Dragon Forever (1988) – DVD

Dragons Forever
飛龍猛將
Fei lung mang jeung
***/**** Image C Sound A –
starring Jackie Chan, Samo Hung, Yuen Biao, Corey Yuen Kwai
screenplay by Szeto Cheuk Hon
directed by Sammo Hung & Corey Yuen

by Bill Chambers To my mind, the formation of “the three kung-fu-teers”–Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, and Yuen Biao–was more of a shock than their eventual break-up. The latter two are portrayed as the former’s punching bags in Chan’s autobiography, I Am Jackie Chan, whose early chapters recount the Dickensian power structure at the China Drama Academy, known colloquially as the Peking Opera School. The school’s unforgiving master sanctioned his older pupils (collectively, “Big Brothers”) to administer swift, cruel punishments to the younger students; the wrath of Hung, the biggest Brother of them all (in body mass as well as reputation), seemed measureless and reserved explicitly for Chan and Biao. At least in Jackie’s memory.

Hong Kong’s 1988 Dragon Forever (a.k.a. Dragons Forever and Cyclone Z), the last picture in which the former classmates performed as a trio, was, after I Am Jackie Chan, my introduction to them as a team, and I was impressed by their easy, breezy, naturally Cover Girl chemistry. The film betrays both a reconciliation of the past and little indication that this will be the trio’s final outing–a far cry from the Western tendency to sentimentalize the last of anything beyond repair. The only sign that this is the end of the road is that all three are cast somewhat against type, since they have nothing to lose.

Here, Jackie plays a scuzzy defense lawyer who enlists his shifty buddies Wong (Hung, billed as “Samo” Hung and doing double-duty with Corey Yuen as director), who’s some kind of Easy Andy-type arms dealer, and Tung (Biao), a professional burglar, to help expedite a settlement with the owner of a fish pond, Miss Yip (Deannie Ip), on behalf his client, whose cocaine mill is poisoning Miss Yip’s livestock. But when Jackie falls for the owner’s cousin (Pauline Yeung), a scientist and environmental crusader, he removes himself from the case and switches teams, joining his chums in shutting the factory down from the inside out.

Adolescent tensions were apparently flaring up again by the time the film went into production. It’s difficult to say whether this influenced the first on-screen tussle between Hung, Chan, and Biao, and equally difficult to determine if Dragon Forever‘s marketing campaign, which pivoted on said fight, was capitalizing on rumours of backstage strife like all those hair-pulling match-ups between Linda Evans and Joan Collins on “Dynasty”. Whatever the case, it’s a scene that is mercifully slapstick compared to the long-awaited rematch between Jackie and the androgynous Benny “The Jet” Urquidez. If the action is wanting, when all’s said and done (less for any lack of electricity than for its frequent brevity), the comedy is slightly more sophisticated than usual, and the requisite farcical courting subplots overflow with charm when they’re not brimming with schmaltz. Never greater than a time-waster, Dragon Forever can nevertheless be a great time-waster. Jackie, however, seems vaguely alone in putting his heart and soul into the material.

THE DVD
Universe’s region-free NTSC DVD, available online from HKFlix, is letterboxed at an accurate 1.85:1–Dragon Forever is the rare non-‘scope martial arts vehicle–though not enhanced for 16×9 televisions. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix, preceded by the elegant “temple” trailer, is phenomenal for an Eighties-era foreign film, with one restaurant skirmish inspiring several over-the-shoulder glances. Bonuses: trailers for The Young Master, Heart of the Dragon, Wheels on Meals, and Winners and Sinners, plus “stars files” on Jackie, Sammo, and Yuen. This is the 94-minute Hong Kong cut that excludes, with minor repercussions on the plot, two scenes of Tung visiting a psychiatrist, and the English subtitles aren’t always in concord with official plot synopses of the film.

94 minutes; Unrated; 1.85:1; Cantonese DD 5.1, Mandarin DD 5.1; CC; English, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Bahasa (Indonesia), Bahasa (Malaysia) subtitles; DVD-5; Region 0; Universe