Revenge of the Green Dragons

This movie was bad, really really bad. Where the hell was Scorsese? Did they just stick his name in the credits to trick unsuspecting movie goers to go and watch a mediocre movie? Because if they did it definitely worked on me. The only good thing about this movie is that luckily it is only 90 minutes long. If it was any longer I would have stopped watching. Even the big twist at the end was boring as hell. I was sitting there waiting for the big climactic finale and then it was just like oh yea, that just happened. Thanks for coming. This is a typical movie where the trailer has the best parts and it only serves to lure you to watch a mediocre film.

Despite Martin Scorsese being the executive producer and Ray Liotta having a role, "Revenge of the Green Dragons" doesn't seem to have received much of a theatrical release (if any) in North America. It doesn't take long to figure out why - the movie simply isn't very good. I'm not saying there isn't any merit to be found. Some of the acting by the largely no-name cast is fine, and directors Wai-Keung Lau and Andrew Loo do manage to inject a little stylishness despite their low budget. But for the most part, the movie's low budget does show, particularly with the extremely tight direction - I almost suffered from a case of claustrophobia with everything so closely filmed. But the movie also suffers script problems. None of the characters are fleshed out enough to give us a good idea as to their backgrounds or what they are thinking or feeling. I simply didn't care one way or another about these guys. As a result, the movie becomes extremely tiresome very quickly, and you'll be impatiently waiting for it to come to its end.

source: Revenge of the Green Dragons

I can't believe that Scorsese would put his name on this movie. What a let down! I was really looking forward to this movie. The mafia- plot involving a Chinese-triad-like group with Scorsese involved in the directing seems like a perfect movie to me. Sadly it was not. The movie is straight forward all the way to the last scene. You never get to really know any of the characters, the movie is way to short for that, so you never get really in to it. There's a really weird shooting scene that reminds me of bad action movies from the 90's. And last but most important the story is plain, boring and brings nothing new. Don't waste your time, you have seen it all before.

Generic, Cluttered, and Confusing, this Under Developed and Utterly Exploitive Examining tries to be too many things. But it is too Short and Unrealized and it Comes Off as Slick B-Movie Badness so often seen. It's a Mad World, the Setting that the Illegal Immigrants Find Themselves, where Human Trafficking, Torture, Guns, Drugs and Money are all in Plain Sight and Little is Offered to Them that is Not a Daily Drudge of Lost Hope and Dreams. This is a Story of Two Youngsters Flushed down the toilet of Humanity and End Up at the End of the Line that is Presented as a Way Out of Ordinariness. "A fisherman in China will always be a fisherman in China, but in America even a dishwasher has hope.". At the End of this over Indulgent of Everything in the Melting Pot is Familiar Stories since Forever, You will Find Nothing New or Nothing Worth Knowing that isn't already a Common Thread that is on going Weaving Fabric of America's Crazy Quilt to this Day. Not Much has Changed in well over a Hundred Years Except the Countries of Origin.

This is based on true events that happened in America. You may look at it, as either glorifying violence to a degree or making immigrants look bad, but that would be beside the point. I don't believe this to be a propaganda either way. I do believe that the story is interesting and while it probably is heighten for movie purposes it deserved to be told in a way like this. Acting is OK, the setting is decent and the action scenes deliver mostly (though they are not too heightened/fancy). There still is blood, not many women involved (other than to look pretty) and everything else you'd expect (for better or worse) from a B-movie, even without it being based on true life.

I read a lot of negative comments about this movie and I wonder why? Because honestly I was entertained during the whole movie. It changes from the usual Italian or Irish gangster stuff. This time it's about the Chinese Mafia with different gangs trying to recruit new members from the illegal immigrants circuit. The story is about two young friends that are made gangsters and you can follow their life when they are grown up. The fact that Martin Scorsese produced this movie also tells you that the story won't be bad otherwise he would not be interested in producing this. Seeing how New Yorks Chinatown took over like almost the whole Little Italy streets tells you also something about that you shouldn't mess with the Chinese triads. Glad they made a movie about those gangs instead of the usual Mafiosi stuff.

As a Chinese American, I grew up watching HK mob and Andy Lau movies. Because of this, I recognize some of common threads, loyalty, betrayal, over reaching, and redemption. The thing that kills this movie for me is the poor acting. Chon as a main character and "bad boy" is a joke. To be fair, all the characters that Chon played previously, a feminine insecure kid in the Twilight Series and a party boy in 21 were a flop. This may contribute to my poor perception of him as a male lead in this movie. The movie's topic was interesting and had potential as my wife grew up in flushing and can attest to the violence. But.....This movie felt like a slap in the face of HK style movies, so much so that I was compelled to create an account and voice my opinion. It was poorly executed by the actors. A low point in Andrew and Martin's repertoire.

This movie was bad, really really bad. Where the hell was Scorsese? Did they just stick his name in the credits to trick unsuspecting movie goers to go and watch a mediocre movie? Because if they did it definitely worked on me. The only good thing about this movie is that luckily it is only 90 minutes long. If it was any longer I would have stopped watching. Even the big twist at the end was boring as hell. I was sitting there waiting for the big climactic finale and then it was just like oh yea, that just happened. Thanks for coming. This is a typical movie where the trailer has the best parts and it only serves to lure you to watch a mediocre film.

While watching this film I could not believe that it was made by the same director responsible for the excellent Young and Dangerous and Infernal Affairs sagas. What went wrong here? I suppose its the director's inability to understand American culture which I find rather surprising since this is not the first time he makes a film outside Hong Kong. It is obvious he doesn't know very well the society he wants to talk about therefore the film fails both as a crime film and a study of the life of Chinese living abroad. It's more Tokyo Drift than Once Upon A Time in America, the casting and accents are terrible, there is no third act, and a couple of decent actors get entirely wasted in this cliché ridden mishmash. It's not even worth watching for the violence. Even though there is a certain amount of bloodshed there is nothing memorable or too shocking. I'm sure that the director will continue to make good films in the future but this effort falls flat on its face.