Review of Dragons Forever

Introduction

A film rushed out to the box office in time for Chinese New Year in 1988, Dragons Forever features the last (to date anyway) on screen meeting of the holy trinity of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao.

Jackie Chan plays Jackie Lung, a lawyer who is asked to defend a local factory against charges of poisoning a local fish farm. He`s also a bit of a ladies man, chatting up anyone he passes in court. He is interested in one of the women representing the fish farm, which rather complicates his day job!

Another release from those wonderful people at Hong Kong Legends. Yes, I know I always say that, and I always say I don`t work for them. They just seem to release great DVDs all the time!

Video

A 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, and the Hong Kong Legends team have done it again. It really has no right to look this good, being 17 years old. But it`s been cleaned up, tidied up, sharpened up and polished until it sparkles. As ever, it`s not perfect, but given the source material it`s never going to be. There are some flaky moments, particularly at the beginning of the film, and some of the colours do look rather off at times, but it`s still a joy to watch.

And again it`s massively dated by the clothes on screen. Some of Jackie Chan`s biggest fashion mistakes appear on screen here, as well as a nasty check jacket for Sammo Hung and lots of shoulder pads for the ladies.

Audio

A selection of three soundtracks, a Cantonese Mono soundtrack, a DD5.1 dubbed English track and a DD5.1 Cantonese track. The mono soundtrack is really for purists only, as it sounds horrible, scratchy and nasty. You can tell what`s being said (if you speak Cantonese of course), but it`s not a pleasure to listen to.

The other 2 soundtracks have been tidied up and given subtle remixes, but the voices on the English dub are cheesey and just too comical, so listen to the Cantonese track instead. The soundtrack has not been massively tinkered with (and they could have probably done more), but there are still some nice sounds flying around. And of course the very cheese stuffed 1980s score.

Features

Being a Platinum Edition title, you always expect masses of great extras.

We lead off with the required by law Bey Logan audio commentary, another insightful and interesting track. Is there anything he doesn`t know about Hong Kong cinema? He certainly knows everything about this film, and by the end you will too. Another great commentary from Bey.

Everything else lives on disc 2.

Bey Logan pops up again with "Dragons Remembered", a mini documentary which visits some of the loactions of the film, and also features interviews with many of the stars. Very interesting and very worth watching.

We have 12 minutes of out-takes, which weren`t put at the end of most prints of the film as it was rushed out. Sadly there`s no sound during the out-takes, so we have the score of the film over the top. Still worth watching if you like these bits at the end of nearly every Jackie Chan film! There are also some deleted scenes.

The "Thai Breaker" feature has highlights and interview segments from the latest Thai boxing match featuring star Billy Chow. A reasonable extra, but not massively relevant.

There are also 3 stunt featurettes: "Beyond Gravity: Joe Eigo", "Double Jeopardy: Brad Allen" and finally "Kick Fighter: Andy Cheng." Each of them features interviews with the person in question, as well as footage of them training, and talking about the films they have been involved them. Again, not directly relevant, but interesting to watch.

The usual set of trailers finish the job here.

Conclusion

An entertaining and fun action film. It`s a bit of a departure for Jackie Chan, as he deliberately set out to play a slightly different character, but still one who ended up in plenty of fights. Some of the romance/love scenes really didn`t work for me, despite some of the comedy inherent in them, so they are the part of the film where attention wanders.

But it`s a real wham bang ride, with the action hurtling along at a blistering pace, and loads of super speedy fights. It`s a lot of fun to watch, and possibly an undiscovered Jackie Chan film for many people. The scenes featuring the previously alluded to trinity of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao are great, with some of their fights looking like they communicate telepathically.

So it`s another great Hong Kong Legends DVD for your ever-growing collection. The picture is about as good as it could be, the sound is not bad at all (please avoid the dub though), and the extras are propped up by the great commentary. You might have expected more (or more relevant) extras on a Platinum Edition title but as the price hasn`t been increased for this one, it`s still good value.

Recommended for Jackie Chan fans, Hong Kong Legends fans and any fans of a good, fun martial arts film. It would make a good rental if you`re not a massive fan too.