01-17-2006, 12:46 AM
Drunken Monk does a good summary of the highlights and flaws of the movie.
El Dingo brings up some important questions.
Lady Cranefly and I watched a legal DVD release, which maybe had better subtitles, maybe not. What was in English was so heavily accented that I wished for subtitles.
Lady Cranefly disagrees, but I say the cameo in the airport was Jackie Chan.
The Dragon Lady poisoned the two people (one a boy) because they were successors ahead of her in the Triad or whatever was running the absurdly evil restaurant. That put her in power.
As for the third question, I'm equally fuzzed; no one seemed to be accountable for outrageous shootings, arrests, and releases.
Anyway, I suspect the plot was heavily reworked. Because I think in the original script the Australians were meant to be the evil dudes. But when Tony tried to shoot there, he found out he had to make the Australians swell people. So there's weird scenes where Australians are saying, Elephants don't belong here; they belong in Thailand, etc. Then Tony imported the baddies. You know, the Japanese. At least the Japs are supposed to be the evil ones, based on 99% of kung fu movies. But son of a gun, it was the Chinese. Is it cultural? Do the Thais hate the Chinese?
According to Drunken Monk, Tony broke his femur while making this movie, though the fact has been denied by all involved (to avoid rumors that the movie is weak because Tony got hurt). So we were trying to pin down where he broke it. We're guessing it was the dune buggy that lunged forward and banged his thigh, cutting it. The fight with the skateboarders and fluorescent lights ended quickly after that. And then the movie took a breather, it seemed. Yeah, we're guessing that was the culprit, though any of the incredible crazy-kicks throughout could have done it.
The quality of the image degraded after that in spots, with Tony's face beet red and fuzzy. I suspect this DVD was rushed, and that a later release might be worth waiting for.
But this is mostly a movie for martial artists. The dominatrix was nice, but underused and not very believable with the whip. And besides, why do dominatrices have to be evil? Then again, she WAS a woman trying to be a businessman, so I suppose that's evil in itself, just as her gay underling was evil for being gay. Yeah, lots and lots of stereotypes, and dumbed down for kiddees -- only please don't take your kids to this.
El Dingo brings up some important questions.
Lady Cranefly and I watched a legal DVD release, which maybe had better subtitles, maybe not. What was in English was so heavily accented that I wished for subtitles.
Lady Cranefly disagrees, but I say the cameo in the airport was Jackie Chan.
The Dragon Lady poisoned the two people (one a boy) because they were successors ahead of her in the Triad or whatever was running the absurdly evil restaurant. That put her in power.
As for the third question, I'm equally fuzzed; no one seemed to be accountable for outrageous shootings, arrests, and releases.
Anyway, I suspect the plot was heavily reworked. Because I think in the original script the Australians were meant to be the evil dudes. But when Tony tried to shoot there, he found out he had to make the Australians swell people. So there's weird scenes where Australians are saying, Elephants don't belong here; they belong in Thailand, etc. Then Tony imported the baddies. You know, the Japanese. At least the Japs are supposed to be the evil ones, based on 99% of kung fu movies. But son of a gun, it was the Chinese. Is it cultural? Do the Thais hate the Chinese?
According to Drunken Monk, Tony broke his femur while making this movie, though the fact has been denied by all involved (to avoid rumors that the movie is weak because Tony got hurt). So we were trying to pin down where he broke it. We're guessing it was the dune buggy that lunged forward and banged his thigh, cutting it. The fight with the skateboarders and fluorescent lights ended quickly after that. And then the movie took a breather, it seemed. Yeah, we're guessing that was the culprit, though any of the incredible crazy-kicks throughout could have done it.
The quality of the image degraded after that in spots, with Tony's face beet red and fuzzy. I suspect this DVD was rushed, and that a later release might be worth waiting for.
But this is mostly a movie for martial artists. The dominatrix was nice, but underused and not very believable with the whip. And besides, why do dominatrices have to be evil? Then again, she WAS a woman trying to be a businessman, so I suppose that's evil in itself, just as her gay underling was evil for being gay. Yeah, lots and lots of stereotypes, and dumbed down for kiddees -- only please don't take your kids to this.