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Dragon Heat Streaming.
Movie Title: Dragon Heat Dragon Heat is available for streaming or downloading. |
DRAGON HEAT (new title: DRAGON SQUAD) is directed by Daniel Lee. This film is internationally produced (co-produced by Steven Seagal, I heard) and released design support in 2005. This is an action film that really looks very beneficial, it contains hyper-accelerated action footages with a professional style of quality. It is a pity that the mentioned quality doesn’t match its situation and direction. Don’t be misled by the dvd veil, MAGGIE Q is NOT the main lead actress in this film, Dragon Dynasty probably only wanted to capitalize on her novel fame in U.S. outings; DIE HARD 4, MI-3 and Balls of Fury.
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A team of young interpol agents, Andy, Vanness and Cheung arrives in Hong Kong to compose testimony in a trial against a local crimelord Tiger Duen with local cops Lok and Suet together. However, during prisoner transport to the courthouse, a ruthless mercenary team led by Petros (Michael Biehn, Terminator) assaults the armed convoy. Interpol is humiliated while the op is led by a obsolete cop Kong Lung(Sammo Hung), who recognizes the group is made up of known international terrorists. Kong is very reluctant to gather fervent in another operation until he gets inspired by his young charges who rises to the occasion. They approach together to originate “DRAGON SQUAD” in the hunt for Petros. The streets of Hong Kong become a backdrop in a battle of wills and wits in a cat and mouse game between the two teams that assume in urban warfare.
DRAGON HEAT could have been the Hong Kong equivalent of a Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay film, only with a lot less “fast” character banter and shrimp sense of sly humor(Bruckheimer and Bay ROCKS, by the design) . You can enlighten that the direction has the Bruckheimer influence with its chilly expeditiously cuts, while the gunfights unruffled have that John Woo inspiration. However, even with its very (so) stylized and energetic action scenes, the heavy-handed direction can’t disguise the truth; the movie doesn’t “click”. Hong Kong is distinguished for “bullet ballet” but lately, it has been going towards melodrama, great in the same direction as Korean cinema. It is nowadays rare for a Hong Kong film to be loaded with bullet ballet action scenes, a lot of which DO entertain in a sure kind of arrangement. The action is over-directed that it becomes distracting, with a lot of mercurial cuts as futile attempts to construct a routine and mediocre action scene spy sleek. Realism flies out the window during these scenes; MAJOR characters only acquire shot ONLY in moments to generate wanna-be dramatic moments(it doesn’t succeed) . Y’know what’s most comical, the mercenary abominable guys are DEADLY just sharpshooters until they face our young heroes then they withhold missing their target. Both sides unload enough ammo to fight a war. Well, I’m former to the usual “movie magic”, but it’s so fairly determined in this film because of the heavy-handed direction.
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Also, distinguished like a Hollywood film, Dragon Heat give defining personal issues and “baggages” to carry for each of its major characters but it doesn’t back mighty. The characters are uniformly humdrum, and only achieves a minute empathy or identity because of the actors playing them. Example; Sammo Hung, Simon Yam and even Michael Biehn carry some weight, while Vanness Wu(Kumite) and Shawn Yu are unimaginative, basically one-dimensional. Hotties Maggie Q(Naked weapon) and Isabella Leong(Isabella, Spider Lilies) have dinky cloak time but they both abet well as eye-candy.
Sammo Hung is a legendary icon in Hong Kong cinema. I wonder why would he involve himself with a film so mediocre as this after the immense success of “SPL”. Chin Kar-Lok is the action director of the film, it is almost amazing how such acclaimed talents can be in a film like this. I guess the director and contracts may have a lot to do with it. Oh, well..
I (regrettably) have the 2-disc dual layer Hong Kong release from Mei-Ah Entertainment. Dragon Dynasty should consume the same transfer.
PICTURE/AUDIO: ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN. Exceptional transfer. Natural colors, very animated and smart. Gloomy levels are very qualified. The dvd’s technical aspects are come flawless. 5.1 DD/5.1 DTS Cantonese/Mandarin w/ English track. English subs are very capable.
In closing:
DRAGON HEAT aka: DRAGON SQUAD may calm entertain some viewers with its numerous stylized action sequences. The hollow dwelling and flat characterization makes it comical, but NOT in the same “legendary” cheesiness of “GEN-Y Cops”, “Catwoman” or “Batman & Robin”. (There are some films that are so awful that they’re ample) It is a very pretentious attempt to add some depth into the storyline with canned melodrama that is neither touching or dramatic.
To its credit (at the very least), the film doesn’t seize itself too seriously, perhaps “abominable style” does construct a movie somewhat diverting.
RENT IT! (2.5 stars)
All the other reviews here are dreary on target. The film certainly caters to a younger crowd with its emphasis on style over substance. I don’t even know where to open with this; I’m a fan of Hong Kong cinema, blood operas, gun fu, etc., but this movie left me quite unsatisfied.
Let’s begin with the unpleasant so we can objective net that out of the plot. 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 small of action has at least 20 cuts. This is in stark dissimilarity to a lot of Asian martial arts flicks where they tend to prove fights with as few cuts as possible. The waste result is basically action looking faster and more wrathful, but caters to the ADD and non-epileptic crowd with its continually changing points of plan, slow/fast motion and excessive zooming in and out. You know there’s something horrible when an action sequence CURRENTLY being shot/fought looks like a training montage. This might do some of the actors gawk like they can fight/shoot, but then it totally dilutes the mammoth fights of those who can (Sammo Hung) .
The fable 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 crop half the cast and the epic would have been better for it. Instead, they rely on several flashbacks for each character at least once, 2-3 times for the more fascinating ones, to convey 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 accumulate 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 look Li Bing Bing play such a sweet character after her fabulously infamous performance as a dreadful gal in the current Forbidden Kingdom (a distinguished better movie, by the draw) . Maggie Q is underutilized in an almost throwaway role (I only know her as ‘da sniper’), and it seems like they tried to earn Sammo Hung in there more, but since there are a dozen other stories to sigh, they could only do so noteworthy.
As for the advantageous points, there are some fair spot 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 set it to superior utilize at various locations. Although at times the MTV/video game style shots and cuts are annoying, they are professionally done and were chilly the first time or ten.
In conclusion, it seems almost like a movie trailer that they decided to develop feature film-length. It might be something to view once honest to say you’ve seen it, but I’m not definite I’d be showing it to friends who’ve never seen it before, since there’s great better fare I’d rather consume 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 superior 3/5 stars, because I do like a lot of the actors. Rent it.
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