As Leis do Crime

I feel like the writer (Michael Di Jiacomo) created a solid art house film beginning with a dramatic true story from a newspaper article, about a Chinese gang in nyc during the 80's and 90's, but only uses this as a point of departure to tell another poetic and intricately woven meditation on immigration, race and class which could easily pertain to any immigrant group. But he really took the story to another level with his soulful shamanic protagonist, Sonny (Justin Chon), who oddly maintains his purity and innocence against a harsh tapestry of brutality and violence, as he tragically explores ideas of identity, family, and the universal mechanisms by which human alliances in society are built and broken.

But maybe the producers were a bit afraid Jiacomo's vision would not be marketable enough, and so they tried to thinly disguise this brilliant, complex, touching, and highly nuanced script, sometimes as a detective story, and at other times as a shoot em' up action flick, and occasionally even as a schlocky melodrama. None of these other genres quite worked out however, and it seems that viewers and critics walked away confused, and the film did not receive the recognition it deserves.

But who knows, the art film it was intended to be may never seen the light of day. It is interesting to note how movies are made through an intersection of artists, investors, marketing people, and public opinion and trends. In fact, any group in society forms organically in a similar way. We cling to one another first for survival, perhaps for love, then for defense and maybe later, domination, and then again for love.

If you squint while watching, maybe you can catch a glimpse of what this film was supposed to be. Yet you can certainly appreciate it for what it is. There are so many powerful nuances such as the role of the middle class Chinese detective (Jin Au-Yeung) constantly experiencing different forms of racism from the white detectives, who are petty enough to even steal his recognition to be named on the front page of the newspaper. At times he seems opportunistic and self serving but at other times you realize he is a mirror to the other characters (they are often seated face to face) and is also struggling for his identity in a society which does not welcome him for being Chinese. The way that Snakehead Mama (Eugenia Yuan) lives in an elegant home sipping from a European teacup while her gang of enforcers live in squalor slurping noodles. In another scene she calmly orders brutal murders of Chinese who have been disobedient to the "family." Later she snarls "I am the American the dream."

The peaceful and philosophical businessman, Paul (Harry Shum), politely bows to his victims before ordering their murder, and is described as not a leader, but a religion. At the bottom rung is Steven (Kevin Wu), who is so badly damaged he has become a psychopathic maniac. Yet, Steven's ruthless murderous inclinations are the source of power, privilege and prestige for the others in the hierarchy. Yet, he is hardly a cold, cruel and calculated killer -- his emotions are so intense they are constantly overflowing. He literally exclaims angrily in one scene, "you don't think I feel?" His killing is an uncontrollable mixture of intense rage and sadness, as if he has made the choice to personally bear the burden of the others' pain collectively, so they may be relieved of it and can have the luxury to behave civilly.

There are some difficult scenes involving torture and rape which are hard to watch. But from what I gather this is based on a true story and these scenes are necessary to provide insight into the reality of historic and cultural events. That being said, it is not anywhere near as bad as a Tarantino flick and about the same as Apocalypse Now or the Godfathers. Thankfully there was no gratuitous sex or exploitation of women. I felt the ending was a bit unsatisfying but not terrible. I feel this is an important film as there is virtually no media attention to these Chinese gangs and they are an overlooked part of history. Furthermore, I think this a very important film to watch for anyone interested in exploring immigration, race and imperialism.

The obvious take away is that the more we outlaw immigrants, marginalize them, and prohibit law enforcement from protecting their rights, we are turning our bank on innocent families and children who can easily become subject to slavery, abuse, rape, and murder. This is not just happening to the Chinese is New York in the 80's - this is happening now.

This is based on true events that happened in America. You may look at it, as either glorifying violence to a degree or making immigrants look bad, but that would be beside the point. I don't believe this to be a propaganda either way. I do believe that the story is interesting and while it probably is heighten for movie purposes it deserved to be told in a way like this.

Acting is OK, the setting is decent and the action scenes deliver mostly (though they are not too heightened/fancy). There still is blood, not many women involved (other than to look pretty) and everything else you'd expect (for better or worse) from a B-movie, even without it being based on true life.

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.

*What's the Hong Kong equivalent of Hollywood, eg "Bollywood" for India?

I read the story of the Green Dragons over 20 years ago, and have just recently heard of the movie adaptation. After watching this, I think this is another case of "the facts are more interesting than fiction". The original events were violent and raw. It ended with a sense of retribution. What the director did with the movie version was to partially "Hong Kong"ize the story. This really doesn't work unless you go all in and purposely try to suspend the audience's disbelief.

I don't mean to say Hong Kong action movies are bad, but they only fit in a style that shouldn't be done for non-fiction, even with a gangster movie. All the brooding, the slow moving gun mechanics, the improvised romance, etc. works great when the action is so gratuitous, you can shut your brain off and enjoy the flick for what it is. In Dragon, all the personalities, including the lead, just mesh into a stylized melodramatic comic character of their real counterparts. It's not the actor's fault, since their portrayals are closely reminiscent of Hong Kong action movies.

Again, I just think they should have gotten a more appropriate director and stay truer to the original events. For example, in Casino, I can believe it happened in real life as shown on the screen... not so much with Dragon.

That said, I enjoyed the movie, perhaps mostly because I enjoyed the story.

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.