Paradise Reel

Dragon Tiger Gate (Long Hu Men)

Synopsis: Set in a fictional version of Hong Kong, Tiger Wong (Nicholas Tse) fights for injustice and the righteous way. He has however a step brother on the other side of the law whom incurs the wrath of the Lousha gang and enlists the help of Dragon Tiger Gate to aid in his quest to defeat evil.

Alright, this review has been terribly overdue but here it is nevertheless. Had a project to complete and did up a couple of articles for future posting. Thanks for hanging around.

There comes a film every now and then that just begs to be critiqued. To be ripped apart, analysed and compared to every other shred of literature pertaining to the film in question. And here comes Wilson Yip’s attempt to adapt this popular Hong Kong comic to the big screen that portrays itself as the perfect candidate for the task. After being ‘coerced’ (actually I wanted to catch it so that I’d get the bitching rights) into watching this film with a bunch of friends, I feel it in my civic duty to make public the film’s true intentions.

The storyline is so convoluted that I contemplated not even writing a synopsis for this review. But for the benefit of all you dear readers out there, I have forced pen to paper and jotted down that blurb above. Apparently the film is basically a “two brothers, each on the other side of the law” kind of story. It is a story of redemption but a weak one at that. The characters are flat as a Keira Knightly’s chestitular area and there is hardly any character development to speak of. I would strongly suggest to the marketing executives to include a 500 page comic (both in English and Chinese) explaining their backstory with the purchase of every ticket. At least that way, we can feel like we came away from the movie with SOMETHING.

Someone should honestly question the sanity of the films’ hair stylist as he/she just decided to weave each of the main characters a Beatles hairdo. Opting for a retro look I’ll bet, they equipped the two main characters will floppy cuticles that obscures half their face at any given time. The kicker was a poignant scene where Dragon Wong (Donnie Yen) was delivering some crucial dialogue looking like Cousin Itt from the “Adam’s Family”. With makeup styling at its best, how can this film not make a killing at the box office?

This film just takes all the cliches known to man and crams them into a 90 minute movie. Which could have turned out to be a good thing but they just took themselves too seriously. I’m pretty sure there are some people out there (the two ladies sitting next to me in the theater for instance) who have a deep rooted emotional investment in the characters, probably developed from all those lonely Friday nights reading the comics from cover to cover. And these people are probably the ones who will find some semblance of a plot to this train wreck of a movie (and probably dress up as their favourite character for their weekend cosplay festival).

If this is the kind of films that Hong Kong chooses to produce nowadays, it will be short notice before they close shop their once booming film industry. With Korea rising up to overtake the Asian film arena by storm and Hollywood now setting its grubby paws on Asian cinema, Hong Kong will be hard pressed to develop projects of a higher filmic standard than what they are used to. Just stay away from this film unless you have a burning desire in your loins to see three less than hunky males cavorting aimlessly in tank tops and tight jeans.