Dragon Heat

All the other reviews here are dead on target. The film certainly caters to a younger crowd with its emphasis on style over substance. I don't even know where to begin with this; I'm a fan of Hong Kong cinema, blood operas, gun fu, etc., but this movie left me quite unsatisfied.

Let's start with the bad so we can just get that out of the way. As other reviewers have said, it's definitely 'over-directed.' It seems like they had a series of key frames in mind when they produced shots, and decided to throw the rest of the movie around them. Editing this movie must have taken an insane amount of time, as each minute of action has at least 20 cuts. This is in stark contrast to a lot of Asian martial arts flicks where they tend to show fights with as few cuts as possible. The end result is basically action looking faster and more furious, but caters to the ADD and non-epileptic crowd with its continually changing points of view, slow/fast motion and excessive zooming in and out. You know there's something wrong when an action sequence CURRENTLY being shot/fought looks like a training montage. This might make some of the actors look like they can fight/shoot, but then it totally dilutes the great fights of those who can (Sammo Hung).

The story is barely there, and like another reviewer stated, any emoting is purely on the strength of the actors, whom I have seen in better movies. Since each faction had at least 5-6 main characters to figure out, they could have cut half the cast and the story would have been better for it. Instead, they rely on several flashbacks for each character at least once, 2-3 times for the more interesting ones, to tell their stories. Thank goodness for the video game style bio shots and that each person had a different specialty and/or nationality, or I simply would never get them straightened out...and this is coming from someone who knows the names and faces of more than half the cast! I was actually pleasantly surprised at Michael Biehn's performance, which added some depth to a character who isn't supposed to be sympathized with. It was also a treat to see Li Bing Bing play such a sweet character after her fabulously nasty performance as a bad gal in the recent Forbidden Kingdom (a much better movie, by the way). Maggie Q is underutilized in an almost throwaway role (I only know her as 'da sniper'), and it seems like they tried to get Sammo Hung in there more, but since there are a dozen other stories to tell, they could only do so much.

As for the good points, there are some gorgeous location shots and cinematography. There are some scenes that are nice tributes to Michael Mann's work as well, or at least reminiscent of his work. In addition, they also obviously had some kind of budget, and they do put it to good use at various locations. Although at times the MTV/video game style shots and cuts are annoying, they are professionally done and were cool the first time or ten.

In conclusion, it seems almost like a movie trailer that they decided to make feature film-length. It might be something to see once just to say you've seen it, but I'm not sure I'd be showing it to friends who've never seen it before, since there's much better fare I'd rather use my friend-time credit on...

...and in all fairness, if this was a video game I'd SO play it!

I'm giving it a generous 3/5 stars, because I do like a lot of the actors. Rent it.

Good synergy in the film. Decent acting overall especially by Michael Biehn. Seems to run a little long but the climax is worth it. Ending is kinda cheesy but still solid

This movie is absolutely worthless - the editing will give you epileptic shock due to its amateurish handi-cam manuevers and jump-cuts. The plot is a cliched joke, and the "action" consists of a few subpar gun battles and some trashy fighting sequences. Steer clear - Dragon Dynasty should never have picked this one up.

This is one of the worst Hong Kong movies I've ever seen.
It's boring. It contains bad action and fighting scenes. The plot is ridiculous. In short, it's a waste of money.

Well Dragon Squad isn't nearly as good as Sha Po Lang (a.k.a. Killzone in the U.S.), and some people might be annoyed by the unique way the movie is filmed, what with the constant freeze frames, scenes that are literally labeled onscreen, and the endlessly shaky camera. Too many action films are shot normally until the action begins, at which point the camera starts jumping all over the place creating an obnoxious ADHD blur. I however found that it worked, if only because such tricks were consistently employed through the entire film. The film is basically about a good special squad taking on a bad special squad. There are a lot of characters, a lot of action scenes, and a lot of tragic moments handled of course in pure Hong Kong style. The movie is downright beautiful at times, and Sammo Hung of course is as impressive as always. On a side note, it's curious that this film was produced by Steven Seagal!

Some random thoughts: Dragon Dynasty is developing a penchant for renaming films with really corny names. Dragon "Heat"? Oh brother. Also, why is the ever-ANNOYING "Maggie Q" on the cover of this? She's hardly in it! It's a bit like putting Seagal on the poster for Executive Decisions.

In American films tragic characters are usually people with drug addictions, bad habits, etc., basically people who cause their own problems, contributing to their own self-destruction and downward spiral. HK films seldom ask audiences to feel sorry for such people. In HK cinema a tragic character is a TRAGIC character. BAD things happen to them that they didn't do to themselves. Though no one really ends up happy in this film, almost everyone does go out with quite a bang. The film's last line however was very unfortunate in my personal opinion. From the opening lines of the film through the climax the film, philosophically, seems to be building to a very Buddhist point, and then, with the film's very last line (about the character realizing there's no truth without faith), the director/screenwriter outright rejects the Buddhist point in favor of a Christian/Hindu take. Disappointing. I rather agreed with his original stance (with me being a psychologist) that memory is fallible and often leads to self-deception.