Wonderful Movie

Sorry, this movie sucks

Good concept, poorly executed.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Another bucket list movie which I never watched when it first came out. Coming from the mind of Berry Gordy & director Michael Schultz (Car Wash/Cooley High) this camp tale of a Bruce Lee wannabe (hell his name is Bruce Leroy) is on a mission to find out what his purpose in life is whilst fighting bad guys & protecting a video vixen (the late, great Vanity). It's hard to take this film seriously when it screams camp from the first reel but hey people really love this film. Look out for Keshia Knight Pulliam (Rudy from the Cosby Show), Chazz Palminteri & William H. Macy (billed as W.H. Macy) all in early roles. Taimak where are you?

This movie, along with one or two more on this list, fall into a category that will only be appreciated by certain people. I'll be blunt, if you like martial arts movies, like myself, you'll definitely like this movie. If you have an affinity for Bruce Lee, like myself, you'll love this movie. Taimak plays a kung fu student searching for the final level to become a master while also falling for a popular singer and having to save her life. Simple enough but there's so much to this movie that brings you in. Like I said, if you understand and appreciate martial arts and know some of the Chinese culture on it, this movie does it justice in an 80's urban kind of way. Kung fu is seen in a different light with street familiarity and a hip hop vibe. Its ridiculousness somehow fits into the world of martial arts and main stream urban hip hop simultaneously and has to be nothing short of appreciated by anyone that enjoys movies of the genre. I mean, being tied from head to toe and getting out by break dancing can only work in this movie. Two guys glowing a la Dragonball Z while fighting works beautifully in this movie. Taimak, a black adolescent with a normal black family who dresses and acts like a China man can only work in this movie. The fighting scenes are great and the bad guys look like they popped out of a video game reminiscent of Mortal Kombat. A great, great watch that makes you wonder what happened to Julius Carry, I mean, before he died in 2008?

This is a movie I LOVED as a kid. I probably watched my VHS copy twenty or thirty times and have very fond memories. However, it's one of those movies that when you watch it as an adult, you wonder "what the hell did I like about this"? Vanity is still super-hot in this, but everything else is worse than I remember. IMDb says $10m budget, so the film loses a lot of points for that. It's a B-movie with a studio budget and that's unforgivable. At a million bucks, I'd give the film a 7 or 8 our out of ten. The gags aren't funny, the writing is silly in parts and the characters are over the top (by design, I would suspect), but maybe the teen set was the only audience really targeted and they probably would still have fun with it.

First, to all those out there who think this movie is bad - I say if you're looking for great acting, brilliant writing and Oscar worthy direction - this is not that movie; and for those that have dissed this movie in their comments - you just don't get it.This movie is a prime example of film-making just for fun. It clearly is intended to be campy and never takes itself too seriously. If at times it has the look and feel of a music video, it's because it was made by music video makers and intended to help sell the great 80's soundtrack and artists featured in the film.A lot of the haters of this film point to the campy dialogue and bad acting. Well, as Jack-Luminous commentated here already on this - that's because the cast plays the material 100% straight and that's done quite INTENTIONALLY. And for this film it works brilliantly! The ridiculous dialogue being delivered in a straightforward manner by the cast elicits more unintentional and intentional laughs than most straightforward comedies.The film is also intended clearly as an homage to the kung fu and blaxploitation flick craze of the 1970's. Yet it turns the typical characterizations on its head in recognition of the changing times of the 1980's. (e.g. The hero is a black man who dresses up in traditional Asian garb, eats with chopsticks and acts very decidedly un-black.)This is not done just for effect as the film is aware of the globalization and diversification that is taking place in America and around the world at the time and where would it take place more so than in New York City? The film may be dated for those who didn't grow up in the 80's or don't like the music of that era. Otherwise, it is an incredibly enjoyable film that delivers a lot of laughs while having at it's core a nice hero story that promotes good values with quite a bit of social commentary and observations about the time thrown in also.I've seen this film countless times and every time I see it on TV, I can't help but watch and laugh. The Last Dragon is one of those campy films that you wouldn't think you'd see more than once, but find yourself watching over and over.---I hear they're making a remake of this. Clearly it's not gonna work without major revamping of the script as much of this film is contextualized with the 1980's. Let's hope they come up with something good.RIP Julius Carry - you'll always be the Shogun of Harlem to us!