Very Cool!!!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

In Dragons Forever, Jackie Chan plays a rather scuzzy lawyer who teams up with two friends to help mobsters destroy some lady's pond. No, he doesn't know they are mobsters, but he also doesn't care, and overall I found Jackie's character less likable than usual.The story is mildly amusing at first, but it gets progressively more tedious. By the halfway point, at which the romance elements came to the fore, I found it pretty intolerable and starting skipping forward to get to the action.Of course, the action is always the main reason to watch Jackie, and there's some good stuff here, most notably when he and his friends all fight one another simultaneously. But while there are some of Jackie's usual slapstick stunts and prop comedy, there is less than in my favorite Chan films. The final scene is a long, pretty straightforward martial arts fight that is fine for that but isn't the sort of Keaton-esque action I watch Jackie for. Very dumb, not very funny, some decent action but even there disappointing for a Chan film.

Defence lawyer Jackie Lung (Jackie Chan) represents shady businessman Hua Hsien-Wu, who is accused of polluting a local fish farm owned by Miss Yip (Deannie Yip). To help him win the case, Jackie enlists two friends from the criminal fraternity, arms dealer Luke Wong Fei-hung (Sammo Hung) and cat burglar Timothy Tung Tak-Biao (Yuen Baio). Jackie also romances Miss Yip's pretty cousin Nancy (Pauline Yeung) in order to get inside information, but finds himself falling in love for real, resulting in a change of heart that pits him and his friends against Hua Hsien-Wu and his cronies.For twelve incredible minutes, Dragons Forever shows Chan, Biao and Hung at their very best, in a blistering finale that sees the trio battling numerous bad guys in a chemical factory: our heroes perform amazing feats of acrobatics, punch and kick at jaw-dropping speed, bodies falls from gangways onto hard surfaces, and lots of glass is smashed. It's just a shame that to get there one must endure well over an hour of mediocre comedy and dull romance, interspersed by the occasional spot of less memorable martial arts to retain the attention of fight fans until the final showdown.As a whole, the film really only warrants an average rating, but I'm happy to bump it up a bit for the main bad guys, the excellent Yuen Wah (who also played the memorable villain from another fave of mine, Eastern Condors), and the awesome Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez—never has eyeliner been so macho! 6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Another one of Jackie's finest. Jackie is a lawyer and it must be said a bit of a playboy. Sammo is one of his buddies and Yuen Biao is another buddy, although one prone to insanity.Initially Jackie is defending a client accused of polluting water sources with toxic waste, which is killing the fish in a fish farm owned by the film's alleged "hotties". After a while Jackie lets his dick do the talking and goes to bat for the ladeez. Sammo also gets a chance to work his big man magic by putting the word on the more conservative female owner. With not one but two romantical subplots they had to shoe-horn in a cheesy "falling in love" montage, but I'll forgive them that for the fights.Aaaaahhh, the fights.The first big fight occurs on a boat where Jackie is macking his lady friend. Once the bad guys make their intentions known Jackie must ward off about a dozen assailants, all within the confines of a boat that he can't escape from. So basically the scene is run away... get cornered... fight... run... punch... delay... fight... repeat until knuckles bleeding and audience salivating.The finale has Jackie, Yuen and Sammo all heading to the bad guys factory, after some preliminary hijinks, where they have a showdown between them and a cigar chomping bad guy, his numerous henchman and personal attack dog Benny the Jet Urqiduez. The cigar chomper is a cheap shot master, often slipping a sly kick or punch when Jackie is busy warding off other attackers, he also seems just slimy and weasely enough that you wants him to get f*cked up.Yuen Biao gets his chance to exhibit his athletic prowess in taking on several henchman in order to save Sammo, who has been drugged by the bad guys, but as always it is Jackie who must take on the principal threat, and once again the Jackie V Benny stoush is another classic.(It must also be said that in the DVD version I own Benny has the worst overdub in the history of bad overdubs, even though he gets only 3 words of dialogue. As a postscript this is perhaps the only Jackie DVD that I own with overdubbed dialogue. Normally I don't mind subtitles at all, but I must say after watching maybe 30 foreign language films in the last few months my eyes welcomed the chance to simply watch a film rather than reading it.) Dragons Forever is an absolute classic.Using the Jackie Chan Marathon checklist from oneguyrambling.com 1/ Are there any "WOW!" fights? The fights in this are as good as anything Jackie ever did bar perhaps Drunken Master 2.2/ Are there any "WOW!" stunts? Not really. The feats on show are more about athleticism than death defiance. Some huge falls though in the fights that must have hurt.3/ Which Jackie is it? Serious / Whimsical / Cocky...On top of the usual action this film has Jackie at his most pimpin' pimpin'.4/ Does he get to use Jackie-exclusive toys? More product placement than toys. Thanks Mitsubishi! 5/ Do stolen relics come up? No.6/ Are there hot chicks (that usually can't act)? Supposedly the two women who own the fish farm are hot. I guess you had to be there.7/ Is there a blooper reel over the credits? No.8/ Were there injuries on the shoot? Severity? Unknown.9/ Has he still got it? Undoubtedly.10/ Is it a "Jackie Chan" film, or just one he is in? 100% Jackie.Final Rating - 9 / 10. If you were trying to showcase Jackie to a newbie, this might be the film to use to ease them in. Easy to watch, hard to fault.

Jackie Lung is a hotshot lawyer working for those that can afford him. He is used to less than savoury cases so he thinks nothing when he is hired by a criminal-run factory that has been challenged by a local fish-farm that is being badly polluted. Jackie hires his two associates (themselves less than savoury characters) to spy on the owners of the fish-farm and find out whatever they can about it. However, when Jackie falls for one of the women in question he finds himself with a conflict of interest and decides instead to look into the factory.I've been using my DVD subscription service to dip into older films of late and a couple of good experiences made me seek out more older Jackie Chan films to see him in his prime. This film caught my eye as it had Chan, Sammo and Yuen together, not to mention several other recognisable names and faces in Urquidez and Yuen. I had recently seen some of Chan's films where the action was mostly left to one big sequence at the very end and the rest of the film was focused on more comedic sequences. This film is similar in the "light entertainment" mould but it succeeds by having regular and consistent action throughout. These are mostly very good and each of the three stars gets a chance to show off their abilities on the way to a final fight between Chan and Urquidez that is as skilled and exciting as those names would suggest.What this leaves though is the plot which is as simple as the genre requires but not actually that engaging. A lot of it rests on the romantic part of the film to work and this doesn't really do much other than happen. It didn't really interest me or provide anything beyond the odd chuckle that justified the time given to it. I suppose in the context of the film it is a necessary evil simply because the romantic interest between the characters is what drives the plot and puts people where they need to be for the action to occur. It still doesn't work that well though but never to the point where it hurts the total film – all it does is produce weaker bits that are a bit hard to care about.The cast are mostly excellent in terms of delivering what we came here for (action) but also the main people are solid in the comedy stakes as well. Chan is charming and quite amusing while Sammo is his usual clowning sort of character. Yuen is a bit drier but still it is his agility that makes him watchable. I enjoyed the amusing villain from Wah Yuen and the fight-work from Urquidez just about makes up for the terrible make-up they have stuck him in. The women in the cast have a thankless job of mostly being important within the romantic threads of the film – they are cute enough but not much in the way of performances thanks to the material I think.Dragons Forever will draw viewers because of the three main actors and what they can do physically. With this as the motivator the film wins by having consistent and engaging fight sequences that are impressive and fun. The downside is that the plot used to frame these sequences is pretty weak at times even if ti does produce some funny moments here and there. Martial arts fans will enjoy it no doubt.