I know… I know… this movie is so passé. But I only watched it last night (I was probably the last person in town to watch this). But when a man’s gotta review, he’s gotta review, right? I’m gonna do it anyway.
Ok, so I was made known that this movie was actually an adaptation of a popular comic series from Hong Kong, with the same title – “Dragon Tiger Gate” (Lung Foo Moon). If you could understand Cantonese, you might notice that it is pronounced quite similar to a popular Chinese porn mag called “Dragon Tiger Leopard” (Lung Foo Pao). But this is of course, nothing of that sort. This is a kungfu flick. With plenty of CGI effects. Full of exaggerated stunts. And despite all that, it still sucked (donkey cock). Big time. (Needless to say, flipping through a stack of “Dragon Tiger Leopard” would have had better entertainment value than this movie…)
Let me put this in point form…
- Lame storyline.
I don’t know but, I feel that it is quite odd that the hero kept remembering a particular lapse of time when he was a kid (from what I reckon, must be 8 or 9 yrs old), which… everything seemed to have an effect from thence on his adult life. I mean, how ridiculous can that be? Haven’t he got anything else worth remembering throughout the years? What happened to his teenage memories – you know, screwing chicks and having fun? No. It’s only 9 year old hero and the adult hero. Nothing else in between. Even the chick that he was hooking up with (the one with a nice rack), was the same one he acquainted when he was 9. Lots of missing links man. Too fucking emo and hard to bite. (Maybe it was because the version that I watched was dubbed in Mandarin, I couldn’t understand half the shits they were uttering)
- Bad casting.
Except for Donnie Yen (the hero – Dragon Wong) himself, I think the other 2 of his sidekicks looked like total dorks. Too skinny and stiff to be martial art heroes. Totally off the standard. The villain boss wasn’t any good either. Had a mask on all the time. I wonder what’s with the mask. He could have tattoo-ed his face like Mike Tyson and it would have been wayyy cooler. But a mask is definitely corny. Come think of it, the villain boss was also damn goofy with that cape on. A Darth Vader wannabe. (If I were to be the casting director, I would have chosen ‘The Rock’ to take that role. He’d look good without any stupid mask or cape. No shit).
- Bad hairstyle.
From being a kid to a full grown adult, the hero and the rest of the characters seem to have the same stupid hairstyle (you know, the kind of disheveled style made popular by ‘F4′ and Jay Chou alikes). I mean, we don’t really sport the same hairstyle all our lives, do we? I used to have a comb-over when I was 7. Then sometime around my early secondary, I sported a mullet. Then the Aaron Kwok mushroom-do. You see, it changes together with time. But quite oddly, that wasn’t the case in this movie. The universe seems to revolve around that hairstyle in the “Dragon Tiger Gate” world. Fucking revolting.
The main villain on the other hand, had this blond frizzy-do that reminded me of a typical Malaysian ahlongs (slang for illegal moneylenders). Slap in a 4 inch thick gold chain, you’d get a pimp-ahlong combo. The bad hairstyle on the characters were damn distracting, which made the whole experience of watching this movie a little bit of a pain.
- Poorly choreographed fight scenes.
The only good part was at the beginning of the movie, the showdown at the restaurant. The rest? Pathetic and boring. It would have been more interesting to watch a couple of stray dogs having a mating feud on a curb. Or maybe a crocodile wolfing down a wildebeest on Discover channel. Whichever that suits your liking.
I also notice the final fight between Dragon and the ahlong villain boss – some of the fight moves were actually grossly plagiarized from that popular Thai action flick – “Ong Bak”. The use of knees, elbows, were all uncannily similar. No good.
The continuity of the story is the biggest let down of all. The hero and his sidekicks were beaten down, but somehow, miracle came to them, which in a short period of time, would grant them Strength +10, Perception +20, Dexterity +15 and a bonus Power move (but unfortunately, the Charm would remain at -75, due to the crappy hairstyle) – and that’s all it took to defeat that illegal moneylender villain boss. o_O
What the fuck indeed.
If you haven’t watched this movie, good. Keep it that way, go watch something else.
I remember falling asleep in the cinema while watching this show. I would want to say waste of money but then again I did not pay for the tics.
That aside, I hope you did not waste your money and time watching The Curse of Some Flower with Jay Chou. I serious do not see what’s the big fuss abt Jay Chou. He’s not handsome. I don’t care abt his songs cos I don’t understand Mandrin. But I DO CARE that they actually awarded him Best New Actor or something like that. HE SUCKS in Initial D. And the new movie. The director shld just buy a piece of plank and draw eyes and nose with marker. A dead anjing kurap yg mati terkangkang kat tepi jalan raya has more expression than Jay Chou in a movie.
DAMN I hate Jay Chou.
Luckily I didn’t buy the DVD. Thanks michael for saving my money. :D
Shar – I think Jay Chou should just stick to singing.
Oh, I definitely won’t watch that “Flower something something” flick. In fact, I won’t watch/listen to anything with Jay Chou or any of the following people in it:
- Nincompoop Tse (the guy who starred as Tiger Wong in “Dragon Tiger Gate”. I watched DTG because of Donnie Yen)
- Cecilia Cheung
- Eason Chan
- Ekin Cheng
- Hsu Chi (you know, that ugly porn star)
michael – I would recommend Sha Po Lang (SPL) starring Donnie Yen, Simon Yam and Sumo Hung. Donnie Yen’s fighting choreography in it is amazing.
I already watched SPL many months ago. IMHO, I think it was just mediocre. The ending was a bit disappointing (I expected more from the fight betweem Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen…)
The best choreographed fight sequence ever has to be that finale in “Once Upon A Time In China II” between General Lan(Donnie Yen) and Master Wong (Jet Li). I’ve watched that flick for more than 7 times and it still blows my mind off. Simply awesome. (the fight between the White Lotus cult leader and Master Wong is my second favourite – in the same flick)
how did you notice the big racks through all the layers of costume on the female character ?
Mike – Yea, altho I don’t know any of his songs, I am sure he’s pretty good at it. seriously his manager or his mum shld just tell him his face takde expression langsung; I’ve seen more action from a papan kayu and a twig.
Michael – I agree, I don’t understand why people would pay shitloads of money to watch a movie by Nicholas Tse and his wife Cecilia because 99% of the time the movie will be some slapstick DUMBASS comedy that does not make sense. And it’s not even funny. And I am a big fan of Kevin Smith and Stephen Chow movies, so Nic and Cecil must b doing something wrong.
Too late. Watched it months ago & wish I could erase the memory of it from my mind. See what you’ve done? Brought back all the horror in a flash!
SPL & WFH 1&2 are great. Apparently, there’s another version to ending of SPL where the Donnie Yen character was killed by Samo Hung after Donnie had a shot of whisky. That’s why u don’t see Donnie with Simon dying at the beach in the last scene.
Also Fearless for some real stuff, albeit with some ‘wire’ actions but many scene were awesome.
arkane – You really need to hone your observation skills dude. Just check out the pool side scene (the one where Dragon was baited off to pave way for the assassination of his godfather)
shar – It’s not about their choice of acting in which movie… but more about their characters. Hardcoded conflict kinda thing. I’d still hate them no matter how good they acted. *shrugs*
eric – Somehow “Fearless” didn’t quite cut it for me. IMHO, I think it just wasn’t as good as his (Jet Li) earlier films…
“I was probably the last person in town to watch this”
hehe, you are not :P i haven’t watch it.. but, reading your movie.. guess i will not waste my time to download it. lol, the aaron kwok mushroom-do was so popular back then bwahahahaha! man, looking at my old photos with that hairstyle.. fainted..
hmm.. Hsu Chi, I watched ‘Confession of Pain’ the other day, she’s in it. As ‘flower-vase’ of course. She should stick to porn. Minus the face.
Fearless was supposedly the last of his wushu/action movie, but then it could have been a promo stunt to gain publicity for the movie.
I love Jet Li’s actions cos it real stuff. Ya, many of his earlier ones were great too: Fist of Fury, Kiss the Dragon, WFH series, FSY, etc. But there were ups & downs in terms of choreographic levels, depends on the directors i guess.
In any case, I don’t dig those pretenders (male & female) who sell their pretty faces & whose movies are full of crappy CGIs/SFXs.
I watched this pretty recently too, it was ok, the love parts were horrible, the fight scenes were generally ok but a bit overcooked towards the ends and the acting was horrible.
Turbo was ok (Shawn Yue) but the other 2 were bad, Nicholas Tse is about one of the worst cast choices for that role, he’s about as tough as a 6 year old girl.
Fearless was ok too, my favourite Jet Li movie is still Tai Chi master..
Other than that of course WFH and OUATIC series.
I have to take this opportunity to say Jay Chou is a usless wanker too.
Haven’t seen the show, but dude, you gotta stop saying ‘pair of nice rack’. That really means 4 individual boobs, yaknow. And a girl to have 4 boobs is just freaky. ;)
Aiseh, I forgot to proof read my post again – it’s not grammar nazi compatible. Changed it. Removed the word ‘pair’.
(if a girl has 4 boobs, there won’t be anymore civilizations left on Earth. It’s beyond what ‘freaky’ can describe.)
Ah yeah. Remember Total Recall when Arnold walked into a bar, and one of the chicks opened up her dress to show him three breasts? That was just weird, man.