Dragon Lord

`Dragon Lord' is more of a comedy than a martial arts movie. There are a few action sequences in the movie - a strange ball tournament at the beginning, a scuffle between Jackie and his friend over a girl, an interesting shuttlecock game in the middle of the movie - but there are really only two fight sequences in the movie, both near the end. Despite this, the movie's great. It's never dull. There are some funny moments, and the final fight scene between Jackie and the baddie is awesome. Definitely worth seeing over `Shanghai Noon' or `Rush Hour'.

An old school kung ku comedy starring Jackie Chan. He's also the director of this movie.

This is bit like continuation of the Young Master. Jackie Chan reprises his role as the Dragon. The actor who portrayed the teacher in Young Master returns as Dragon's father. Although the production is more polished, the story isn't compelling as the Young Master. The format is old school kung fu movie where things happen in earlier days of China. Actions are also old school although there's more comedic elements in this movie than other kung fu movies.

Some clues to the future Jackie Chan movies are seen in this movie, such as using the 2nd floor balcony to stage a dramatic fight sequence.

This is the last old school kung fu movie Jackie Chan starred in. With the success of Project A, his movies starts to take different direction in the future.

"Dragonlord" sees Chan returning to his role of "Dragon" from "The Young Master". Not much has carried over from the first film though. "Tiger", his older brother, is nowhere to be seen; neither is the Marshall, his daughter or his son played superbly by Yuen Biao in the original film. Dragon does have the same master though - presumably all the other students have moved on to other things. (Dragon's laziness at training is portrayed heavily in this film, so maybe he's still studying!)

Originally titled "Young Master In Love", this film sees Dragon (for the first sixty minutes at least) pursuing a villager girl in various idiotic and slapstick ways. His rival for her affection is his friend (inappropriately named "Cowboy") played comically by the longtime Chan Stunt-team member Mars. We see various scenes where their silly schemes backfire. It is one of these scenes that we (thankfully) find "Dragon" in over his head.

This film is notorious in that it failed expectations at the box office. That said, I'm sure the expectations were pretty high, and I feel that this film has never had a fair judgment based on it's own merits. But even when I try to do this, I still feel that there is a problem with the film. It seems quite unfocused, sometimes rushed, and I think the action is too sporadic and not as brilliant as Chan's other work from this period.

The thing that really saves the film is the ending sequence. As in "The Young Master", there is a fantastic final reel that it full of incredibly exhausting action - you really feel every blow. And again, Chan goes up against the same rival from "The Young Master" (is it the same character?), and the timing and energy here is brilliant. Chan's style of using every last bit of his environment to help defeat his opponent - not just relying on pure physical ability - is as apparent here as anywhere else. The barn they fight in is full of clever little prop gags and improvisations. This is an absolute highlight of the film and one of Chan's incredible career.

It's not necessary to see the prequel before seeing "Dragonlord", in fact, it might even raise more questions than what it hopes to answer. But it must be said that the original film is the superior film, and "Dragonlord", with it's focus on girl-chasing and team-sports does seem baffling. Luckily, the few fight scenes it offers (plus a fantastic shuttle-cock scene) push it over the line as a must-see film in this genre.

Dragon Lord was something of a pivotal film for Jackie Chan in that it saw him decisively making the move away from old school style kung fu cinema to his own distinctive brand of goofy comedy and situational fighting. Its a shame then that it isn't great (this was apparently reflected in the cold initial box office response), though its charms are enough to make it a mostly good watch even though when all is weighed up it doesn't amount to much. It's a sequel of sorts to The Young Master, following his Dragon Ma character as he slacks off, hangs out with his buddy (a likable turn from Mars) and tries to pick up various local girls, eventually getting mixed up in the plans of nefarious individuals to smuggle Chinese relics out of the country. The juvenile nature of things takes a bit of getting used to, Chan being in his late twenties at the time yet paying essentially a teenager, but his gusto and innate likability carries things well enough. It helps that one or two scenes are actually pretty amusing in a silly sort of way, like Dragon trying to cheat his way through an exam of sorts by his dad. Although there's a downright criminal lack of actual threat to near the hour mark the film doesn't completely lack action, boasting a couple of quality sporting scenes, one somewhat modelled on rugby but considerably more chaotic and the other like football but with a shuttlecock (which apparently required a record number of takes to get right). When things warm up the results are pretty cool and the climatic fight is an absolute doozy, Wong In-Sik reprising his villainy from The Young Master in a great extended bout with Chan making good use of the barn setting and plentiful trading of crunching blows, its right up there with the finales of any of Chan's bona fide classics. Its just a shame that the film as a whole is so unfocused and generally inconsequential (with little hint of anything serious until close to the halfway mark), its an easy watch but mostly forgettable until the last twenty minutes or so, I liked it well enough as I'm kind of a geek for this kind of thing but it really isn't that good. Still a 6/10 as its quite fun, but definitely a completists only film.

For a Jackie Chan movie, then "Dragon Lord" was a fairly mediocre experience. There wasn't the usual Jackie Chan magic or personal touch to this movie. The movie tried too hard to mix comedy and serious action, and it just didn't go well together.

The movie was also weighed down by a storyline that was intended to be serious, but trying to incorporate slapstick comedy, and again it was to an extend where it just didn't fully work as intended. And it didn't help the movie one bit that it had a couple of scenes that were taking too long to execute. Especially the last fight scene, it was dragging on for a very long time, and it started to become stale and somewhat of a parody to watch.

So what worked in this movie? Well, the fighting and the action, of course. As to be expected, as this is a Jackie Chan movie after all. As with most of his other movies, the martial arts and action scenes were well executed and brought to the screen.

I am a big fan of Jackie Chan, and must admit that "Dragon Lord" is not amongst the best of his entire movie career. But bear in mind that this movie is from 1982. That being said, then it should be stated that it is not his worst movie either. But it is, of course, a movie that is well deserved a place in the DVD collection of any Jackie Chan fan. Just sad to say, that this isn't really the type of movie that you watch more than once.