Kiss of the Dragon (Full Screen Edition)
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Features
• Color
• NTSC
In Theaters : 06 July, 2001
DVD Release : 27 August, 2002 |
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Kiss of the Dragon (Full Screen Edition) description
Let's face it: No one is usually checking a Jet Li movie for the verbal sparring. In Kiss of the Dragon, Chinese undercover agent Li chops his way through Paris after he's framed in some sketchily defined drug sting operation. The fight sequences are tough and quite brutal, and the over-the-top finale is arguably worth the price of admiss ... review details
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Kiss of the Dragon (Full Screen Edition) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
"In the second it takes you to kill her, I will have all the time I need to kill you."
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Based on a story written by star Jet Li (Romeo Must Die, Fearless) and adapted for the silver screen by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) and Robert Mark Kamen (The Transporter), Kiss of the Dragon (2001) was directed by Chris Nahon, in his film debut. Also appearing in the film, along with Jet Li, is Bridget Fonda (Point of No Return), Tcheky Karyo (Bad Boys, The Core), Vincent Wong (Die Another Day, Batman Begins), and Burt Kwouk, probably best known from his past, reoccurring character role as the manservant Cato Fong from the various Pink Panther features.
Jet Li plays a character named Liu Jian, a highly decorated police officer/acupuncturist from Hong Kong who has recently arrived in France to assist local officials in capturing a Chinese criminal overlord. Upon arriving Liu hooks up with a French police official named Inspector Richard (Karyo), who's in charge of the sting operation, which is currently in surveillance mode at some swanky hotel. Here's the thing...turns out Inspector Richard is seriously bent and has ties to the criminal he's supposedly after, so much so he arranges for things to go down badly. Liu gets caught up in the middle of things resulting in some martial arts action as Liu battles Inspector Richard's corrupt police squad goons, but manages to escape with a key piece of evidence. Inspector Richard, who's about as oily as they come, twists everything around to make it appear Liu was responsible for the debacle, and brands him a killer. In an effort to clear his name, Liu finds himself saddled with a greasy, junkie prostitute named Jessica (Fonda), who's connected with Inspector Richard in that he's holding her young daughter, the intent being to maintain leverage to keep Jessica on the streets...which seemed an awful lot of trouble given she was the least productive member of the group of street tramps apparently controlled by Inspector Richard (through various intermediaries, of course)...anyway, things get progressively messy as Inspector Richard and his goons tear the city apart trying to find Liu. Eventually things come to a head as Liu battles his way into the belly of the beast in a final confrontation between Inspector Richard and his men at the police station in an effort to rescue Jessica's daughter.
While I enjoyed the action sequences immensely, I thought the story not so hot, overall. The main problem I had was with Bridget Fonda's character in that I thought she was unnecessary, and her only reason for being in the film was to add a female element to the story. I found myself cringing somewhat anytime her character related various bits and pieces of her sob story as it all seems just so pathetic and manufactured. I suppose I was supposed to feel all sympathetic to her plight but I found it hard to do since so much of it was the result of her own actions (or inactions, as the case may be). Another thing...I've seen a number of real life, strung out street walkers and I can say not a one of them ever looked as good as Bridget Fonda (most of the time they looked like twenty miles of bad road). Now, the filmmakers did dirty' Fonda up a bit, making her appear all greasy and such, but still, she relatively looked attractive, which made it hard for me to believe she was one of the least producing girls (in terms of turning tricks) of her group, especially given some of the lice infested street skags she was competing against. Another element of the story that sort of bothered me was Inspector Richard and his crew, all of whom were corrupt, and the fact they had a free hand to do just about whatever they wanted, including shooting up hotels, sightseeing buffet boats, and orphanages, regardless of the toll in terms of casualties or property damage (their motto seemed to be shoot first, shoot again, and then ask questions). Seems to me someone, at some point, would hold him and his flunkies responsible for their grossly negligent actions, but perhaps things are different, in this respect, in France than they are in other places...oh well...so what did I like about the film? Well, I thought the action was excellent as Jet Li displays why he's one of the best and most proficient martial artists performing in film today. Now I haven't seen many of his foreign made features, but of the western films I've seen him in, I think I liked this one the best in terms of displaying hand to hand and weapon based combat. The martial arts sequences are staggered throughout the film, but know the last fifteen minutes or so is all action, as this is when Li's character takes it to the Man by walking directly into the police station where Inspector Richard is located and begins meting out the punishment. There are a lot of great sequences here, but I think my favorite was where he accidentally walked into a room containing about 25 to 30 officers training in martial arts. The subsequent fight sequence is amazing, albeit kind of short. The extensive effort of the choreography, orchestrated by Corey Yuen, involved in this scene boggles the brain. As far as the performances I thought most were decent enough, although I thought Tcheky Karyo, who played the main villain Inspector Richard, was a little over the top, but memorable (seemed more often than not he kept trying to one up himself on showing us just how evil, rotten, and just generally despicable he was). Overall the story didn't do much for me except drag things down a little, but the intense martial artistry saved the day, making this a generally entertaining feature worth checking out if you're in need of an action fix. One last thing, I didn't necessarily appreciate the gratuitous rap music used during the fight sequences. It's not that I don't like rap (some of it is all right), but it just felt like it was stuck in there to be trendy, and not because it was appropriate.
The widescreen anamorphic (2.35:1) video on this DVD comes across strong and clean, and the audio, available in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround comes through very well. There's quite a few extras available including an audio commentary track with director Chris Nahon, and actors Jet Li and Bridget Fonda, along with four featurettes, some of which focus on Li's fighting philosophy and the martial arts sequences in the film. Also thrown in are storyboard to film comparisons, action gallery production stills, television spots, and the original theatrical trailer, as well as ones for the features Behind Enemy Lines (2001) and Planet of the Apes (2001).
Cookieman108
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Kiss of the Dragon (Full Screen Edition) dvd movie.