Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon

Max Havoc (Mickey Hardt) is an ex-kickboxer turned photographer who protects two attractive sisters from the Yakuza led by David Carradine. Seems that one of the sisters bought a jade dragon from dealer Richard Roundtree and after numerous awkward moments, Max Havoc saves the day but doesn't save the film. As far as narrative flow goes, Max Havoc:Curse Of The Dragon is possibly Pyun's most chaotic movie ever made. (And I saw Nemesis 1-3, Bloodmatch and Deceit) The problem with Max Havoc is that it only provides occasional laughter. From laughably overblown suspense sequences that involve hostage taking, getting run over by a row-boat, getting cut up in a limo and much much more. However Pyun actually makes the biggest mistake by hardly giving us any dumb moments and basically the movie is mostly dulls-ville. There is some controversy over how this movie was made, but I for one am indifferent to such matters. Sure it's not right but i'm not here to discuss politics and my neutral observations are simple; Max Havoc is a terrible movie with only a few (unintentionally) hilarious moments to keep you from shutting it off. Among the unintentionally hilarious moments is how Pyun pays direct "homage" to Cyborg (itself a masterpiece compared to this) in that Pyun shows pointless flashbacks for no other reason but to stretch out the running time. In this case we watch Max Havoc deliver a jumping punch which is then followed by David Carradine looking mean into the camera and smoking his cigarette and showing his rings. Also the ending makes no sense and the impression here is given that the movie wasn't even indeed finished. Max Havoc:Curse Of The Dragon is so incompetently edited that fight sequences are literally scrapped before the confrontation ends! Also the story is so over the map it's impossible to follow it coherently and finally the movie features acting so terrible that it sometimes borders on surreality. David Carradine and Richard Roundtree look (rightfully) embarrassed, Carmen Electra is not in it much and newcomer Mickey Hardt is so bad that he makes other Pyun leads (a list that includes Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sasha Mitchell, Michael Dudikoff,Gary Daniels, Steven Seagal and (shudder) Olivier Gruner) seem like master thespians. Seriously where did they find this guy? Still the main question is whether Max Havoc:Curse Of The Dragon works as a guilty pleasure style movie, and sadly the answer is no. There are a few laughs to be had but mainly we watch Mickey Hardt snap photos for like forty minutes before anything happens and this in itself is a tragedy because without dumb action, Max Havoc:Curse Of The Dragon is just painful to watch.

Note:On the DVD there is a biography of David Carradine and Richard Roundtree however both sections neglect to mention Bound For Glory,Kill Bill Vol.1 and Shaft on the filmography for the two distinguished actors. Which only shows the ineptitude of all involved.

* out of 4-(Bad)

The movie starts off with a bunch of stock footage of a motor-bike race, and continues for about another 15 minutes until there's a fight at a bar with sports Photographer Max Havoc (they don't tell us his middle name) and some bimbo.

Then we're off to Guam for some travel promo stuff, and then the films over.

Sure there's a couple of poorly executed fights, some running around in a hotel, a row boat/swimmer wreak, and about 350 shots of the same slow-mo shot of Max punching someone, but that's about it.

Albert Pyun has made the worst movie of his sorry-ass career (I mean it, too. It's worse then those Urban Menace films)

This movie had to be a scam, all the way around. Someone got some movie budget money in their pockets and now everything's in court.

Can I file a lawsuit against Pyun & Co. for having had watch this thing?

Don't waste a penny of your $ or a second of your time on Max Havoc- Curse of the Dragon

A friend of mine in Guam sent me a video of this movie that was made there with Guam Government money. It was utterly stupid and beyond pointless. I feel bad for the Guam Government for losing money in the scam. They'll never make money on this pile o' sh*t movie.

It's about a sport's photographer who goes to Guam to take pictures of some hotel. He meets some girls (playboy model Joanna Kruppa plays one of the girls - in a cover story for Playboy Kruppa called MAX HAVOC "really stupid!" Well she's right) and some kung-fu gang is chasing her. I don't know why. Anyways, Max Havoc helps her out. The fights are so poorly done, it looks like stuff my kids shoot on their Hi-8 Video camera. But beyond that, MAX HAVOC is so BORING. You want to fast forward through it, but that doesn't even help!

The movie makes not a lick of sense and it's hard to imagine someone making a film this bad. I IMDb'd MAX HAVOC director Albert Pyun and he makes really awful movies, so I guess it makes sense that he made MAX HAVOC. That seems to be his forte: making really bad movies, but not "so bad they're good" movies say in the spirit of Ed Wood, his movies just flat out suck. Talk about ZERO talent. I wonder if he cons people like he conned the Guam Government when he made this film. What a legacy!

If you see this movie in the video store (somehow I don't think it will ever make it off the island of Guam), hold your nose!

Do not rent this movie. If you read the other comments, its obvious that this film is a total flop. It's not even worth watching just to laugh at how lame it is. But the truth is that the people of Guam were scammed by the movie's producers. The Guam Government thought that this film, featuring famous actress Carmen Electra, would help advertise Guam's beauty and increase tourism. So the government lent the producers money to help finance the film.

Guam is a small island in the middle of nowhere. It's very rare that any one of relative fame visits the island. The people were very excited about a movie being filmed on their island. Many spent long hours in the hot sun as film extras. The film crew stayed in nice hotels and were treated like royalty. The producers took advantage of the islanders excitement and gave them nothing in return. The Governemnt has never been payed back for the money they lent on this lousy film. Do the good people of Guam a favor. Instead of paying money on this film, stuff a couple of dollars in an envelope and send it to the Gov Guam. Or better yet, visit Guam and experience the islands beauty for your self.

We've all seen them: bad movies. However, MAX HAVOC: CURSE OF THE DRAGON sinks to uncharted lows of stupidity and boredom. I guess this mess seemed like a good idea to some mentally bankrupt "Hollywood Never-Beens," but even an Elementary school film-maker wouldn't be proud of this celluloid atrocity.

A sports photographer goes to the Island of Guam to shoot pictures of something, I don't know what and the screenwriters (There were two!!!) doesn't seem to know either. His name, Max Havoc, is straight out of a bad 80's action film (except it's a bad 2004 action film). While in Guam he runs into some girls who can't act and they involve him in some mind numbing plot points and there's lots of remedial kung-fu "action."

Carmen Electra is in the film for all of 10 seconds but she's got the top-billing. (Yeah, it's one of those rip-off films. The DVD case says: STARRING CARMEN ELECTRA and she's barely in the film. Not only are you, the viewer, ripped off by this film it looks like the Islanders on Guam were ripped off too as the producers got the Locals to sign a loan deal that went bad ((of course - they make bad movies and default on production loans!!)) or some such sh*t.)

There's all the clichéd scenes you expect in a Grade-F "action film." Lots of slow-motion, yelling and running around. No car chases but there is an "action" scene with a boat that's going about 2mph! The girls don't take any clothes off, so you don't even got that. The film reminded me of one of those bad "skin-a-max" films you see in Hotel rooms, except there was no porn in this film just bad story, bad sets, bad acting, bad lighting and bad direction. At least the film-makers were consistently bad: Not one single good thing appears anywhere in this film!

The film ends (thank you, God!): Max Havoc chases away the bad kung-fu guys and gets the girl, Guam gets pinched for the film's budget and you, for having made the mistake of picking this turd up, gets ripped off for whatever Blockbuster charged you.