E Y E W A N N A B E

I never a found a undubbed copy of Twin Dragons so up until this point I had never seen the film. Netflix recently put Twin Dragons on their instant queue list so this morning I got up and put the flick on.

What I knew about the film was little other then Jackie Chan had got the idea for doing a film about twins after seeing the Jean Claude Van Damme film Double Impact. I really enjoy the hell out of Double Impact and liked the idea of Jackie as twins as well.

Jackie is joined by perennial cutie co-star Maggie Cheung as well as co-directors Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark - who became two of JCVD's favorite directors in the late 90's.

Now watching the dubbed version I see there is many changes made - I'm reviewing the ABYSMAL dubbed version so I'll be referring to the characters in the English form of the film.

Jackie plays both John Ma and Boomer - twins seperated at birth thanks to a rare felon breaks out of a hospital and stealing a twin to escape only to leave it in the woods accident. Boomer, left in the woods, ends up taken in by a hooker and grows up to be a car mechanic, small time felon, and martial art expert. John Ma was raised by his parents in New York where he becomes a world-class musician.

The two come together in Hong Kong. Mobsters are after Boomer for money he owes and John Ma, who is there for a concert performance, gets mixed up AS Boomer. So the two run around running into each other, being forced to pretend to be one another, and other very boring situations.

The film is horrible - I'm sure this is not just because of being a dubbed version. It is just...boring for a Jackie Chan film.

On top of that - the split screen when the "twins" are on-screen is ABYSMAL. I don't buy it for a second - it looks like bad special effects. It's a shame becuase...I mean..FORGET Double Impact - this was done flawlessly in the sixties with Disney's The Parent Trap!!! Yes, Hayley Mills is far more convincing as a twin then Jackie Chan. Back to Double Impact - as a martial arts film the flick is FAR beyond this film. This is with Jackie Chan being a better actor and martial artist then Van Damme ....even with this....Van Damme SCHOOLS Chan in a film like this.

In the end they need to get money to the mobsters, and save Boomer's friend, and a bunch of other boring stuff you really don't care about. In the end this is a kung-fu flick far worth not watching whether it is dubbed or in Chinese - just go out and rent Van Damme's Double Impact for a far more entertaining feature.  Twin Dragons is by far the worst Kung Fu film I've reviewed thus far.

Winners and Sinners (AKA Five Lucky Stars) would be the start of a hugely successful series in HK. While Winners and Sinners is the "first" of the series the second film, My Lucky Stars, would feature most of the same characters but change a bit of the situation from the first. My Lucky Stars comes off as a spiritiual sequel with the 3rd film, Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star, being the first true sequel. Make sense? AWESOME!

Only the first three films would feature Sammo Hung (who stars and directs) along with his brothers Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. None of the three appear together on-screen at the same time - Biao's appearance is basically a cameo and Jackie plays a hapless cop who has a side story.

The film itself centers on five men who wind up in jail together. This crew decides to become 'brothers' while in jail and when they are all released they go into business together, along with the sister of one of the cons. They all aren't true cons - most of the gang are just petty thieves while one is a political activist. The gang consists of Teapot (Sammo Hung), Curly (John Shum), Vaseline (Charlie Chin), Rookie (Stanley Fung), and Exhaust Pipe (Richard Ng), along with Curly's sister Shirley (Cherie Chung). Together they form the Five Star Cleaning Company - which cleans office buildings and stuff. They all live at Curly's uncle's place where all of them (minus Curly) do nothing but try to sleep with Shirley.

Jackie plays a cop who destroys everything in his path. He usually gets the bad guy but ends up breaking everything, causing car crashes, and leaving everything chaotic in his wake. He's not really important to the film itself - he basically shows up for star value. He does get to quickly fight Biao after the duo have a misunderstanding. That's fun.

While Biao is my favorite martial artist of all time, it sure is fun to watch Sammo. He's truly my idol. He's just a big, fun, heavy, self-depricating guy you just have to cheer for. In this film he's low man on the totem pole (he's 5th brother) but he's the leader come My Lucky Stars.

This film is certainly not a kung-fu film. It's a comedy with a bunch of kung fu thrown into it. It's really fun when the 5 Lucky Stars are off doing something together - like all hit on Shirley. They are all perverts...which makes them loveable losers who really just can't 'get theirs'.

The best is Richard Ng. The man is just a comedic genius. He is the best part of these films and any film that he suddenly shows up in (his cameo in Wheels on Meals where he's locked up in an insane asylum comes right to mind). Here he's just a guy who can't fight, can't land the woman, and tries to become invisible. That's right - he's studying how to become invisible. Does it work? Of course not. Do they trick Richard into thinking he's invisible so he'll walk around naked? Yes they do - and it's played for some of the best laughs in the film.

There is a really pintless rollerskating contest scene really only good for showing off the skills that Jackie acquired for Battle Creek Brawl - having previously never rollerskated in his life. He really does an outstanding job showing off his skating moves...but does it have ANYTHING to do with the plot? Nooooooooooo. Does it matter? Nooooooooooo. There's a slim payoff when Jackie runs into two guys exchanging money for product, but this could have been done anywhere - it didn't have to be at a rollerskating contest.

The film has a nice, thrown together quality to it. It's more of guys having fun with a plot attached - kind of like how I felt Ocean's Eleven was. The cast works well together! I loved watching this film so much I'm going to throw in My Lucky Stars right now so I can continue the fun.

Jackie Chan had spent a short time in Australia back in the 1970s - he had made a few films with him in a starring role that weren't successful and went to Australia before heading back to HK to become the star he would become today. It was even in Australia where he received the name 'Jackie.'

It was nice that in 1997 he made an English-language movie in Australia - made even better when he reunited with Sammo Hung who directed the film. The plot is your basic chase-after Jackie for a McGuffin and he takes on 3,000,000 bad guys. Who needs plot!?!?!? This is an amazing action flick with tons of Jackie kicking major ass against drug lords and gangs!

So Jackie is...Jackie - a TV chef who gets mixed up with a reporter that videotapes a drug lord and his crew taking on a local gang who stole his cocaine. Jackie saves the reporter only to end up with this mysterious videotape - which then ends up in the hands of an eight year-old who unknowingly takes the tape and thinking it's some sort of cool movie.

Everyone wants this tape because of how damaging it is. Everyone knows Jackie because he's on TV. So the drug kingpin (Richard Norton - once again playing an awesome Jackie Chan heavy) AND the rival gang both hunt down Jackie and his friends looking for the videotape. So Jackie spends most of the movie trying to avoid these people while trying to save his girlfriend from the mitts of the evil gang.

With a subpar plot you need alot of action and you need this action done WELL. Jackie's stunt team once again brings the action and Sammo, no stranger to delivering an action packed film, directs the hell out of Jackie and his stunt team. The results are a well done action packed comedy.

It's refreshing to have this in English as well. No dubbing - when Jackie's girlfriend Miki shows up and knows no English we are greeted with subtitles. It's part of the plot and thank God she isn't dubbed. Jackie isn't the best English speaker in the world but he has certainly moved past his bad 80's films.

It was nice to see Jackie and Sammo on-screen together again (Sammo has a cameo as a bike courier) and also Jackie with Richard Norton - who he worked with on both City Hunter and Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars. Norton is that great tall, good looking, cocky bad guy who had mad martial arts skillz - a perfect villain for Jackie.

All-in-all Mr. Nice Guy is another Jackie Chan film that you can't take too seriously and you'd never want to. You are in it for the action and the fun and Mr. Nice Guy easily delivers on both parts.

There are many who call Drunken Master II (aka Legend of Drunken Master) Jackie Chan's finest film. I'm not really sure why...it is a great film but there are so many better films in terms of action sequences and acting.

It seems a return to the role was inevitable. The original 1978 Drunken Master made Jackie a superstar in Hong Kong - a huge success for Seasonal films and Ng See-Yuen (made more significant as Jackie was "on loan" to Seasonal from Lo Wei), and made director Yuen Wo Ping a must-work-with cinematographer.

It's a different look at the legendary folkhero Wong Fei Hung - Jackie plays him as a young martial artist in both films. In DM2 Wong Fei Hung gets mixed up in an attempt to steal a Chinese artifiact which Fei Hung then comes into possession of. Of course all the bad guys then come after Fei Hung and he is forced to fight...well...everybody. Anita Mui, a staple of Jackie films, plays his stepmother in the film for more comic relief.

The action scenes here are quite good - especially when Jackie is doing the drunken boxing on screen. A scene where like...600 members of the Axe Gang show up at a restauraunt to kill Wong Fei Hung is filmed quite well. It harkens back to those days when Bruce Lee would just kick EVERYONE's ass.

DM2 seemed a good choice to follow up Iron Monkey - as here we see both the older Wong Fei Hung and his father Wong Kei Ying (played here with total seriousness by Ti Lung). Kei Ying is in charge of Po Chi Lam and, as this is the younger Fei Hung, we are missing fun characters like Butcher Wing (Lam Sai Wing) and Leung Foon.

It just seems that DM2 is bogged down by boring plot. Jackie seems to not get a chance to do some better acting - though most of his action scenes are top notch. There are MUCH better films that Jackie has done including Police Story, Project A, Young Master...the list probably goes on where acting and action were coupled together better then DM2.

That's not to say that the final fight scene in this isn't BRILLIANT.  When Fei Hung squares off against superbaddie John (Ken Lo), who is trying to steal China's artifacts, the fight scene is a MONSTER.  Ken Lo is unreal - his kicking ability is phenom and I can't believe the stuff he is doing onscreen.  It ends the movie on a super high note which is exactly what the film needs.

I would love to see Jackie do a DM3 - not being a drunkass but perhaps just doing a Wong Fei Hung film as a more mature individual. Until then...I think that Drunken Master 2 is not as fun as its cheap 70s predecessor.

Winners and Sinners (AKA Five Lucky Stars) would be the start of a hugely successful series in HK. While Winners and Sinners is the "first" of the series the second film, My Lucky Stars, would feature most of the same characters but change a bit of the situation from the first. My Lucky Stars comes off as a spiritiual sequel with the 3rd film, Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star, being the first true sequel. Make sense? AWESOME!

Only the first three films would feature Sammo Hung (who stars and directs) along with his brothers Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. None of the three appear together on-screen at the same time - Biao's appearance is basically a cameo and Jackie plays a hapless cop who has a side story.

The film itself centers on five men who wind up in jail together. This crew decides to become 'brothers' while in jail and when they are all released they go into business together, along with the sister of one of the cons. They all aren't true cons - most of the gang are just petty thieves while one is a political activist. The gang consists of Teapot (Sammo Hung), Curly (John Shum), Vaseline (Charlie Chin), Rookie (Stanley Fung), and Exhaust Pipe (Richard Ng), along with Curly's sister Shirley (Cherie Chung). Together they form the Five Star Cleaning Company - which cleans office buildings and stuff. They all live at Curly's uncle's place where all of them (minus Curly) do nothing but try to sleep with Shirley.

Jackie plays a cop who destroys everything in his path. He usually gets the bad guy but ends up breaking everything, causing car crashes, and leaving everything chaotic in his wake. He's not really important to the film itself - he basically shows up for star value. He does get to quickly fight Biao after the duo have a misunderstanding. That's fun.

While Biao is my favorite martial artist of all time, it sure is fun to watch Sammo. He's truly my idol. He's just a big, fun, heavy, self-depricating guy you just have to cheer for. In this film he's low man on the totem pole (he's 5th brother) but he's the leader come My Lucky Stars.

This film is certainly not a kung-fu film. It's a comedy with a bunch of kung fu thrown into it. It's really fun when the 5 Lucky Stars are off doing something together - like all hit on Shirley. They are all perverts...which makes them loveable losers who really just can't 'get theirs'.

The best is Richard Ng. The man is just a comedic genius. He is the best part of these films and any film that he suddenly shows up in (his cameo in Wheels on Meals where he's locked up in an insane asylum comes right to mind). Here he's just a guy who can't fight, can't land the woman, and tries to become invisible. That's right - he's studying how to become invisible. Does it work? Of course not. Do they trick Richard into thinking he's invisible so he'll walk around naked? Yes they do - and it's played for some of the best laughs in the film.

There is a really pintless rollerskating contest scene really only good for showing off the skills that Jackie acquired for Battle Creek Brawl - having previously never rollerskated in his life. He really does an outstanding job showing off his skating moves...but does it have ANYTHING to do with the plot? Nooooooooooo. Does it matter? Nooooooooooo. There's a slim payoff when Jackie runs into two guys exchanging money for product, but this could have been done anywhere - it didn't have to be at a rollerskating contest.

The film has a nice, thrown together quality to it. It's more of guys having fun with a plot attached - kind of like how I felt Ocean's Eleven was. The cast works well together and it really showcases that Sammo has a wonderful directing eye for comedy and action! I loved watching this film so much I'm going to throw in My Lucky Stars right now so I can continue the fun.