Dragons Forever (1988)

Dragons Forever is the finale of the collaboration between Sammo, Jackie,and Yuen Biao. It's a good one at that but romantic crap sucks. Urrgh! The court house scene after Jackie confesses his love to this snatch-faced broad was so annoying. It is this very scene that made me deduct 3 stars for this movie. It was meaningless and stupid.As for the rest of the movie, it's a fun filled action movie with excellent martial arts action and stunts with a story that works. The comedy elements were decent, too. The romantic crap slowed this movie down some but not enough for me to completely berate this movie to death.

This is the next step up for Jackie Chan movies from the Police Story where his actions and comedic touch goes up a notch.Criminal factory owner is polluting the water and fish farm downstream is getting affected. The fish farm owner (Diannie Yip) decides to sue the factory. Jackie (Jackie Chan) who's the lawyer for the factory hires Luke (Sammo Hung) to seduce the owner of the fish farm so he could convince her to sell the farm. The fish farm owner has a cousin Jenny (Pauline Yueng) who Jackie is wooing. The problem is Jenny is the chief witness for the fish farm owner. Jackie decides to go under the wire and hires Biao (Yuen Biao) to put hidden microphone in Jenny and her cousin's house. Luke rents the house next to the fish farm owner's house, and listens in on the conversation next door. He hears that the owner is looking for love, so he decides to make the move. All of these smoke and mirror moves by Jackie ends up in real love for him, and Luke. He decides to get off the case, and side with the fish farm owner.Great movie with Jackie, Sammo, and Yuen in the same movie since Wheels on Meals. The timing of action combined with comedy is a notch or two higher in this movie compared to all of Jackie's previous movies, and sets a new standard that continues on to future Jackie Chan movies.Unbelievable action by the trio is guaranteed to entertain the viewer. One of the best Jackie Chan movie from the '80s.

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.

Dragons Forever may be one of Jackie Chan's best and certainly one of his most satisfying films. It contains some of the best fight action of his career,and an equal amount of humour,but also has a reasonable plot,some character development and a welcome dose of romance,something which is usually sidelined in Chan films. In fact,this is one Chan movie which might be enjoyed just as much by the gals as well as the guys.This was the last film featuring the great trio of Chan,Samo Hung and Yuen Biao,and it sees them experimenting a bit by playing against type. Chan is really good as a shady,skirt chasing lawyer,and Biao is very funny as a mentally unstable thief {some versions of the film remove two of his scenes,so beware},but Hung,who was easily the best actor of the three,gives the stand out performance as Chan's devious gun running buddy. A great deal of time is given to Hung's and Chan's romances,and there is one really touching if over the top scene involving Hung with a megaphone trying to get his potential girl to trust him in front of loads of people.Some of the film's slapstick perhaps goes on a bit,but there are some terrific scenes where the three heroes keep comedic-ally fighting each other,sometimes all at one time. Don't worry action fans,amidst all this romance and slapstick is some superb fighting. The fights are not that many in number and some are quite brief,but Chan looks near his best and Hung and Baio also shine. Chan's running battle with a gang of heavies on a ship and his duel with Benny Urquidez {a thrilling battle and not at all like the Chan/Urquidez match in Wheels On Meals} are amongst his best fights ever. Just try and keep a a note of all the stunt men who do extremely dangerous falls during the climax! As often with a Hung-directed film,the violence is a bit stronger than the usual Chan film.As usual there is the odd scene which doesn't work,such as when Hung apologizes to his girlfriend and she......smashes him in the face with an iron bar!-after which they make up! The film was rushed and sometimes looks a little rough around the edges. Nevertheless,this is a truly enjoyable all round movie which should satisfy even if you're not really into martial arts movies!