Dragons Forever
is one Jackie Chan movie that doesn’t quite measure up. The story is lacking in
so many ways and only makes up for it in the end when the three friends have
that fight in the factory.
I believe this
was the last time Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao worked together as
leads in a movie.
My main issue
with this film is the story. The three men didn’t play their usual roles that
we’ve come to know them for. In this one, Jackie is a ladies' man and a lawyer
who seems to have little to no moral compass. Then we have Wong (Hung), who
plays a man who sells weapons to bad guys. And there’s Tung (Biao), who plays a
mentally unstable character who is good with gadgets.
Jackie is the link between the other two, each knowing him but not the other. In one of Jackie’s cases, he’s trying to help a gangster who deals in drugs and other illegal activities buy a fishery from a woman. To discredit her, Jackie hires his two friends separately: one to bug the apartment (Tung) and the other to get close to her (Wong).
It just so
happens that the two meet in the woman’s apartment, and everything goes upside
down from then on.
Jackie has his
case to handle, his two friends getting in each other's way, and on top of it
all, he’s fallen in love with the lady’s cousin.
The movie wastes
so much time trying to sell the romantic relationships that there’s a huge
chunk of the film that amounts to nothing.
One thing you
will enjoy in this movie is the fight at the end. I don’t think I’ve ever seen
Biao move so fast, fluidly, and pull off some acrobatic stunts that go beyond
understanding. Also, at the end, we get to see Jackie take on Benny Urquidez,
which, like in Wheels
on Meals (1984), is fun to see. The two always seem evenly matched, and
it always ends with Jackie getting as beat up as Benny. Notably, Wheels
on Meals (1984) also starred the three leads here: Jackie, Hung, and
Biao.
It’ll be hard to
recommend this movie based on the last fight alone. Everything else about this
film didn’t work, and it seemed to drag too long in the middle. Why not look
for Jackie movies that offer both a good story and good fights?
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