Dragon Squad

(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!

I was just given the chance to sit down and watch the 2005 Hong Kong action movie titled "Dragon Squad" (aka "Mang lung") here in 2021. And this was actually my first time to watch it. Sure, I had heard about the movie before, but I just never have gotten around to watch it. So of course I jumped at the chance to do so now.

And I will say that "Dragon Squad" was an adequately entertaining action movie, though it wasn't among the best that the action cinema from Hong Kong has to offer. But it is definitely an entertaining and watchable movie.

The storyline told in "Dragon Squad" was a bit simplistic and linear. Sure, it made for proper entertainment, but the writers Daniel Lee and Ho-Leung Lau didn't really venture into new territory, deciding to play it safe and following a strict how-to-make-an-action-movie blueprint.

The action sequences in the movie were nicely choreographed and executed on the screen, and there was indeed an abundance of action throughout the course of the movie. And director Daniel Lee brought this to life on the screen in a good manner with lots of high speed and adrenaline.

"Dragon Squad" has a rather impressive cast list ensemble, which includes Shawn Yue, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Maggie Q, Andy On and Simon Yam; so there is an abundance of familiar faces in the movie, if you are familiar with Hong Kong cinema. And it was an absolute blast to have Michael Biehn in the movie as well, and he was definitely back in form here.

I found this 2005 movie to be a nice surprise, and it definitely proved entertaining enough. However, I don't think that this is a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time though, as the storyline just was a bit too weak for supporting multiple viewings. My rating of "Dragon Squad" is a six out of ten stars.

DRAGON SQUAD is a no-brainer for me: a Hong Kong action film in which Interpol agents battle criminal gangs, with warfare on the streets. Martial arts battles with machetes, sniper stand-offs, daring heists, and a revenge-fuelled storyline are all par for the course for this genre, so this should be an easy film to like. Unfortunately there's one big problem which drags it down to a barely enjoyable level: Daniel Lee's direction.

This is the worst directed Hong Kong action film I've seen in many, many years. DRAGON SQUAD is over-edited to within an inch of its life. The editing is super fast throughout, with constant shaky-cam work and headache-inducing montages. It makes the film look dated and amateurish and the 1990s-looking captions don't help either. I mean, why on earth did Lee think it would be a good idea to keep showing black-and-white stills of the characters during the suspense scenes? It's ridiculous! Had the direction been restrained, oh I don't know by actually allowing the actors time to act and the combatants to show off their skills, then this would have been a lot better. As it stands, Lee is the cinematic equivalent of a bratty kid at a birthday party, jumping up and down and shouting "Look at me! Look at me!".

I've seen other works by the same director (THREE KINGDOMS: RESURRECTION OF THE DRAGON, 14 BLADES) and they were nothing like this so I can only hope he learnt his lesson by his mistakes here. Otherwise, DRAGON SQUAD is fun film; plenty of action and one hell of cast to really get your teeth into. Among others this movie features Maggie Q as a sniper, Sammo Hung as an elder cop with an Alsation, Michael Biehn as the villain, Simon Yam as the chief cop, Li Bingbing as a love interest, Andy On as a bad guy, and Shawn Yue as one of the heroic cops. A shame about the charisma-free (and oddly-named) Vaness Wu (yeah, he's a guy) as the Emo-style hero, but then you can't have everything. I just wish the director hadn't messed up so bad on this one.

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.

Five agents(not sure what it is that makes them the dragon squad… if they are) are sent to take on a gang, but there are experts on the other side, as well. Yeah, that's basically it. We don't even get details on the criminal activities. I guess they're "just bad". The characters are all so sparsely developed that it can be difficult to remember not only who is who, but what side someone is on. Instead, the time is spent on plentiful stylish(too much so for many(it looks like a video-game at times, honestly), and a ton of slo-mo), over-the-top, bloody action, with shoot-outs, martial arts(unarmed and otherwise... and *everything* is a weapon in the hands of these guys) and build-up. It is intense and fast. This is visually impressive, nicely edited and filmed and at times almost poetic. There are dueling snipers and machete-wielders, and of course no one can hit squat when they are aiming at anyone important(of which there is an excessive amount). Biehn is of course absolutely awesome and bad-ass... what else is new. Early on, this seems to suggest that there will be twists or something brainy to it. There isn't. The "moral" makes little sense. There is some humor, though the funniest thing is the utter abandonment of logic, and how everyone can talk to each other even though they speak different languages to each other(mostly Cantonese, and the text is that, too... are some of those supposed to be chapter titles?). Everything is subtitled to English, don't worry(well, if you get the right version). All in all, 109 minutes sans credits is a bit much for something this focused on superficial entertainment. I recommend this to those who love Hong Kong flicks of this genre. 6/10