Dragon Squad

Objectively speaking, this was your typical formulaic Hong Kong cop thriller. Sammo Hung plays the once brilliant cop, Kong Long, with issues as he heads to retirement. One of his issues surrounds an old case in which his team gets wiped out by a gang. Meanwhile five superstars (Shawn Yue, Vaness Wu, Eva Huang, Xia Yu, Lawrence Chou) in the Asian entertainment scene play five international cops who are there to testify against a mobster. However, on the way to court he is "rescued" by the gwei-lo, a former SAS man, Petros (Michael Biehn) and his team (which contains the delectable Maggie Q). Not surprisingly, once the mobster escapes, the young cops are after them and a chase ensues, following a path of history that Kong Long is all too familiar with.

Unlike most HK cop thrillers, there is more of an element of psychology involved and there are mind games that you, the viewer, do get caught up in. It is intelligent in parts, triggering some suspense. However, the downside is that this wasn't consistent throughout the film and much of the rest of the plot is rather weak and predictable. There are some action scenes that add a bit of excitement, but overall the script is the usual formulaic stuff that is much a throw-back to that seen in the last three decades of HK film.

But for most, like many Hollywood efforts of this type of film, the film appeals to the mass market. Some very big names in the world of entertainment in the Far East appear in this movie, including boy band F4-member, Vanness Wu, veteran kung fu supremo, Sammo Hung, and former model Maggie Q. It isn't a sublime work of art. It is meant to be seen at face value. And in that, it might have some success.

Overall, this film breaks no boundaries, in fact it stays well within the outfield. But, it's a fairly solid film that the masses will probably enjoy. One for a bit of action.

(2005) Dragon Heat (With a fair amount of Chinese with English subtitles) ACTION

Co-written and directed by Daniel Lee, another one of those Chinese police movies where it shows a small group of bad guys always outsmarting the Hong Kong police, motivating the force to hire a very youthful crime unit of their own since they're always getting wasted. Inspired by more superior Hong Kong movies such as Jackie Chan's "New Police Story", "Big Bullet" and "Rock N Roll Cop" to name a few. By judging this film in terms of action sequences this one is passable enough because of the presence of action veteran actor Samo Hung who does about two action scenes in this movie and did a lot more dangerous stuff in his younger years. If seen enough of em, a lot of action sequences are taken from really early Hong Kong superior ones, most notably Yuen Woo ping's masterpiece "Tiger Cage II" starring a young Donnie Yen, anyways the end sword fight scene is somewhat redone again by Samo Hung's fight with the Japanese guy. Michael Biehn from "The Terminator", "Aliens" and "The Abyss" also stars as a scarred war veteran terrorist whose angry at the world seeking some solace!

Daniel Lee must have watched too many Michael Bay films, such is the speed of the editing in Dragon Squad. On top of that, the director throws in a myriad of cinematic tricks and gimmicks in an obvious attempt to try and capture a hip audience for his picture. Slow-motion, fast-motion, filters, crazy camera angles, bloody violence, a group of young actors that could pass for designer clothes store mannequins; your average thirteen year-old would probably think this is one of the best films ever made. Maybe that's the point. To a more (ahem) mature viewer, however, the movie plays like an extended pop video, where a long fringe or moody look is supposed to give our anguished heroes some depth. It doesn't. In fact as you watch the film, it begins to resemble an ultra-violent version of the A-Team. For surely only in that classic of 80s t.v. could almost a dozen protagonists firing automatic weapons in a narrow alley not hit each other with a single shot for five minutes. Aren't these people supposed to be highly trained cops and ex-special forces nutters? Duh? But then it happens. One of our paper-thin leads takes a bullet to the brain and suddenly Lee's film hits the ground running, becoming a darker and more twisted bastard of a film. So what's to recommend to the curious viewer about this movie? Well, the last half-hour is certainly more satisfyingly gritty, if just as silly, as all that has preceded it. On top of that, with our fledgling super-cops a charisma-free zone, it's up to old hands to give Dragon Squad some bite. Fortunately, (though given little to work with) Maggie Q, Michael Biehn, Sammo Hung and Jun-ho Heo managed to interject some weight into proceedings through sheer force of personality. Sammo and Heo's characters personal battle within the narrative is the film's highlight, culminating in a decent punch-up that is well choreographed by Hung protégé Chin Kar Lok. The numerous gun battles are also finely staged, certainly more brutal and bloody than the balletic shootouts of John Woo's justifiably lauded Hong Kong output. The film also has an excellent original soundtrack and there are some fun cameos, including Simon Yam (somewhat wasted), Kung-fu legend Gordon Lui (funny) and Hong Kong film expert Bey Logan (wooden). So if you're looking for a popcorn action flick with an Asian flavour, I guess you could do worse than Dragon Squad. You could also do a lot better.

The cast in the movie do their best to give this movie an edge!. That they fail is not their fault. Because at least they try to make something of it! When i heard that Micheal Biehn would star in this movie I honestly didn't know what to expect! To my surprise he ( together with Jun-ho Heo and Sammo Hung)provides some good acting to make the story believable! As for the direction I am a bit disappointed! The first half of the movie is too chaotic for my taste. In the second half the action scenes do pick up! Nice shootouts and one big martial arts scene between Sammo and Jun-ho Heo! This is what the fans want! It is too bad the director didn't use the actors to their fullest potential! I've seen "What price Survival" from director Daniel Lee where it also was more style than substance! It is a shame to see he hasn't learned much from those mistakes! Thanks to the cast this movie is fun to watch! Don't expect anything special,it's average!

When a fellow countryman calls this "visually the most glorious movie I've seen", I feel compelled to shout out to the world (well, IMDb review readers) that his statement, even in 2005, when it was written, hardly represents an average Finn's opinion. If this is visually the most glorious movie *anybody* has ever seen, they really need to see more movies. Or study the meaning of the word "glorious". It seems, based on the average IMDb rating, that most people deem this movie anything but "glorious."

Hong Kong action films set in the time period when they were made should not be judged on terms of characterization, dialog, plot or acting (Mou gaan dou a.k.a. Infernal Affairs excepted). Most of them are meant to entertain with action sequences. This movie does not do that. Apart from the duel near the end *without* guns, the action sequences in this movie make Michael Bay seem a genius. The first question that came to my mind when watching this movie was: "What the frak was wrong with the editor?" The chaotic action sequences where you can't tell who's doing what thanks to ADD editing and visual effects that are all over the place were already bad enough, but what makes most of them downright disasters is the fact that it seems some shots that should have been between other shots to form, you know, a *coherent* visual flow, were either never shot in the first place, or ended on the editing room floor. Characters practically teleport instantaneously from one spot to other presumably because it was deemed too boring to show them moving.

Urgh. It's sad to see so many legendary actors' CV tarnished by this mess. I miss the golden age of John Woo. His movies had grace. A word that doesn't probably even exist in the vocabulary of the makers of this 4/10 example of how to ruin a perfectly entertaining action movie with horrendous editing.