Game, Set, Match, Mayhem: Dragon Lord Takes Sports and Action to the Extreme

 Jackie at his best!

Directed, written by and starring Jackie Chan

Directed by   

    Edward Tang

    Barry Wong

Produced by

 Raymond Chow

    Leonard Ho

Starring

    Mars

    Hwang In-Shik

    Tien Feng

 

Synopsis

 Dragon  is the son of a Chinese aristocrat who is always getting in trouble, and likes to skip his lessons. Dragon tries to send a love note to the girl he likes via a kite, but the kite gets away. Dragon tries to get the kite and letter back which have landed on the roof of the headquarters of a gang of thieves who are planning to steal artifacts from the towns temple. Dragon interferes with the gang's plans and is forced to fight off the gang. 

 

 

Jackie doing a jump!

 

Review 

 

Some legend on YouTube put the Australian English dub of this film from 1983 onto their channel. Being the mega Jackie fan I am [and because of the fact I literally own a blog dedicated to action films), I took time to watch the movie and ultimately enjoyed it.

There are a lot of reasons I love this movie. 

It's very different. This film has Jackie playing.. not as a cop, but the lacking son of a rich businessman. Wow. Not only is Jackie's character different, but one of the major things in the films is different. 

Jackie and his village boys do sports! This is an action sports film. SPORTS. While you might not be used to sports in Jackie's films (considering this is 1 out of 2 of them), you should be because this is amazing. Speaking of the sports, the movie starts off with all the people in Dragon's village CLIMBING UP THE TOP of a goddamn pyramid to get a rugby ball. 3 minutes in the film and we already get an amazing sequence. A seven minute sequence. Then 5 minutes after the end of the sequence, we get a fight scene between Dragon and Cowboy.. over a girl. For 2 minutes. Until everyone starts freaking out because Dragon's father comes in the scene right after Dragon says he's not scared of his dad. Then 15 minutes later we get ANOTHER sports scene. FOR TEN MINUTES. Ever see that in Jackie Chan films? NO. And DON'T bring up Dragons Forever. That's not a sports movie. Still, I kinda feel bad for anyone who got the version of the movie where the rugby match is at the end.

The film was a combo of Mars and Chan. You rarely see Mars fight in films, but when he does, he does an amazing job. Mars is the best stuntman of Jackie and I wish we saw him in more films. Mars plays Cowboy and Chan plays Dragon. They are best friends in this movie and are probably the best duo ever seen in a Jackie Chan film. In the final fight, Dragon falls from the top floor and Cowboy literally breaks his fall by making sure Dragon landed on him. Didn't go too well the first time in shooting. 

 (Jackie is in the black. You can guess who Mars is.)

The subtle comedy was perfectly placed at times and was not too pushy. Some of the comedy is put in during life-defying fight scenes as well. Just goes to show that Dragon really doesn't care. Speaking of the fights, Hwang in-Shik and Jackie fight again, two years after The Young Master (which Dragon Lord was supposed to serve as a sequel to, except Jackie doesn't win by drinking any tobacco water. He wins.. by piling him up in a sack of potatos. Wow. Jackie Chan really got a beating back in the 80s. (Dragon Lord, Police Story 2, Wheels on Meals..) Anyways, back to the comedy, the English adaption writers did a great job. That's sometimes why I prefer the dub over the sub.

The stunt-work on the film was actually amazing and impressed so much for Jackie's third directed film only. Jackie's stunt team did a wild amazing job on this. This is the first film where Jackie started expirementing with stunt sequences. This is the start of the Jacky Chan that we ALL KNOW and love. Just imagine if he didn't like stunt sequences. Just imagine if he never even did them! This blog would only have like 10 reviews.

The American in Jackie & Mars keep showing.

 

 The soundtrack is a bit repetitive, but it is a great soundtrack song and I hate that I can't find it anywhere.

The old 80s dubbing makes the film more enjoyable. It might be horrible, but it sure has that charm. It is way better then the new 21st century dubs of foreign films, which unfortunately was used in the 88 Films trailer for the new Blu-Ray release of Dragon Lord.

Dragon Lord is definetly a great pick, and shows resemblance to the Young Master which I reviewed December of 2023. Just a spolier: no real dragons (or lords) appear in the film.

Rating: 9.5/10

Watch Dragon Lord on 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98x3Eh8By-g (Australian English VHS dub from 1985) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4a1Qv_CZoQ&pp=ygUXRHJhZ29uIExvcmR-SmFja2llIENoYW4%3D (French dub)

 

https://www.bilibili.tv/video/2042296275 (Indonesian dub) 

https://watch.plex.tv/movie/dragon-lord (Miramax 1996 release)