fights ever. Just try and keep a a note of all the stunt men who do extremely dangerous falls during the climax! As often with a Hung-directed film,the violence is a bit stronger than the usual Chan film.

As usual there is the odd scene which doesn't work,such as when Hung apologizes to his girlfriend and she......smashes him in the face with an iron bar!-after which they make up! The film was rushed and sometimes looks a little rough around the edges. Nevertheless,this is a truly enjoyable all round movie which should satisfy even if you're not really into martial arts movies!

After having watched Project A and Wheels on Meals, I couldn't help having some high hopes for this last one with the three leads together for a final time. I guess I'm a bit disappointed over how simple it was, but then again, it's what you should expect from a Hong Kong Action Comedy from the 80s.

The film is split into three parts - introducing the three leads, two of the leads romancing the women and final part the fight with the bad guys. I'm sure there could be ways to make the film more smooth in it's storytelling, but we're not really introduced to the main baddies reason for being bad until the last part of the film. Instead they make silly gags about Yuen trying to hide a listening bug device in one of the womens apartment, helping Jackie out, or just Yuen attacking Jackie during one of his dates. Sure, we get great fights these times, but you don't really feel like there's much on stake these time. Although, even I have to admit that when the three of them fight each other, I got some Three Stooges vibes, in the best way possible, I laughed out loud over how greatly choreographed it all was. However, the weakest part of the film was the whole romantic section between Jackie and his love interest as well as Sammo and his - poor Yuen just had to be the comic relief in the end. The romantic part slowed the whole film down and caused a hiccup in the otherwise fast-moving narration.

The best part however is the third act, the famous fight(s) in the bad boss' factory. You can tell that Sammo as a director knows how to use his actors right, Wah Yuen is amazing and laugh-out-loud funny with his sneaky kicks and keeping the cigar in his mouth all the time, too bad we don't got more of him. We also got Benny Urquidez as the boss' henchman, I've only seen two films with him, but damn, I will never forget his face, looking so intimidating and really giving Jackie a challenge until the end. I rate the last part of this film 10 out of 10, but sadly the middle drags it down. Still, it's a great ending to this trilogy.