Destroyer Wod
I seem to give a lot of 5 recently, i am not sure if its because my standards are higher or i stumble across many ordinary movies. Lets just say that my opinion of Dragon Heat is a roller coaster. In some part i was getting into the story, in other parts i was bored, i could say the same for the action as some gun fights where nice, but some others where ridiculous(snipers can't hit anything for example). The fist fights where not that numerous, but when there was one, they where pretty fine...But the problems reside in 2 things, the plot and the bad cinematography. The director tried to give the movie a special touch or i dunno, using all kinds of blurry filters and effects, and it end up just being a mess. Also the movie kinda use the old formula of presenting every character with a 5 secs clip and name on screen, because there is a lot of them, yet those clips are used and re-used in the movie, which is way too much.The plot itself is confusing a bit, hard to follow, not the worst i ever saw but its hard to get into it and understand who do what in it. At some point you just give up and tell yourself, well good cops must kill bad guys, end of the story...As for the lead roles, i would say Sammo Hung has decent screen time, he appear first like a side character but at the end your kinda thinking he is more or less one of the lead. As for Maggie Q, she only play a bad guy with not much personality. She is the Sniper who can't hit anything... lol. No fight scene either. Don't let the cover fool you.
ttapola
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.
himboy32
Film: Dragon Squad Year: 2005 Genre(s): Action/Drama Director: Daniel Lee Language(s): Cantonese, Madarin, English Running Time: 111 Mins Format: DVD(Hong Kong Release) Cast: Venness Wu, Shawn Yue, Xia Yu, Eva Haung, Lawrence Chou, Sammo Hung, Micheal Biehn, Simon Yam, Huh Joon Ho, Maggie QSynopsis: Five interpol agents are drafted into Hong Kong to keep watch over a witness in an important trial, while being transported the convoy is ambushed by a gang of masked gun man.The agents, come together to solve who attacked them and, while being mentored by an almost retired officer, decide to take out the gang before more people are killed.Review:So this film has been receiving a lot of negative press, both from fans living in Hong Kong and those who live in other countries, having seen the flick, i's easy to understand why, the pacing is chaotic and the camera work as extremely frantic during it's many action sequences, add in some awkward attempts at character development and some repetitive flashbacks and you'd have a stinker on your hands right?Well, I hate to break it to you guys but no, despite some of the films superficial flaws, it does not fail in being one of the finest films to come out of Hong Kong in 2005 and while it didn't get the box office reception it deserved, this reviewer felt refreshed to find some creativity among the watered down Rom-coms the local film industry have seem to be putting out this past year. So let's start with the plot.It's your typical by the numbers tried and tested plot, there's the bad guys and there's the good guys, they fight, bad guys win, good guys get mentored by wise senior, fight again, good guys win.So really the plot is an excuse for director Daniel Lee is experiment with some very Micheal Mann-esquire camera work, about that, the camera work for the most part does the job right, it creates excitement and tension which kept this reviewer glued o the screen throughout, as it suited the style of the action scene s very well.Now the action, well, the good news is, there's plenty of it, lots of gun play with the odd martial arts sequence thrown in for good measure, the fighting mostly being done by Huh Joon Ho and Sammo Hung who confront each other twice, the second encounter being the most bloody and brutal. The shootouts are very well put together.For a movie which could be considered a mainstream film in Hong Kong, it isn't afraid to be extremely violent when it wants to be, there's plenty of blood on offer here, so if the acting doesn't grab, the blood soaked action will.The acting ranges from sleepy to extremely good. Micheal Biehn, who's a familiar face to Hollywood movie fans as Kyle Reese in James Cameron's seminal classic The Termintor, stars as the lead villain, for a man who's been working in the film industry for so long, I thought he would have brought some much needed acting to the movie but really he seems to be almost sleep walking in his role but one may interpret Biehn's characterisation as a person who's so cold, he shows very little emotion.The actors who played the five interpol agents where all very good, although, really, I would have liked it if they had a little more personality, they all came off as a little bland in place. Eva Huang is extremely easy on the eyes, definitely a face to look out for in future movies. former pop star Vanness Wu gives a credible performance, while Shawn Yue gives his usual calibre of acting but this reviewer felt the best acting had to go to the one and only Sammo Hung, who plays a character reluctant to get involved but realises if he wants to leave the past behind him, he must confront his demons, it's also worth mentioning he has the best fight in the entire movie against Huh Joon Hoo, who plays a chillingly sociopathic villain.So, overall I really liked it, I think it's nowhere near as bad as everyone seems to be making it out to be and deserves at least one viewing by anyone who's a fan of Hong Kong cinema or Micheal Bay.
